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

dollars we find none,” said Nicholl.

“Done, captain,” answered Ardan, shaking hands with Nicholl. “But, by the by, you have lost three bets with the president, for the funds necessary for the enterprise were provided, the casting succeeded, and lastly, the Columbiad was loaded without accident⁠—that makes six thousand dollars.”

“Yes,” answered Nicholl. “Twenty-three minutes and six seconds to eleven.”

“I hear, captain. Well, before another quarter of an hour is over you will have to make over another nine thousand dollars to the president, four thousand because the Columbiad will not burst, and five thousand because the bullet will rise higher than six miles into the air.”

“I have the dollars,” answered Nicholl, striking his coat pocket, “and I only want to pay.”

“Come, Nicholl, I see you are a man of order, what I never could be; but allow me to tell you that your series of bets cannot be very advantageous to you.”

“Why?” asked Barbicane.

“Because if you win the first the Columbiad will have burst, and the bullet with it, and Barbicane will not be there to pay you your dollars.”

“My wager is deposited in the Baltimore Bank,” answered Barbicane simply; “and in default of Nicholl it will go to his heirs.”

“What practical men you are!” cried Michel Ardan. “I admire you as much as I do not understand you.”

“Eighteen minutes to eleven,” said Nicholl.

“Only five minutes more,” answered Barbicane.

“Yes, five short minutes!” replied Michel Ardan. “And we are shut up in a bullet at the bottom of a cannon 900 feet long! and under this bullet there are 400,000 lbs. of guncotton, worth more than 1,600,000 lbs. of ordinary powder! And friend Murchison, with his chronometer in hand and his eye fixed on the hand and his finger on the electric knob, is counting the seconds to hurl us into the planetary regions.”

“Enough, Michel, enough!” said Barbicane in a grave tone. “Let us prepare ourselves. A few seconds only separate us from a supreme moment. Your hands, my friends.”

“Yes,” cried Michel Ardan, more moved than he wished to appear.

The three bold companions shook hands.

“God help us!” said the religious president.

Michel Ardan and Nicholl lay down on their beds in the centre of the floor.

“Thirteen minutes to eleven,” murmured the captain.

Twenty seconds more! Barbicane rapidly put out the gas, and lay down beside his companions.

The profound silence was only broken by the chronometer beating the seconds.

Suddenly a frightful shock was felt, and the projectile, under the impulsion of 6,000,000,000 litres of gas developed by the deflagration of the pyroxyle, rose into space.

II The First Half-Hour

What had happened? What was the effect of the frightful shock? Had the ingenuity of the constructors of the projectile been attended by a happy result? Was the effect of the shock deadened, thanks to the springs, the four buffers, the water-cushions, and the movable partitions? Had they triumphed over the frightful impulsion of the initial velocity of 11,000 metres a second? This was evidently the question the thousands of witnesses of the exciting scene asked themselves. They forgot the object of the journey, and only thought of the travellers! Suppose one of them⁠—J. T. Maston, for instance⁠—had been able to get a glimpse of the interior of the projectile, what would he have seen?

Nothing then. The obscurity was profound in the bullet. Its cylindro-conical sides had resisted perfectly. There was not a break, a crack, or a dint in them. The admirable projectile was not hurt by the intense deflagration of the powders, instead of being liquefied, as it was feared, into a shower of aluminium.

In the interior there was very little disorder on the whole. A few objects had been violently hurled up to the roof, but the most important did not seem to have suffered from the shock. Their fastenings were intact.

On the movable disc, crushed down to the bottom by the smashing of the partitions and the escape of the water, three bodies lay motionless. Did Barbicane, Nicholl, and Michel Ardan still breathe? Was the projectile nothing but a metal coffin carrying three corpses into space?

A few minutes after the departure of the bullet one of these bodies moved, stretched out its arms, lifted up its head, and succeeded in getting upon its knees. It was Michel Ardan. He felt himself, uttered a sonorous “Hum,” then said⁠—

“Michel Ardan, complete. Now for the others!”

The courageous Frenchman wanted to get up, but he could not stand. His head vacillated; his blood, violently sent up to his head, blinded him. He felt like a drunken man.

“Brrr!” said he. “I feel as though I had been drinking two bottles of Corton, only that was not so agreeable to swallow!”

Then passing his hand across his forehead several times, and rubbing his temples, he called out in a firm voice⁠—

“Nicholl! Barbicane!”

He waited anxiously. No answer. Not even a sigh to indicate that the hearts of his companions still beat. He reiterated his call. Same silence.

“The devil!” said he. “They seem as though they had fallen from the fifth story upon their heads! Bah!” he added with the imperturbable confidence that nothing could shake, “if a Frenchman can get upon his knees, two Americans will have no difficulty in getting upon their feet. But, first of all, let us have a light on the subject.”

Ardan felt life come back to him in streams. His blood became calm, and resumed its ordinary circulation. Fresh efforts restored his equilibrium. He succeeded in getting up, took a match out of his pocket, and struck it; then putting it to the burner he lighted the gas. The meter was not in the least damaged. The gas had not escaped. Besides, the smell would have betrayed it, and had this been the case, Michel Ardan could not with impunity have lighted a match in a medium filled with hydrogen. The gas, mixed in the air, would have produced a detonating mixture, and an explosion would have finished what a shock had perhaps begun.

As soon as the gas was lighted Ardan bent