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Updated: May 22, 2025
"Correct, friend Michael, correct in every particular," replied the Captain, "But one little question." "Out with it!" "Friend Michael, you say we're moving?" "Yes." "In consequence of the explosion?" "Certainly!" "Which must have been attended with a tremendous report?" "Of course!" "Did you hear that report, friend Michael?" "N o," replied Ardan, a little disconcerted at the question.
"But that's exactly what we want to do ourselves, friend Ardan," said Barbican, endeavoring to give an example of calmness to the impatient M'Nicholl; "the only trouble is that we have not the means to do it." "Can't we modify the Projectile's movement?" "No." "Nor diminish its velocity?" "No." "Not even by lightening it, as a heavily laden ship is lightened, by throwing cargo overboard?"
"Very simple," observed Ardan, who always got muddled at any kind of a difficult sum in addition. "Captain," said Barbican, "you could have found the formulas too, if you tried." "I don't know about that," was the Captain's reply, "but I do know that this formula is wonderfully come at." "Now, Ardan, listen a moment," said Barbican, "and you will see what sense there is in all these letters."
Their first remarks were decidedly peculiar and quite characteristic. Other men would have asked themselves where the Projectile was taking them to. Do you think such a question ever occurred to them? Not a bit of it. They simply began asking each other what could have been the cause of this new and strange state of things. "Off the track, it appears," observed Ardan. "How's that?"
A sensible question! Answer it, Ardan!" "Answer it yourself, Barbican! You know more about the Moon than I do! You know more about it than all the Nasmyths that ever lived!" "I'm blessed if I know anything at all about it!" cried Barbican, with a joyous laugh. "Ha, ha, ha! The first eastern shore Marylander or any other simpleton you meet in Baltimore, knows as much about the Moon as I do!
"What can we throw overboard? We have no ballast like balloon-men." "I should like to know," interrupted M'Nicholl, "what would be the good of throwing anything at all overboard. Any one with a particle of common sense in his head, can see that the lightened Projectile should only move the quicker!" "Slower, you mean," said Ardan. "Quicker, I mean," replied the Captain.
Ardan was sleeping, then, badly enough, tossing about between the cloths which served him for sheets, and he was dreaming of making a more comfortable couch in his projectile when a frightful noise disturbed his dreams. Thundering blows shook his door. They seemed to be caused by some iron instrument.
"You are right, sir," answered Michel Ardan, "the discussion has wandered from the point; we will return to the moon." "Sir," resumed the unknown man, "you pretend that our satellite is inhabited. So far so good; but if Selenites do exist they certainly live without breathing, for I tell you the fact for your good there is not the least particle of air on the surface of the moon."
"You mean it's all the Moon's fault, don't you, in setting herself like a screen between us and the Sun?" "No, I don't!" cried Ardan, not at all soothed by his friend's patronizing tone, and sticking like a man to his first assertion right or wrong. "I know what I say! It will be all the Sun's fault if we use up our gas!" "Nonsense!" said M'Nicholl.
"Three o'clock!" said Barbican, glancing at his chronometer. "No!" cried Ardan in surprise. "Bless us! How rapidly the time passes when we are engaged in scientific conversation! Ouf! I'm getting decidedly too learned! I feel as if I had swallowed a library!" "I feel," observed M'Nicholl, "as if I had been listening to a lecture on Astronomy in the Star course."
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