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It is quite possible that Barbicane's calculations are exact, and that I have lost my nine thousand dollars. But another hypothesis has come into my mind, and it may cancel the wager." "What is that?" asked Barbicane quickly. "The supposition that for some reason or other the powder did not catch fire, and we have not started."
It is quite possible that Barbicane's reasoning is correct, and that I have lost my nine thousand dollars. But a new hypothesis presents itself to my mind, and it annuls the wager." "What is that?" asked Barbicane quickly. "The hypothesis that, for some reason or other, fire was never set to the powder, and we have not started at all."
This account will put an end to many illusions and previsions, but it will give a just idea of the various circumstances incidental to such an enterprise, and will set in relief Barbicane's scientific instincts, Nicholl's industrial resources, and the humorous audacity of Michel Ardan.
Barbicane's anxiety was increased on seeing that his bullet resisted the influence of gravitation. It was the unknown that was before him the unknown of the interstellar regions. He, the savant, believed that he had foreseen the only three hypotheses that were possible the return to the earth, the fall upon the moon, or stagnation upon the neutral line!
The clayey and sandy soils had acquired extreme hardness under the action of the heat; but, by the aid of the machines, the rubbish on being dug out was rapidly carted away on railway wagons; and such was the ardor of the work, so persuasive the arguments of Barbicane's dollars, that by the 3rd of September all traces of the mould had entirely disappeared.
Such was the state of knowledge acquired respecting the earth's satellite which the Gun Club undertook to perfect under all its aspects, cosmographical, geographical, geological, political, and moral. The immediate effect of Barbicane's proposition was that of bringing out all astronomical facts relative to the Queen of Night. Everybody began to study her assiduously.
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.
That was evident, but perhaps that would not have been the case in a supposedly rigidly parabolical trajectory a new problem which tormented Barbicane's brain, imprisoned as he was in a circle of unknowns which he could not unravel. Neither of the travelers thought of taking an instant's repose.
The truth at last became apparent the cat had eaten its fellow-traveler! J. T. Maston grieved much for the loss of his poor squirrel, and proposed to add its case to that of other martyrs to science. After this experiment all hesitation, all fear disappeared. Besides, Barbicane's plans would ensure greater perfection for his projectile, and go far to annihilate altogether the effects of the shock.
At length, on the 22d of September, less than a twelvemonth after Barbicane's original proposition, the enormous weapon, accurately bored, and exactly vertically pointed, was ready for work. There was only the moon now to wait for; and they were pretty sure that she would not fail in the rendezvous.
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