This aspect of things did not alter even when the
projectile, then at the altitude of the 80th degree,
was only separated from the moon by a distance of
fifty miles, not even when, at 5 a.m., it passed at
less than twenty-five miles from the mountain of Gioja,
a distance which the telescopes reduced to half-a-mile.
It seemed as if they could have touched the moon.
It appeared impossible that before long the projectile
should not knock against it, if only at the North Pole,
where the brilliant mountains were clearly outlined
against the dark background of the sky. Michel
Ardan wanted to open one of the port-lights and jump
upon the lunar surface. What was a fall of twelve
leagues? He thought nothing of that. It
would, however, have been a useless attempt, for if
the projectile was not going to reach any point on
the satellite, Michel would have been hurled along
by its movement, and not have reached it either.
At that moment, 6 a.m., the lunar pole appeared.
Only half the disc, brilliantly lighted, appeared
to the travellers, whilst the other half disappeared
in the darkness. The projectile suddenly passed
the line of demarcation between intense light and
absolute darkness, and was suddenly plunged into the
profoundest night.
CHAPTER XIV.
A NIGHT OF THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FOUR HOURS AND
A HALF.
At the moment this phenomenon took place the projectile
was grazing the moon’s North Pole, at less that
twenty-five miles’ distance. A few seconds
had, therefore, sufficed to plunge it into the absolute
darkness of space. The transition had taken place
so rapidly, without gradations of light or attenuation
of the luminous undulations, that the orb seemed to
have been blown out by a powerful gust.
“The moon has melted, disappeared!” cried
Michel Ardan, wonder-stricken.
In fact, no ray of light or shade had appeared on
the disc, formerly so brilliant. The obscurity
was complete, and rendered deeper still by the shining
of the stars. It was the darkness of lunar night,
which lasts 354 hours and a half on each point of
the disc—a long night, the result of the
equality of the movements of translation and rotation
of the moon, the one upon herself, the other round
the earth. The projectile in the satellite’s
cone of shadow was no longer under the action of the
solar rays.
In the interior darkness was, therefore, complete.
The travellers could no longer see one another.
Hence came the necessity to lighten this darkness.
However desirous Barbicane might be to economise the
gas, of which he had so small a reserve, he was obliged
to have recourse to it for artificial light—an
expensive brilliancy which the sun then refused.
“The devil take the radiant orb!” cried
Michel Ardan; “he is going to force us to spend
our gas instead of giving us his rays for nothing.”
“We must not accuse the sun,” said Nicholl.
“It is not his fault, it is the moon’s
fault for coming and putting herself like a screen
between us and him.”
