The Moon-Voyage, Jules Verne [e book reader pdf txt] 📗

answered Maston. "But what is the use of the good results of such studies and so many difficulties conquered? It is mere waste of time. The people of the New World seem determined to live in peace, and our bellicose Tribune has gone as far as to predict approaching catastrophes due to the scandalous increase of population!"

"Yet, Maston," said Colonel Blomsberry, "they are always fighting in
Europe to maintain the principle of nationalities!"

"What of that?"

"Why, there might be something to do over there, and if they accepted our services—"

"What are you thinking of?" cried Bilsby. "Work at ballistics for the benefit of foreigners!"

"Perhaps that would be better than not doing it at all," answered the colonel.

"Doubtless," said J.T. Maston, "it would be better, but such an expedient cannot be thought of."

"Why so?" asked the colonel.

"Because their ideas of advancement would be contrary to all our American customs. Those folks seem to think that you cannot be a general-in-chief without having served as second lieutenant, which comes to the same as saying that no one can point a gun that has not cast one. Now that is simply—"

"Absurd!" replied Tom Hunter, whittling the arms of his chair with his bowie-knife; "and as things are so, there is nothing left for us but to plant tobacco or distil whale-oil!"

"What!" shouted J.T. Maston, "shall we not employ these last years of our existence in perfecting firearms? Will not a fresh opportunity present itself to try the ranges of our projectiles? Will the atmosphere be no longer illuminated by the lightning of our cannons? Won't some international difficulty crop up that will allow us to declare war against some transatlantic power? Won't France run down one of our steamers, or won't England, in defiance of the rights of nations, hang up three or four of our countrymen?"

"No, Maston," answered Colonel Blomsberry; "no such luck! No, not one of those incidents will happen; and if one did, it would be of no use to us. American sensitiveness is declining daily, and we are going to the dogs!"

"Yes, we are growing quite humble," replied Bilsby.

"And we are humiliated!" answered Tom Hunter.

"All that is only too true," replied J.T. Maston, with fresh vehemence. "There are a thousand reasons for fighting floating about, and still we don't fight! We economise legs and arms, and that to the profit of folks that don't know what to do with them. Look here, without looking any farther for a motive for war, did not North America formerly belong to the English?"

"Doubtless," answered Tom Hunter, angrily poking the fire with the end of his crutch.

"Well," replied J.T. Maston, "why should not England in its turn belong to the Americans?"

"It would be but justice," answered Colonel Blomsberry.

"Go and propose that to the President of the United States," cried J.T.
Maston, "and see what sort of a reception you would get."

"It would not be a bad reception," murmured Bilsby between the four teeth he had saved from battle.

"I'faith," cried J.T. Maston, "they need not count upon my vote in the next elections."

"Nor upon ours," answered with common accord these bellicose invalids.

"In the meantime," continued J.T. Maston, "and to conclude, if they do not furnish me with the opportunity of trying my new mortar on a real battle-field, I shall send in my resignation as member of the Gun Club, and I shall go and bury myself in the backwoods of Arkansas."

"We will follow you there," answered the interlocutors of the enterprising J.T. Maston.

Things had come to that pass, and the club, getting more excited, was menaced with approaching dissolution, when an unexpected event came to prevent so regrettable a catastrophe.

The very day after the foregoing conversation each member of the club received a circular couched in these terms:—

"Baltimore, October 3rd.

"The president of the Gun Club has the honour to inform his colleagues that at the meeting on the 5th ultimo he will make them a communication of an extremely interesting nature. He therefore begs that they, to the suspension of all other business, will attend, in accordance with the present invitation,

"Their devoted colleague,

"IMPEY BARBICANE, P.G.C." CHAPTER II. PRESIDENT BARBICANE'S COMMUNICATION.

On the 5th of October, at 8 p.m., a dense crowd pressed into the saloons of the Gun Club, 21, Union-square. All the members of the club residing at Baltimore had gone on the invitation of their president. The express brought corresponding members by hundreds, and if the meeting-hall had not been so large, the crowd of savants could not have found room in it; they overflowed into the neighbouring rooms, down the passages, and even into the courtyards; there they ran against the populace who were pressing against the doors, each trying to get into the front rank, all eager to learn the important communication of President Barbicane, all pressing, squeezing, crushing with that liberty of action peculiar to the masses brought up in the idea of self-government.

That evening any stranger who might have chanced to be in Baltimore could not have obtained a place at any price in the large hall; it was exclusively reserved to residing or corresponding members; no one else was admitted; and the city magnates, common councillors, and select men were compelled to mingle with their inferiors in order to catch stray news from the interior.

The immense hall presented a curious spectacle; it was marvellously adapted to the purpose for which it was built. Lofty pillars formed of cannon, superposed upon huge mortars as a base, supported the fine ironwork of the arches—real cast-iron lacework.

Trophies of blunderbusses, matchlocks, arquebuses, carbines, all sorts of ancient or modern firearms, were picturesquely enlaced against the walls. The gas, in full flame, came out of a thousand revolvers grouped in the form of lustres, whilst candlesticks of pistols, and candelabra made of guns done up in sheaves, completed this display of light. Models of cannons, specimens of bronze, targets spotted with shot-marks, plaques broken by the shock of the Gun Club, balls, assortments of rammers and sponges, chaplets of shells, necklaces of projectiles, garlands of howitzers—in a word, all the tools of the artilleryman surprised the eyes by their wonderful arrangement, and induced a belief that their real purpose was more ornamental than deadly.

