In fact, the success of the audacious enterprise no longer appeared doubtful.  Still one reflection occupied Barbicane; but not wishing to make his two companions uneasy, he kept silence upon it.

The direction of the projectile towards the northern hemisphere proved that its trajectory had been slightly modified.  The aim, mathematically calculated, ought to have sent the bullet into the very centre of the lunar disc.  If it did not arrive there it would be because it had deviated.  What had caused it?  Barbicane could not imagine nor determine the importance of this deviation, for there was no datum to go upon.  He hoped, however, that the only result would be to take them towards the upper edge of the moon, a more suitable region for landing.

Barbicane, therefore, without saying anything to his friends, contented himself with frequently observing the moon, trying to see if the direction of the projectile would not change.  For the situation would have been so terrible had the bullet, missing its aim, been dragged beyond the lunar disc and fallen into interplanetary space.

At that moment the moon, instead of appearing flat like a disc, already showed her convexity.  If the sun’s rays had reached her obliquely the shadow then thrown would have made the high mountains stand out.  They could have seen the gaping craters and the capricious furrows that cut up the immense plains.  But all relief was levelled in the intense brilliancy.  Those large spots that give the appearance of a human face to the moon were scarcely distinguishable.

“It may be a face,” said Michel Ardan, “but I am sorry for the amiable sister of Apollo, her face is so freckled!”

In the meantime the travellers so near their goal ceaselessly watched this new world.  Their imagination made them take walks over these unknown countries.  They climbed the elevated peaks.  They descended to the bottom of the large amphitheatres.  Here and there they thought they saw vast seas scarcely kept together under an atmosphere so rarefied, and streams of water that poured them their tribute from the mountains.  Leaning over the abyss they hoped to catch the noise of this orb for ever mute in the solitudes of the void.

This last day left them the liveliest remembrances.  They noted down the least details.  A vague uneasiness took possession of them as they approached their goal.  This uneasiness would have been doubled if they had felt how slight their speed was.  It appeared quite insufficient to take them to the end of their journey.  This was because the projectile scarcely “weighed” anything.  Its weight constantly decreased, and would be entirely annihilated on that line where the lunar and terrestrial attractions neutralise each other, causing surprising effects.