It will be readily understood with what interest these audacious men contemplated the moon, the supreme goal of their journey.  The earth’s satellite, in her movement of translation, insensibly neared the zenith, a mathematical point which she was to reach about ninety-six hours later.  Her mountains and plains, or any object in relief, were not seen more plainly than from the earth; but her light across the void was developed with incomparable intensity.  The disc shone like a platinum mirror.  The travellers had already forgotten all about the earth which was flying beneath their feet.

It was Captain Nicholl who first drew attention to the vanished globe.

“Yes!” answered Michel Ardan.  “We must not be ungrateful to it.  As we are leaving our country let our last looks reach it.  I want to see the earth before it disappears completely from our eyes!”

Barbicane, to satisfy the desires of his companion, occupied himself with clearing the window at the bottom of the projectile, the one through which they could observe the earth directly.  The movable floor which the force of projection had sent to the bottom was taken to pieces, not without difficulty; its pieces, carefully placed against the sides, might still be of use.  Then appeared a circular bay window, half a yard wide, cut in the lower part of the bullet.  It was filled with glass five inches thick, strengthened with brass settings.  Under it was an aluminium plate, held down by bolts.  The screws taken out and the bolts withdrawn, the plate fell back, and visual communication was established between interior and exterior.

Michel Ardan knelt upon the glass.  It was dark, and seemed opaque.

“Well,” cried he, “but where’s the earth?”

“There it is,” said Barbicane.

“What!” cried Ardan, “that thin streak, that silvery crescent?”

“Certainly, Michel.  In four days’ time, when the moon is full, at the very minute we shall reach her, the earth will be new.  She will only appear to us under the form of a slender crescent, which will soon disappear, and then she will be buried for some days in impenetrable darkness.”

“That the earth!” repeated Michel Ardan, staring at the thin slice of his natal planet.

The explanation given by President Barbicane was correct.  The earth, looked at from the projectile, was entering her last quarter.  She was in her octant, and her crescent was clearly outlined on the dark background of the sky.  Her light, made bluish by the thickness of her atmosphere, was less intense than that of the lunar crescent.  This crescent then showed itself under considerable dimensions.  It looked like an enormous arch stretched across the firmament.  Some points, more vividly lighted, especially in its concave part, announced the presence of high mountains; but they disappeared sometimes under black spots, which are never seen on the surface of the lunar disc.  They were rings of clouds placed concentrically round the terrestrial spheroid.