Round the Moon, Jules Verne [e novels to read online .txt] 📗

their nervous system? Their faces became as red as if exposed to the reverberation of a furnace; their respiration became more active, and their lungs played like forge-bellows; their eyes shone with extraordinary flame, and their voices became formidably loud, their words escaped like a champagne-cork driven forth by carbonic acid gas; their gestures became disquieting, they wanted so much room to perform them in. And, strange to say, they in no wise perceived this excessive tension of the mind.

“Now,” said Nicholl in a sharp tone⁠—“now that I do not know whether we shall come back from the moon, I will know what we are going there for!”

“What we are going there for!” answered Barbicane, stamping as if he were in a fencing-room; “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know!” cried Michel with a shout that provoked a sonorous echo in the projectile.

“No, I have not the least idea!” answered Barbicane, shouting in unison with his interlocutor.

“Well, then, I know,” answered Michel.

“Speak, then,” said Nicholl, who could no longer restrain the angry tones of his voice.

“I shall speak if it suits me!” cried Michel, violently seizing his companion’s arm. “It must suit you!” said Barbicane, with eyes on fire and threatening hands. “It was you who drew us into this terrible journey, and we wish to know why!”

“Yes,” said the captain, “now I don’t know where I am going, I will know why I am going.”

“Why?” cried Michel, jumping a yard high⁠—“why? To take possession of the moon in the name of the United States! To add a fortieth State to the Union! To colonise the lunar regions, to cultivate them, people them, to take them all the wonders of art, science, and industry! To civilise the Selenites, unless they are more civilised than we are, and to make them into a republic if they have not already done it for themselves!”

“If there are any Selenites!” answered Nicholl, who under the empire of this inexplicable intoxication became very contradictory.

“Who says there are no Selenites?” cried Michel in a threatening tone.

“I do!” shouted Nicholl.

“Captain,” said Michel, “do not repeat that insult or I will knock your teeth down your throat!”

The two adversaries were about to rush upon one another, and this incoherent discussion was threatening to degenerate into a battle, when Barbicane interfered.

“Stop, unhappy men,” said he, putting his two companions back to back, “if there are no Selenites, we will do without them!”

“Yes!” exclaimed Michel, who did not care more about them than that. “We have nothing to do with the Selenites! Bother the Selenites!”

“The empire of the moon shall be ours,” said Nicholl. “Let us found a Republic of three!”

“I shall be the Congress,” cried Michel.

“And I the Senate,” answered Nicholl.

“And Barbicane the President,” shouted Michel.

“No President elected by the nation!” answered Barbicane.

“Well, then, a President elected by the Congress,” exclaimed Michel; “and as I am the Congress I elect you unanimously.”

“Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah for President Barbicane!” exclaimed Nicholl.

“Hip⁠—hip⁠—hip! hurrah!” vociferated Michel Ardan.

Then the President and Senate struck up “Yankee Doodle” as loudly as they could, whilst the Congress shouted the virile “Marseillaise.”

Then began a frantic dance with maniacal gestures, mad stamping, and somersaults of boneless clowns. Diana took part in the dance, howling too, and jumped to the very roof of the projectile. An inexplicable flapping of wings and cockcrows of singular sonority were heard. Five or six fowls flew about striking the walls like mad bats.

Then the three travelling companions, whose lungs were disorganised under some incomprehensible influence, more than intoxicated, burnt by the air that had set their breathing apparatus on fire, fell motionless upon the bottom of the projectile.

VIII At Seventy-Eight Thousand One Hundred and Fourteen Leagues

What had happened? What was the cause of that singular intoxication, the consequences of which might prove so disastrous? Simply carelessness on Michel’s part, which Nicholl was able to remedy in time.

After a veritable swoon, which lasted a few minutes, the captain, who was the first to regain consciousness, soon collected his intellectual faculties.

Although he had breakfasted two hours before, he began to feel as hungry as if he had not tasted food for several days. His whole being, his brain and stomach, were excited to the highest point.

He rose, therefore, and demanded a supplementary collation from Michel, who was still unconscious, and did not answer. Nicholl, therefore, proceeded to prepare some cups of tea, in order to facilitate the absorption of a dozen sandwiches. He busied himself first with lighting a fire, and so struck a match.

What was his surprise to see the sulphur burn with extraordinary and almost unbearable brilliancy! From the jet of gas he lighted rose a flame equal to floods of electric light.

A revelation took place in Nicholl’s mind. This intensity of light, the physiological disturbance in himself, the extra excitement of all his moral and sensitive faculties⁠—he understood it all.

“The oxygen!” he exclaimed.

And leaning over the air-apparatus, he saw that the tap was giving out a flood of colourless, savourless, and odourless gas, eminently vital, but which in a pure state produces the gravest disorders in the constitution. Through carelessness Michel had left the tap full on. Nicholl made haste to turn off this flow of oxygen with which the atmosphere was saturated, and which would have caused the death of the travellers, not by suffocation, but by combustion.

An hour afterwards the air was relieved, and gave their normal play to the lungs. By degrees the three friends recovered from their intoxication; but they were obliged to recover from their oxygen like a drunkard from his wine.

When Michel knew his share of responsibility in this incident he did not appear in the least disconcerted. This unexpected intoxication broke the monotony of the journey. Many foolish things had been said under its influence, but they had been forgotten as soon as said.

“Then,” added the merry Frenchman, “I am not sorry for having experienced the effect of this captious gas. Do you know, my friends, that there might be a curious