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Michel Ardan's adversary wished to speak again, but he could not make himself heard. Cries and threats were hailed upon him. "Enough, enough!" said some. "Turn him out!" repeated others. But he, holding on to the platform, did not move, and let the storm pass by. It might have assumed formidable proportions if Michel Ardan had not appeased it by a gesture.
Now for the high high bully old curve!" "The hyperbola," continued the Captain, not minding Ardan's antics, "the hyperbola is a curve of the second order, formed from the intersection of a cone by a plane parallel to its axis, or rather parallel to its two generatrices, constituting two separate branches, extending indefinitely in both directions."
But Barbican's pitiless logic left him no reply. "No, dear friend, no. We can reach the Moon only by a fall, and we don't fall. Centripetal force keeps us at least for a while under the lunar influence, but centrifugal force drives us away irresistibly." These words were uttered in a tone that killed Ardan's last and fondest hope.
But Ardan's tongue, more fluent than ever, rattled away incessantly. "Look! Look!" he exclaimed, in tones so perfectly expressive of his rapidly alternating feelings as to render the medium of words totally unnecessary. "How rapidly the cursed thing is nearing us! Plague take your ugly phiz, the more I know you, the less I like you! Every second she doubles in size! Come, Madame Projectile!
The unknown profited by the opportunity and once more protested: "You will inevitably kill yourself!" he cried; "and your death will be that of a madman, useless even to science!" "Go on, my dear unknown, for truly your prophecies are most agreeable!" "It really is too much!" cried Michel Ardan's adversary. "I do not know why I should continue so frivolous a discussion!
"Then remember this, Captain Nicholl, what I like in your definition of the hyperbola I was going to say of the hyperhumbug is that it is still less easy to understand than the word you pretend to define." Nicholl and Barbicane paid no attention to Michel Ardan's jokes. They had launched into a scientific discussion. They were eager about what curve the projectile would take.
This was said in a tone which quenched Michel Ardan's last hope. The portion of the moon which the projectile was nearing was the northern hemisphere, that which the selenographic maps place below; for these maps are generally drawn after the outline given by the glasses, and we know that they reverse the objects. Such was the Mappa Selenographica of Boeer and Moedler which Barbicane consulted.
An excited discussion on this subject soon sprang up, in which all naturally took part. Ardan's imagination as usual getting the better of his reason, he maintained very warmly that the Projectile, caught and retained by the Moon's attraction, could not help falling on her surface, just as an aerolite cannot help falling on our Earth.
In fact, I have no difficulty whatever in calling it the Map of Life! very neatly divided into two parts, the east and the west, the masculine and the feminine. The women on the right, and the men on the left!" At such observations, Ardan's companions only shrugged their shoulders.
This answer brought Barbicane back to his preparations, and he occupied himself with placing the contrivances intended to break their descent. We may remember the scene of the meeting held at Tampa Town, in Florida, when Captain Nicholl came forward as Barbicane's enemy and Michel Ardan's adversary.
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