“But if it did not fail, Michel, your density
being inferior to that of the projectile, you would
soon remain behind.”
“Then it is a vicious circle.”
“All that is most vicious.”
“And we must remain imprisoned in our vehicle.”
“Yes, we must.”
“Ah!” cried Michel in a formidable voice.
“What is the matter with you?” asked Nicholl.
“I know, I guess what this pretended asteroid
is! It is not a broken piece of planet!”
“What is it, then?” asked Nicholl.
“It is our unfortunate dog! It is Diana’s
husband!”
In fact, this deformed object, reduced to nothing,
and quite unrecognisable, was the body of Satellite
flattened like a bagpipe without wind, and mounting,
for ever mounting!
A MOMENT OF INTOXICATION.
Thus a curious but logical, strange yet logical phenomenon
took place under these singular conditions. Every
object thrown out of the projectile would follow the
same trajectory and only stop when it did. That
furnished a text for conversation which the whole evening
could not exhaust. The emotion of the three travellers
increased as they approached the end of their journey.
They expected unforeseen incidents, fresh phenomena,
and nothing would have astonished them under present
circumstances. Their excited imagination outdistanced
the projectile, the speed of which diminished notably
without their feeling it. But the moon grew larger
before their eyes, and they thought they had only to
stretch out their hands to touch it.
The next day, the 5th of December, they were all wide
awake at 5 a.m. That day was to be the last of
their journey if the calculations were exact.
That same evening, at midnight, within eighteen hours,
at the precise moment of full moon, they would reach
her brilliant disc. The next midnight would bring
them to the goal of their journey, the most extraordinary
one of ancient or modern times. At early dawn,
through the windows made silvery with her rays, they
saluted the Queen of Night with a confident and joyful
hurrah.
The moon was sailing majestically across the starry
firmament. A few more degrees and she would reach
that precise point in space where the projectile was
to meet her. According to his own observations,
Barbicane thought that he should accost her in her
northern hemisphere, where vast plains extend and
mountains are rare—a favourable circumstance
if the lunar atmosphere was, according to received
opinion, stored up in deep places only.
“Besides,” observed Michel Ardan, “a
plain is more suitable for landing upon than a mountain.
A Selenite landed in Europe on the summit of Mont
Blanc, or in Asia on a peak of the Himalayas, would
not be precisely at his destination!”
“What is more,” added Nicholl, “on
a plain the projectile will remain motionless after
it has touched the ground, whilst it would roll down
a hill like an avalanche, and as we are not squirrels
we should not come out safe and sound. Therefore
all is for the best.”
