There an opening made on purpose let them down into the aluminium vehicle.  The crane’s tackling was drawn up outside, and the mouth of the Columbiad instantly cleared of its last scaffolding.

As soon as Nicholl and his companions were in the projectile he closed the opening by means of a strong plate screwed down inside.  Other closely-fitting plates covered the lenticular glasses of the skylights.  The travellers, hermetically inclosed in their metal prison, were in profound darkness.

“And now, my dear companions,” said Michel Ardan, “let us make ourselves at home.  I am a domestic man myself, and know how to make the best of any lodgings.  First let us have a light; gas was not invented for moles!”

Saying which the light-hearted fellow struck a match on the sole of his boot and then applied it to the burner of the receptacle, in which there was enough carbonised hydrogen, stored under strong pressure, for lighting and heating the bullet for 144 hours, or six days and six nights.

Once the gas lighted, the projectile presented the aspect of a comfortable room with padded walls, furnished with circular divans, the roof of which was in the shape of a dome.

The objects in it, weapons, instruments, and utensils, were solidly fastened to the sides in order to bear the parting shock with impunity.  Every possible precaution had been taken to insure the success of so bold an experiment.

Michel Ardan examined everything, and declared himself quite satisfied with his quarters.

“It is a prison,” said he, “but a travelling prison, and if I had the right to put my nose to the window I would take it on a hundred years’ lease!  You are smiling, Barbicane.  You are thinking of something you do not communicate.  Do you say to yourself that this prison may be our coffin?  Our coffin let it be; I would not change it for Mahomet’s, which only hangs in space, and does not move!”

Whilst Michel Ardan was talking thus, Barbicane and Nicholl were making their last preparations.

It was 10.20 p.m. by Nicholl’s chronometer when the three travellers were definitely walled up in their bullet.  This chronometer was regulated to the tenth of a second by that of the engineer, Murchison.  Barbicane looked at it.

“My friends,” said he, “it is twenty minutes past ten; at thirteen minutes to eleven Murchison will set fire to the Columbiad; at that minute precisely we shall leave our spheroid.  We have, therefore, still seven-and-twenty minutes to remain upon earth.”

“Twenty-six minutes and thirteen seconds,” answered the methodical Nicholl.

“Very well!” cried Michel Ardan good-humouredly; “in twenty-six minutes lots of things can be done.  We can discuss grave moral or political questions, and even solve them.  Twenty-six minutes well employed are worth more than twenty-six years of doing nothing.  A few seconds of a Pascal or a Newton are more precious than the whole existence of a crowd of imbeciles.”