In the place of honour was seen, covered by a splendid glass case, a piece of breech, broken and twisted under the effort of the powder—a precious fragment of J.T. Maston's cannon.

At the extremity of the hall the president, assisted by four secretaries, occupied a wide platform. His chair, placed on a carved gun-carriage, was modelled upon the powerful proportions of a 32-inch mortar; it was pointed at an angle of 90 degs., and hung upon trunnions so that the president could use it as a rocking-chair, very agreeable in great heat. Upon the desk, a huge iron plate, supported upon six carronades, stood a very tasteful inkstand, made of a beautifully-chased Spanish piece, and a report-bell, which, when required, went off like a revolver. During the vehement discussions this new sort of bell scarcely sufficed to cover the voices of this legion of excited artillerymen.

In front of the desk, benches, arranged in zigzags, like the circumvallations of intrenchment, formed a succession of bastions and curtains where the members of the Gun Club took their seats; and that evening, it may be said, there were plenty on the ramparts. The president was sufficiently known for all to be assured that he would not have called together his colleagues without a very great motive.

Impey Barbicane was a man of forty, calm, cold, austere, of a singularly serious and concentrated mind, as exact as a chronometer, of an imperturbable temperament and immovable character; not very chivalrous, yet adventurous, and always bringing practical ideas to bear on the wildest enterprises; an essential New-Englander, a Northern colonist, the descendant of those Roundheads so fatal to the Stuarts, and the implacable enemy of the Southern gentlemen, the ancient cavaliers of the mother country—in a word, a Yankee cast in a single mould.

Barbicane had made a great fortune as a timber-merchant; named director of artillery during the war, he showed himself fertile in inventions; enterprising in his ideas, he contributed powerfully to the progress of ballistics, gave an immense impetus to experimental researches.

He was a person of average height, having, by a rare exception in the Gun Club, all his limbs intact. His strongly-marked features seemed to be drawn by square and rule, and if it be true that in order to guess the instincts of a man one must look at his profile, Barbicane seen thus offered the most certain indications of energy, audacity, and sang-froid.

At that moment he remained motionless in his chair, mute, absorbed, with an inward look sheltered under his tall hat, a cylinder of black silk, which seems screwed down upon the skull of American men.

His colleagues talked noisily around him without disturbing him; they questioned one another, launched into the field of suppositions, examined their president, and tried, but in vain, to make out the x of his imperturbable physiognomy.

Just as eight o'clock struck from the fulminating clock of the large hall, Barbicane, as if moved by a spring, jumped up; a general silence ensued, and the orator, in a slightly emphatic tone, spoke as follows:—

"Brave colleagues,—It is some time since an unfruitful peace plunged the members of the Gun Club into deplorable inactivity. After a period of some years, so full of incidents, we have been obliged to abandon our works and stop short on the road of progress. I do not fear to proclaim aloud that any war which would put arms in our hands again would be welcome—"

"Yes, war!" cried impetuous J.T. Maston.

"Hear, hear!" was heard on every side.

"But war," said Barbicane, "war is impossible under actual circumstances, and, whatever my honourable interrupter may hope, long years will elapse before our cannons thunder on a field of battle. We must, therefore, make up our minds to it, and seek in another order of ideas food for the activity by which we are devoured."

The assembly felt that its president was coming to the delicate point; it redoubled its attention.

"A few months ago, my brave colleagues," continued Barbicane, "I asked myself if, whilst still remaining in our speciality, we could not undertake some grand experiment worthy of the nineteenth century, and if the progress of ballistics would not allow us to execute it with success. I have therefore sought, worked, calculated, and the conviction has resulted from my studies that we must succeed in an enterprise that would seem impracticable in any other country. This project, elaborated at length, will form the subject of my communication; it is worthy of you, worthy of the Gun Club's past history, and cannot fail to make a noise in the world!"

"Much noise?" cried a passionate artilleryman.

"Much noise in the true sense of the word," answered Barbicane.

"Don't interrupt!" repeated several voices.

"I therefore beg of you, my brave colleagues," resumed the president, "to grant me all your attention."

A shudder ran through the assembly. Barbicane, having with a rapid gesture firmly fixed his hat on his head, continued his speech in a calm tone:—

"There is not one of you, brave colleagues, who has not seen the moon, or, at least, heard of It. Do not be astonished if I wish to speak to you about the Queen of Night. It is, perhaps, our lot to be the Columbuses of this unknown world. Understand me, and second me as much as you can, I will lead you to its conquest, and its name shall be joined to those of the thirty-six States that form the grand country of the Union!"

"Hurrah for the moon!" cried the Gun Club with one voice.

"The moon has been much studied," resumed Barbicane; "its mass, density, weight, volume, constitution, movements, distance, the part it plays in the solar world, are all perfectly determined; selenographic maps have been drawn with a perfection that equals, if it does not surpass, those of terrestrial maps; photography has given to our satellite proofs of incomparable beauty—in a word, all that the sciences of mathematics, astronomy, geology, and optics can teach is known about the moon; but until now no direct communication with it has ever been established."

A violent movement of interest and surprise welcomed this sentence of the orator.

"Allow me," he resumed, "to recall to you in few words how certain ardent minds, embarked upon imaginary journeys, pretended to have penetrated the secrets of our satellite. In the seventeenth century a certain David Fabricius boasted of having seen the inhabitants of the moon with his own