United States or American Samoa ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Friend Ardan," quietly observed Barbican, "my stakes are deposited in the Wall Street Bank, of New York, with orders to pay them over to the Captain's heirs, in case the Captain himself should fail to put in an appearance at the proper time." "Oh! you rhinoceroses, you pachyderms, you granite men!" cried Ardan, gasping with surprise; "you machines with iron heads, and iron hearts!
In short, his motto was, "Whatever it may cost!" and the love of the impossible his "ruling passion," according to Pope's fine expression. But this enterprising fellow had the defects of his qualities. Who risks nothing wins nothing, it is said. Ardan often risked much and got nothing.
"They have been measured with the greatest care; Newton is 23,000 feet high." "More or less!" laughed Ardan. "What Delphic oracle says so?"
"I am most firmly convinced," continued the Captain, hardly waiting for Ardan to finish, "that, at the period of the Moon's occupancy by living creatures, her days and nights were by no means 354 hours long." "Well! if anything could surprise me," said Ardan quickly, "such an assertion as that most certainly would. On what does the honorable gentleman base his most firm conviction?"
While Michel Ardan was speaking, Barbicane and Nicholl were making their last preparations. Nicholl's chronometer marked twenty minutes past ten P.M. when the three travelers were finally enclosed in their projectile. This chronometer was set within the tenth of a second by that of Murchison the engineer. Barbicane consulted it. "My friends," said he, "it is twenty minutes past ten.
Michel Ardan allowed himself to be convinced in a certain measure. He agreed that the thing was difficult, but not "impossible;" that was a word he never uttered. The conversation passed from this subject to another, and never languished an instant. It seemed to the three friends that under these conditions ideas came into their heads like leaves in the first warm days of spring.
"How is it that we see him only through the bottom light of our Projectile?" asked Ardan. "A moment's reflection must tell you," replied Barbican, "that when we started last night, the Sun was almost directly below us; therefore, as we continue to move in a straight line, he must still be in our rear."
Stretched upon their beds, all three were soon buried in profound slumber. But they had not been unconscious for more than a quarter of an hour when Barbicane suddenly rose, and, waking his companions, in a loud voice cried "I've found it!" "What have you found?" asked Michel Ardan, jumping out of bed. "The reason we did not hear the detonation of the Columbiad!" "Well?" said Nicholl.
"Well, I swan to man!" cried the Captain, who always swore a little when his feelings got beyond his control; "Ardan, the Boss has got the rig on both of us this time, but rough as it is on you it is a darned sight more so on me. Be hanged if I did not think you were talking English the whole time, and I put the whole blame for not understanding you on the disordered state of my brain!"
The president approached the glass and saw a sort of flattened sack floating outside at some yards' distance from the projectile. This object seemed motionless like the bullet, and was consequently animated with the same ascensional movement. "Whatever can that machine be?" said Michel Ardan.
Word Of The Day