The three bold companions shook hands.
“God help us!” said the religious president.
Michel Ardan and Nicholl lay down on their beds in
the centre of the floor.
“Thirteen minutes to eleven,” murmured
the captain.
Twenty seconds more! Barbicane rapidly put out
the gas, and lay down beside his companions.
The profound silence was only broken by the chronometer
beating the seconds.
Suddenly a frightful shock was felt, and the projectile,
under the impulsion of 6,000,000,000 litres of gas
developed by the deflagration of the pyroxyle, rose
into space.
THE FIRST HALF-HOUR.
What had happened? What was the effect of the
frightful shock? Had the ingenuity of the constructors
of the projectile been attended by a happy result?
Was the effect of the shock deadened, thanks to the
springs, the four buffers, the water-cushions, and
the movable partitions? Had they triumphed over
the frightful impulsion of the initial velocity of
11,000 metres a second? This was evidently the
question the thousands of witnesses of the exciting
scene asked themselves. They forgot the object
of the journey, and only thought of the travellers!
Suppose one of them—J.T. Maston, for
instance—had been able to get a glimpse
of the interior of the projectile, what would he have
seen?
Nothing then. The obscurity was profound in the
bullet. Its cylindro-conical sides had resisted
perfectly. There was not a break, a crack, or
a dint in them. The admirable projectile was not
hurt by the intense deflagration of the powders, instead
of being liquefied, as it was feared, into a shower
of aluminium.
In the interior there was very little disorder on
the whole. A few objects had been violently hurled
up to the roof, but the most important did not seem
to have suffered from the shock. Their fastenings
were intact.
On the movable disc, crushed down to the bottom by
the smashing of the partitions and the escape of the
water, three bodies lay motionless. Did Barbicane,
Nicholl, and Michel Ardan still breathe? Was the
projectile nothing but a metal coffin carrying three
corpses into space?
A few minutes after the departure of the bullet one
of these bodies moved, stretched out its arms, lifted
up its head, and succeeded in getting upon its knees.
It was Michel Ardan. He felt himself, uttered
a sonorous “Hum,” then said—
“Michel Ardan, complete. Now for the others!”
The courageous Frenchman wanted to get up, but he
could not stand. His head vacillated; his blood,
violently sent up to his head, blinded him. He
felt like a drunken man.
“Brrr!” said he. “I feel as
though I had been drinking two bottles of Corton,
only that was not so agreeable to swallow!”
Then passing his hand across his forehead several
times, and rubbing his temples, he called out in a
firm voice—
