“Ah!” said Nicholl.

“No!” resumed Michel, “he is dead.  Now,” he added in a pitiful tone, “this will be embarrassing!  I very much fear, poor Diana, that you will not leave any of your race in the lunar regions!”

The unfortunate Satellite had not been able to survive his wounds.  He was dead, stone dead.  Michel Ardan, much put out of countenance, looked at his friends.

“This makes another difficulty,” said Barbicane.  “We can’t keep the dead body of this dog with us for another eight-and-forty hours.”

“No, certainly not,” answered Nicholl, “but our port-lights are hung upon hinges.  They can be let down.  We will open one of them, and throw the body into space.”

The president reflected for a few minutes, and then said—­

“Yes, that is what we must do, but we must take the most minute precautions.”

“Why?” asked Michel.

“For two reasons that I will explain to you,” answered Barbicane.  “The first has reference to the air in the projectile, of which we must lose as little as possible.”

“But we can renew the air!”

“Not entirely.  We can only renew the oxygen, Michel; and, by-the-bye, we must be careful that the apparatus do not furnish us with this oxygen in an immoderate quantity, for an excess of it would cause grave physiological consequences.  But although we can renew the oxygen we cannot renew the azote, that medium which the lungs do not absorb, and which ought to remain intact.  Now the azote would rapidly escape if the port-lights were opened.”

“Not just the time necessary to throw poor Satellite out.”

“Agreed; but we must do it quickly.”

“And what is the second reason?” asked Michel.

“The second reason is that we must not allow the exterior cold, which is excessive, to penetrate into our projectile lest we should be frozen alive.”

“Still the sun—­”

“The sun warms our projectile because it absorbs its rays, but it does not warm the void we are in now.  When there is no air there is no more heat than there is diffused light, and where the sun’s rays do not reach directly it is both dark and cold.  The temperature outside is only that produced by the radiation of the stars—­that is to say, the same as the temperature of the terrestrial globe would be if one day the sun were to be extinguished.”

“No fear of that,” answered Nicholl.

“Who knows?” said Michel Ardan.  “And even supposing that the sun be not extinguished, it might happen that the earth will move farther away from it.”

“Good!” said Nicholl; “that’s one of Michel’s ideas!”

“Well,” resumed Michel, “it is well known that in 1861 the earth went through the tail of a comet.  Now suppose there was a comet with a power of attraction greater than that of the sun, the terrestrial globe might make a curve towards the wandering star, and the earth would become its satellite, and would be dragged away to such a distance that the rays of the sun would have no action on its surface.”