“Or are we tranquilly resting on the soil of Florida?” asked Nicholl.

“Or at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico?” added Michel Ardan.

“Impossible!” cried President Barbicane.

This double hypothesis suggested by his two friends immediately recalled him to life and energy.

They could not yet decide the question.  The apparent immovability of the bullet and the want of communication with the exterior prevented them finding it out.  Perhaps the projectile was falling through space.  Perhaps after rising a short distance it had fallen upon the earth, or even into the Gulf of Mexico, a fall which the narrowness of the Floridian peninsula rendered possible.

The case was grave, the problem interesting.  It was necessary to solve it as soon as possible.  Barbicane, excited, and by his moral energy triumphing over his physical weakness, stood up and listened.  A profound silence reigned outside.  But the thick padding was sufficient to shut out all the noises on earth; However, one circumstance struck Barbicane.  The temperature in the interior of the projectile was singularly high.  The president drew out a thermometer from the envelope that protected it and consulted it.  The instrument showed 81 deg.  Fahr.

“Yes!” he then exclaimed—­“yes, we are moving!  This stifling heat oozes through the sides of our projectile.  It is produced by friction against the atmosphere.  It will soon diminish; because we are already moving in space, and after being almost suffocated we shall endure intense cold.”

“What!” asked Michel Ardan, “do you mean to say that we are already beyond the terrestrial atmosphere?”

“Without the slightest doubt, Michel.  Listen to me.  It now wants but five minutes to eleven.  It is already eight minutes since we started.  Now, if our initial velocity has not been diminished by friction, six seconds would be enough for us to pass the sixteen leagues of atmosphere which surround our spheroid.”

“Just so,” answered Nicholl; “but in what proportion do you reckon the diminution of speed by friction?”

“In the proportion of one-third,” answered Barbicane.  “This diminution is considerable, but it is so much according to my calculations.  If, therefore, we have had an initial velocity of 11,000 metres, when we get past the atmosphere it will be reduced to 7,332 metres.  However that may be, we have already cleared that space, and—­”

“And then,” said Michel Ardan, “friend Nicholl has lost his two bets—­four thousand dollars because the Columbiad has not burst, five thousand dollars because the projectile has risen to a greater height than six miles; therefore, Nicholl, shell out.”

“We must prove it first,” answered the captain, “and pay afterwards.  It is quite possible that Barbicane’s calculations are exact, and that I have lost my nine thousand dollars.  But another hypothesis has come into my mind, and it may cancel the wager.”