These incandescent blocks crossed each other, knocked
against each other, and were scattered into smaller
fragments, of which some struck the projectile.
Its left window was even cracked by the violent shock.
It seemed to be floating in a shower of bullets, of
which the least could annihilate it in an instant.
The light which saturated the ether was of incomparable
intensity, for these asteroids dispersed it in every
direction. At a certain moment it was so bright
that Michel dragged Barbicane and Nicholl to the window,
exclaiming—
“The invisible moon is at last visible!”
And all three, across the illumination, saw for a
few seconds that mysterious disc which the eye of
man perceived for the first time.
What did they distinguish across that distance which
they could not estimate? Long bands across the
disc, veritable clouds formed in a very restricted
atmospheric medium, from which emerged not only all
the mountains, but every relief of middling importance,
amphitheatres, yawning craters, such as exist on the
visible face. Then immense tracts, no longer
arid plains, but veritable seas, oceans which reflected
in their liquid mirror all the dazzling magic of the
fires of space. Lastly, on the surface of the
continents, vast dark masses, such as immense forests
would resemble under the rapid illumination of a flash
of lightning.
Was it an illusion, an error of the eyes, an optical
deception? Could they give a scientific affirmation
to that observation so superficially obtained?
Dared they pronounce upon the question of its habitability
after so slight a glimpse of the invisible disc?
By degrees the fulgurations of space gradually died
out, its accidental brilliancy lessened, the asteroids
fled away by their different trajectories, and went
out in the distance. The ether resumed its habitual
darkness; the stars, for one moment eclipsed, shone
in the firmament, and the disc, of which scarcely
a glimpse had been caught, was lost in the impenetrable
night.
THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE.
The projectile had just escaped a terrible danger,
a danger quite unforeseen. Who would have imagined
such a meeting of asteroids? These wandering
bodies might prove serious perils to the travellers.
They were to them like so many rocks in the sea of
ether, which, less fortunate than navigators, they
could not avoid. But did these adventurers of
space complain? No, as Nature had given them the
splendid spectacle of a cosmic meteor shining by formidable
expansion, as this incomparable display of fireworks,
which no Ruggieri could imitate, had lighted for a
few seconds the invisible nimbus of the moon.
During that rapid peep, continents, seas, and forests
had appeared to them. Then the atmosphere did
give there its life-giving particles? Questions
still not solved, eternally asked by American curiosity.
