He therefore appeared; silence was made, and a citizen asked him the following question:—­“Is the person designated in the telegram as Michel Ardan on his way to America or not?”

“Gentlemen,” answered Barbicane, “I know no more than you.”

“We must get to know,” exclaimed some impatient voices.

“Time will inform us,” answered the president coldly.

“Time has no right to keep a whole country in suspense,” answered the orator.  “Have you altered your plans for the projectile as the telegram demanded?”

“Not yet, gentlemen; but you are right, we must have recourse to the telegraph that has caused all this emotion.”

“To the telegraph-office!” cried the crowd.

Barbicane descended into the street, and, heading the immense assemblage, he went towards the telegraph-office.

A few minutes afterwards a telegram was on its way to the underwriters at Liverpool, asking for an answer to the following questions:—­

“What sort of vessel is the Atlanta?  When did she leave Europe?  Had she a Frenchman named Michel Ardan on board?”

Two hours afterwards Barbicane received such precise information that doubt was no longer possible.

“The steamer Atlanta, from Liverpool, set sail on October 2nd for Tampa Town, having on board a Frenchman inscribed in the passengers’ book as Michel Ardan.”

At this confirmation of the first telegram the eyes of the president were lighted up with a sudden flame; he clenched his hands, and was heard to mutter—­

“It is true, then!  It is possible, then! the Frenchman does exist! and in a fortnight he will be here!  But he is a madman!  I never can consent.”

And yet the very same evening he wrote to the firm of Breadwill and Co. begging them to suspend the casting of the projectile until fresh orders.

Now how can the emotion be described which took possession of the whole of America?  The effect of the Barbicane proposition was surpassed tenfold; what the newspapers of the Union said, the way they accepted the news, and how they chanted the arrival of this hero from the old continent; how to depict the feverish agitation in which every one lived, counting the hours, minutes, and seconds; how to give even a feeble idea of the effect of one idea upon so many heads; how to show every occupation being given up for a single preoccupation, work stopped, commerce suspended, vessels, ready to start, waiting in the ports so as not to miss the arrival of the Atlanta, every species of conveyance arriving full and returning empty, the bay of Espiritu-Santo incessantly ploughed by steamers, packet-boats, pleasure-yachts, and fly-boats of all dimensions; how to denominate in numbers the thousands of curious people who in a fortnight increased the population of Tampa Town fourfold, and were obliged to encamp under tents like an army in campaign—­all this is a task above human force, and could not be undertaken without rashness.