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"What do you mean by that, Nicholl?" asked Barbicane gravely. "To ask for means to leave a country," added Michel, "When we have not yet arrived there, seems to me rather inopportune." "I do not say that, wishing to draw back," replied Nicholl; "but I repeat my question, and I ask, `How shall we return?" "I know nothing about it," answered Barbicane.

A ball without a gun!" "The gun," replied Barbicane, "can be manufactured. The powder can be made. Neither metals, saltpeter, nor coal can fail in the depths of the moon, and we need only go 8,000 leagues in order to fall upon the terrestrial globe by virtue of the mere laws of weight." "Enough," said Michel with animation.

"A man like Barbicane would not dodge with his enemy, or ensnare him, would not even maneuver! He is too open, too brave. He has gone straight ahead, right into the danger, and doubtless far enough from the bushman for the wind to prevent his hearing the report of the rifles." "But surely," replied Michel Ardan, "since we entered the wood we should have heard!"

When you create a vacuum in a tube, the objects you send through it, grains of dust or grains of lead, fall with the same rapidity. Here in space is the same cause and the same effect." "Just so," said Nicholl, "and everything we throw out of the projectile will accompany it until it reaches the moon." "Ah! fools that we are!" exclaimed Michel. "Why that expletive?" asked Barbicane.

The two friends joined him instantly, and all three formed a miraculous "Ascension" in the center of the projectile. "Is it to be believed? is it probable? is it possible?" exclaimed Michel; "and yet it is so. Ah! if Raphael had seen us thus, what an `Assumption' he would have thrown upon canvas!" "The `Assumption' cannot last," replied Barbicane.

"But," asked Nicholl, "what is the temperature outside?" "Exactly that of the planetary space," replied Barbicane. "Then," continued Michel Ardan, "would not this be the time to make the experiment which we dared not attempt when we were drowned in the sun's rays?

Such was the situation, and Barbicane clearly explained the consequences to his travelling companions. They were interested to the highest degree. How were they to know when they had reached this neutral point, situated at 78,114 leagues from the earth, at the precise moment when neither they nor the objects contained in the projectile should be in any way subject to the laws of weight?

And besides, it seems to me that a lightened projectile would go on more quickly." "Less quickly," said Michel. "More quickly," replied Nicholl. "Neither more nor less quickly," answered Barbicane, wishing to make his two friends agree, "for we are moving in the void where we cannot take specific weight into account."

"Two," answered Barbicane; "either the projectile's speed will be insufficient, and it will remain forever immovable on this line of double attraction " "I prefer the other hypothesis, whatever it may be," interrupted Michel. "Or," continued Barbicane, "its speed will be sufficient, and it will continue its elliptical course, to gravitate forever around the orb of night."

"Why, don't they use his skin to make drums of?" Barbicane and Nicholl could not help laughing at this absurd reflection. But a cry from their merry companion stopped them; he was bending over Satellite's niche, and rose up saying "Good! Satellite is no longer ill." "Ah!" said Nicholl. "No!" resumed Michel, "he is dead. Now," he added in a pitiful tone, "this will be embarrassing!