At 1 a.m. the sounding-line was not all hauled in.  Ten thousand feet remained out, which would take several more hours to bring in.  According to the commander’s orders the fires had been lighted, and the pressure was going up already.  The Susquehanna might have started at once.

At that very moment—­it was 1.17 a.m.—­Lieutenant Bronsfield was about to leave his watch to turn in when his attention was attracted by a distant and quite unexpected hissing sound.

His comrades and he at first thought that the hissing came from an escape of steam, but upon lifting up his head he found that it was high up in the air.

They had not time to question each other before the hissing became of frightful intensity, and suddenly to their dazzled eyes appeared an enormous bolis, inflamed by the rapidity of its course, by its friction against the atmospheric strata.

This ignited mass grew huger as it came nearer, and fell with the noise of thunder upon the bowsprit of the corvette, which it smashed off close to the stem, and vanished in the waves.

A few feet nearer and the Susquehanna would have gone down with all on board.

At that moment Captain Blomsberry appeared half-clothed, and rushing in the forecastle, where his officers had preceded him—­

“With your permission, gentlemen, what has happened?” he asked.

And the midshipman, making himself the mouthpiece of them all, cried out—­

“Commander, it is ‘they’ come back again.”

CHAPTER XXI.

J.T.  MASTON CALLED IN.

Emotion was great on board the Susquehanna.  Officers and sailors forgot the terrible danger they had just been in—­the danger of being crushed and sunk.  They only thought of the catastrophe which terminated the journey.  Thus, therefore, the moat audacious enterprise of ancient and modern times lost the life of the bold adventurers who had attempted it.

“It is ‘they’ come back,” the young midshipman had said, and they had all understood.  No one doubted that the bolis was the projectile of the Gun Club.  Opinions were divided about the fate of the travellers.

“They are dead!” said one.

“They are alive,” answered the other.  “The water is deep here, and the shock has been deadened.”

“But they will have no air, and will die suffocated!”

“Burnt!” answered the other.  “Their projectile was only an incandescent mass as it crossed the atmosphere.”

“What does it matter?” was answered unanimously, “living or dead they must be brought up from there.”

Meanwhile Captain Blomsberry had called his officers together, and with their permission he held a council.  Something must be done immediately.  The most immediate was to haul up the projectile—­a difficult operation, but not an impossible one.  But the corvette wanted the necessary engines, which would have to be powerful and precise.  It was, therefore, resolved to put into the nearest port, and to send word to the Gun Club about the fall of the bullet.