“It might, friend Nicholl, but it is not probable.”

“Why?”

“Because—­because, I really don’t know.”

“Ah, what hundreds of volumes we might fill with what we don’t know!” exclaimed Michel.  “But I say,” he continued, “what time is it?”

“Three o’clock,” answered Nicholl.

“How the time goes,” said Michel, “in the conversation of savants like us!  Decidedly I feel myself getting too learned!  I feel that I am becoming a well of knowledge!”

So saying, Michel climbed to the roof of the projectile, “in order better to observe the moon,” he pretended.  In the meanwhile his companions watched the vault of space through the lower port-light.  There was nothing fresh to signalise.

When Michel Ardan came down again he approached the lateral port-light, and suddenly uttered an exclamation of surprise.

“What is the matter now?” asked Barbicane.

The president approached the glass and saw a sort of flattened sack floating outside at some yards’ distance from the projectile.  This object seemed motionless like the bullet, and was consequently animated with the same ascensional movement.

“Whatever can that machine be?” said Michel Ardan.  “Is it one of the corpuscles of space which our projectile holds in its radius of attraction, and which will accompany it as far as the moon?”

“What I am astonished at,” answered Nicholl, “is that the specific weight of this body, which is certainly superior to that of the bullet, allows it to maintain itself so rigorously on its level.”

“Nicholl,” said Barbicane, after a moment’s reflection, “I do not know what that object is, but I know perfectly why it keeps on a level with the projectile.”

“Why, pray?”

“Because we are floating in the void where bodies fall or move—­which is the same thing—­with equal speed whatever their weight or form may be.  It is the air which, by its resistance, creates differences in weight.  When you pneumatically create void in a tube, the objects you throw down it, either lead or feathers, fall with the same rapidity.  Here in space you have the same cause and the same effect.”

“True,” said Nicholl, “and all we throw out of the projectile will accompany us to the moon.”

“Ah! what fools we are!” cried Michel.

“Why this qualification?” asked Barbicane.

“Because we ought to have filled the projectile with useful objects, books, instruments, tools, &c.  We could have thrown them all out, and they would all have followed in our wake!  But, now I think of it, why can’t we take a walk outside this?  Why can’t we go into space through the port-light?  What delight it would be to be thus suspended in ether, more favoured even than birds that are forced to flap their wings to sustain them!”

“Agreed,” said Barbicane, “but how are we to breathe?”

“Confounded air to fail so inopportunely!”