Profound silence reigned in the boats.  All hearts stopped beating.  Eyes no longer performed their office.  One of the port-lights of the projectile was opened.  Some pieces of glass remaining in the frame proved that it had been broken.  This port-light was situated actually five feet above water.

A boat drew alongside—­that of J.T.  Maston.  He rushed to the broken window.

At that moment the joyful and clear voice of Michel Ardan was heard exclaiming in the accents of victory—­“Double blank, Barbicane, double blank!”

Barbicane, Michel Ardan, and Nicholl were playing at dominoes.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE END.

It will be remembered that immense sympathy accompanied the three travellers upon their departure.  If the beginning of their enterprise had caused such excitement in the old and new world, what enthusiasm must welcome their return!  Would not those millions of spectators who had invaded the Floridian peninsula rush to meet the sublime adventurers?  Would those legions of foreigners from all points of the globe, now in America, leave the Union without seeing Barbicane, Nicholl, and Michel Ardan once more?  No, and the ardent passion of the public would worthily respond to the grandeur of the enterprise.  Human beings who had left the terrestrial spheroid, who had returned after their strange journey into celestial space, could not fail to be received like the prophet Elijah when he returned to the earth.  To see them first, to hear them afterwards, was the general desire.

This desire was to be very promptly realised by almost all the inhabitants of the Union.

Barbicane, Michel Ardan, Nicholl, and the delegates of the Gun Club returned without delay to Baltimore, and were there received with indescribable enthusiasm.  The president’s travelling notes were ready to be given up for publicity.  The New York Herald bought this manuscript at a price which is not yet known, but which must have been enormous.  In fact, during the publication of the Journey to the Moon they printed 5,000,000 copies of that newspaper.  Three days after the travellers’ return to the earth the least details of their expedition were known.  The only thing remaining to be done was to see the heroes of this superhuman enterprise.

The exploration of Barbicane and his friends around the moon had allowed them to control the different theories about the terrestrial satellite.  These savants had observed it de visu and under quite peculiar circumstances.  It was now known which systems were to be rejected, which admitted, upon the formation of this orb, its origin, and its inhabitability.  Its past, present, and future had given up their secrets.  What could be objected to conscientious observations made at less than forty miles from that curious mountain of Tycho, the strangest mountain system of lunar orography?  What answers