“Then,” said Barbicane, as if he had been suddenly struck with an idea, “confound that asteroid that crossed our path!”

“Eh?” said Michel Ardan.

“What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicholl.

“I mean,” resumed Barbicane, who appeared convinced, “I mean that our deviation is solely due to the influence of that wandering body.”

“But it did not even graze us,” continued Michel.

“What does that matter?  Its bulk, compared with that of our projectile, was enormous, and its attraction was sufficient to have an influence upon our direction.”

“That influence must have been very slight,” said Nicholl.

“Yes, Nicholl, but slight as it was,” answered Barbicane, “upon a distance of 84,000 leagues it was enough to make us miss the moon!”

CHAPTER X.

THE OBSERVERS OF THE MOON.

Barbicane had evidently found the only plausible reason for the deviation.  However slight it had been, it had been sufficient to modify the trajectory of the projectile.  It was a fatality.  The audacious attempt had miscarried by a fortuitous circumstance, and unless anything unexpected happened, the lunar disc could no longer be reached.  Would they pass it near enough to resolve certain problems in physics and geology until then unsolved?  This was the only question that occupied the minds of these bold travellers.  As to the fate the future held in store for them, they would not even think about it.  Yet what was to become of them amidst these infinite solitudes when air failed them?  A few more days and they would fall suffocated in this bullet wandering at hazard.  But a few days were centuries to these intrepid men, and they consecrated every moment to observing the moon they no longer hoped to reach.

The distance which then separated the projectile from the satellite was estimated at about 200 leagues.  Under these conditions, as far as regards the visibility of the details of the disc, the travellers were farther from the moon than are the inhabitants of the earth with their powerful telescopes.

It is, in fact, known that the instrument set up by Lord Rosse at Parsonstown, which magnifies 6,500 times, brings the moon to within sixteen leagues; and the powerful telescope set up at Long’s Peak magnifies 48,000 times, and brings the moon to within less than two leagues, so that objects twelve yards in diameter were sufficiently distinct.

Thus, then, at that distance the topographical details of the moon, seen without a telescope, were not distinctly determined.  The eye caught the outline of those vast depressions inappropriately called “seas,” but they could not determine their nature.  The prominence of the mountains disappeared under the splendid irradiation produced by the reflection of the solar rays.  The eye, dazzled as if leaning over a furnace of molten silver, turned from it involuntarily.