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"I think we cannot answer," said Barbicane, "but in my opinion the question ought not to be stated in that form. I ask to be allowed to state it differently." "State it as you like," answered Michel. "This is it," resumed Barbicane. "The problem is double, and requires a double solution. Is the moon habitable? Has it been inhabited?" "Right," said Nicholl.
"Do you know, my friends," said Michel Ardan, "that if one of us had succumbed to the shock consequent on departure, we should have had a great deal of trouble to bury him? What am I saying? to etherize him, as here ether takes the place of earth. You see the accusing body would have followed us into space like a remorse." "That would have been sad," said Nicholl.
Nicholl uttered a cry, and he and his companions rushed to the scuttle. What a sight! What pen can describe it? What palette is rich enough in colors to reproduce so magnificent a spectacle? It was like the opening of a crater, like the scattering of an immense conflagration. Thousands of luminous fragments lit up and irradiated space with their fires.
It was like a moon, but a burning moon of almost unbearable brilliancy, outlined as it was on the total obscurity of space. This mass, of a circular form, threw such light that it filled the projectile. The faces of Barbicane, Nicholl, and Michel Ardan, bathed in its white waves, looked spectral, livid, blafard, like the appearance produced by the artificial light of alcohol impregnated with salt.
Besides, I am not sure that objects thrown out still follow us." "Why?" said Nicholl. "Because if we are passing through any atmosphere, however slightly dense, these objects will be delayed. Now the darkness prevents us verifying whether they still float around us. Therefore, in order not to risk our thermometer, we will tie something to it, and so easily pull it back into the interior."
So much formality under such circumstances left him speechless. He had never before seen anything so "American." This is a purely French habit. This affair settled, Barbicane and Nicholl had returned to the window, and were watching the constellations. The stars looked like bright points on the black sky.
"Cultivated fields!" replied Nicholl, shrugging his shoulders. "Plowed, at all events," retorted Michel Ardan; "but what laborers those Selenites must be, and what giant oxen they must harness to their plow to cut such furrows!" "They are not furrows," said Barbicane; "they are rifts." "Rifts? stuff!" replied Michel mildly; "but what do you mean by `rifts' in the scientific world?"
"And I," said Michel, "if I had known how to return, I would never have started." "There's an answer!" cried Nicholl. "I quite approve of Michel's words," said Barbicane; "and add, that the question has no real interest. Later, when we think it is advisable to return, we will take counsel together. If the Columbiad is not there, the projectile will be." "That is a step certainly.
This locomotive, conducted by a stoker and a mechanic, carried, by a great favour, the Honourable J.T. Maston, Secretary of the Gun Club. The saloon was reserved for President Barbicane, Captain Nicholl, and Michel Ardan. The train left the station of Baltimore upon the whistle of the engine-driver amidst the hurrahs and all the admiring interjections of the American language.
"Might it not be an excess of speed?" answered Nicholl; "for we know now that its initial velocity was greater than they supposed." "No! a hundred times, no!" replied Barbicane. "An excess of speed, if the direction of the projectile had been right, would not have prevented us reaching the moon. No, there has been a deviation. We have been turned out of our course."
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