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J. T. Maston, who, despite all dictates of prudence, had kept in advance of the mass, was pitched back 120 feet, shooting like a projectile over the heads of his fellow-citizens. Three hundred thousand persons remained deaf for a time, and as though struck stupefied. As soon as the first effects were over, the injured, the deaf, and lastly, the crowd in general, woke up with frenzied cries.
He lacked the necessary appliances to do more than dress the wound, after making sure that no fragment of any projectile had remained in the flesh. Then he at last went off, promising to return at an early hour on the morrow; and, as the priest escorted him to the street door, he spoke some comforting words: if the bone had not been deeply injured all would be well.
The velocity of the projectile leaving the gun will be 2,600 feet per second, a speed which if maintained would carry it around the world in less than fifteen hours. Each of the mammoth guns will be a trifle over fifty-three feet in length and the estimated cost of each will be $85,000.
The Selenite city, whether real or pretended, had disappeared in the distance. The projectile began to get farther away from the lunar disc, and the details of the ground began to be lost in a confused jumble. The reliefs, amphitheatres, craters, and plains alone remained, and still showed their boundary-lines distinctly.
"Right now, this very minute." Devers suddenly spoke up. "I would like to have one thing explained, Commander, unless, of course, it's a breach of security, but " He hesitated. "What is it?" asked Connel. "I've been going along with you for some time now," explained Devers. "But I still don't know the exact nature of the projectile you propose to build. What's the purpose of it?"
Towards three o'clock every preparation was made, every possible precaution taken, and now our bold adventurers had nothing more to do than watch and wait. The Projectile was certainly approaching the Moon. It had by this time turned over considerably under the influence of attraction, but its own original motion still followed a decidedly oblique direction.
And near her, from the fallen bandbox, whose lid had merely come unfastened, had rolled the bonnet, a very fragile pink bonnet, which still looked charming in its flowery freshness. By a prodigy Guillaume was alive and already on his legs again. His left hand alone streamed with blood, a projectile seemed to have broken his wrist.
It burst through a still-expanding puff of explosive smoke, darted down a hundred feet, and took a zig-zag course of such violent and angular changes of position that it looked more like a streak of metal lightning than anything else. It was down to a thousand feet. It shot toward the fleet at a speed which was literally that of a projectile.
Remaining in the engine room long enough to see that all the motors and apparatus were working smoothly, Professor Henderson made his way to the pilot house forward, where Mark and Jack were in charge of the steering gears. The projectile could be started and stopped from there, as well as from the engine room, once the motor was set going.
"Yes, Nicholl, but slight as it was," answered Barbicane, "upon a distance of 84,000 leagues it was enough to make us miss the moon!" Barbicane had evidently found the only plausible reason for the deviation. However slight it had been, it had been sufficient to modify the trajectory of the projectile. It was a fatality.
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