Here J.T. Maston could not contain his emotion.
He threw himself into the arms of his friend with
the violence of a projectile, and he would have been
stove in had he not have been bombproof.
This incident ended the first sitting of the committee.
Barbicane and his enterprising colleagues, to whom
nothing seemed impossible, had just solved the complex
question of the projectile, cannon, and powder.
Their plan being made, there was nothing left but
to put it into execution.
ONE ENEMY AGAINST TWENTY-FIVE MILLIONS OF FRIENDS.
The American public took great interest in the least
details of the Gun Club’s enterprise. It
followed the committee debates day by day. The
most simple preparations for this great experiment,
the questions of figures it provoked, the mechanical
difficulties to be solved, all excited popular opinion
to the highest pitch.
More than a year would elapse between the commencement
of the work and its completion; but the interval would
not be void of excitement. The place to be chosen
for the boring, the casting the metal of the Columbiad,
its perilous loading, all this was more than necessary
to excite public curiosity. The projectile, once
fired, would be out of sight in a few seconds; then
what would become of it, how it would behave in space,
how it would reach the moon, none but a few privileged
persons would see with their own eyes. Thus, then,
the preparations for the experiment and the precise
details of its execution constituted the real source
of interest.
In the meantime the purely scientific attraction of
the enterprise was all at once heightened by an incident.
It is known what numerous legions of admirers and
friends the Barbicane project had called round its
author. But, notwithstanding the number and importance
of the majority, it was not destined to be unanimous.
One man, one out of all the United States, protested
against the Gun Club. He attacked it violently
on every occasion, and—for human nature
is thus constituted—Barbicane was more
sensitive to this one man’s opposition than
to the applause of all the others.
Nevertheless he well knew the motive of this antipathy,
from whence came this solitary enmity, why it was
personal and of ancient date; lastly, in what rivalry
it had taken root.
The president of the Gun Club had never seen this
persevering enemy. Happily, for the meeting of
the two men would certainly have had disastrous consequences.
This rival was a savant like Barbicane, a proud,
enterprising, determined, and violent character, a
pure Yankee. His name was Captain Nicholl.
He lived in Philadelphia.
