<h2 id="sigil_toc_id_73">CHAPTER VII.</h2>
<h3 id="sigil_toc_id_74">A MOMENT OF INTOXICATION.</h3>
<p>Thus a phenomenon, curious but explicable, was happening under
these strange conditions.</p>
<p>Every object thrown from the projectile would follow the same
course and never stop until it did. There was a subject for
conversation which the whole evening could not exhaust.</p>
<p>Besides, the excitement of the three travellers increased as they
drew near the end of their journey. They expected unforeseen
incidents, and new phenomena; and nothing would have astonished them
in the frame of mind they then were in. Their over-excited
imagination went faster than the projectile, whose speed was
evidently diminishing, though insensibly to themselves. But the moon
grew larger to their eyes, and they fancied if they stretched out
their hands they could seize it.</p>
<p>The next day, the 5th of November, at five in the morning, all
three were on foot. That day was to be the last of their journey, if
all calculations were true. That very night, at twelve o'clock, in
eighteen hours, exactly at the full moon, they would reach its
brilliant disc. The next midnight would see that journey ended, the
most extraordinary of ancient or modern times. Thus from the first of
the morning, through the scuttles silvered by its rays, they saluted
the orb of night with a confident and joyous hurrah.</p>
<p>The moon was advancing majestically along the starry firmament. A
few more degrees, and she would reach the exact point where her
meeting with the projectile was to take place.</p>
<p>According to his own observations, Barbicane reckoned that they
would land on her northern hemisphere, where stretch immense planes,
and where mountains are rare. A favourable circumstance if, as they
thought, the lunar atmosphere was stored only in its depths.</p>
<p>"Besides," observed Michel Ardan, "a plain is easier to disembark
upon than a mountain. A Selenite, deposited in Europe on the summit
of Mont Blanc, or in Asia on the top of the Himalayas, would not be
quite in the right place."</p>
<p>"And," added Captain Nicholl, "on a flat ground, the projectile
will remain motionless when it has once touched; whereas on a
declivity it would roll like an avalanche, and not being squirrels we
should not come out safe and sound. So it is all for the best."</p>
<p>Indeed, the success of the audacious attempt no longer appeared
doubtful. But Barbicane was preoccupied with one thought; but not
wishing to make his companions uneasy, he kept silence on the
subject.</p>
<p>The direction the projectile was taking towards the moon's
northern hemisphere, showed that her course had been slightly
altered. The discharge, mathematically calculated, would carry the
projectile to the very centre of the lunar disc. If it did not land
there, there must have been some deviation. What had caused it?
Barbicane could neither imagine nor determine the importance of the
deviation, for there were no points to go by.</p>
<p>He hoped, however, that it would have no other result than that of
bringing them near the upper border of the moon, a region more
suitable for landing.</p>
<p>Without imparting his uneasiness to his companions, Barbicane
contented himself with constantly observing the moon, in order to see
whether the course of the projectile would not be altered; for the
situation would have been terrible if it failed in its aim, and being
carried beyond the disc should be launched into interplanetary space.
At that moment, the moon, instead of appearing flat like a disc,
showed its convexity. If the sun's rays had struck it obliquely, the
shadow thrown would have brought out the high mountains, which would
have been clearly detached. The eye might have gazed into the
crater's gaping abysses, and followed the capricious fissures which
wound through the immense plains. But all relief was as yet levelled
in intense brilliancy. They could scarcely distinguish those large
spots which give to the moon the appearance of a human face.</p>
<p>"Face, indeed!" said Michel Ardan; "but I am sorry for the amiable
sister of Apollo. A very pitted face!"</p>
<p>But the travellers, now so near the end, were incessantly
observing this new world. They imagined themselves walking through
its unknown countries, climbing its highest peaks, descending into
its lowest depths. Here and there they fancied they saw vast seas,
scarcely kept together under so rarefied an atmosphere, and
watercourses emptying the mountain tributaries. Leaning over the
abyss, they hoped to catch some sounds from that orb for ever mute in
the solitude of space. That last day left them.</p>
<p>They took down the most trifling details. A vague uneasiness took
possession of them as they neared the end. This uneasiness would have
been doubled had they felt how their speed had decreased. It would
have seemed to them quite insufficient to carry them to the end. It
was because the projectile then "weighed" almost nothing. Its weight
was ever decreasing, and would be entirely annihilated on that line
where the lunar and terrestrial attractions would neutralize each
other.</p>
<p>But in spite of his preoccupation, Michel Ardan did not forget to
prepare the morning repast with his accustomed punctuality. They ate
with a good appetite. Nothing was so excellent as the soup liquefied
by the heat of the gas; nothing better than the preserved meat. Some
glasses of good French wine crowned the repast, causing Michel Ardan
to remark that the lunar vines, warmed by that ardent sun, ought to
distil even more generous wines; that is, if they existed. In any
case, the far-seeing Frenchman had taken care not to forget in his
collection some precious cuttings of the Médoc and Côte d'Or, upon
which he founded his hopes.</p>
<p>Reiset and Regnault's apparatus worked with great regularity. Not
an atom of carbonic acid resisted the potash; and as to the oxygen,
Captain Nicholl said "it was of the first quality." The little watery
vapour enclosed in the projectile mixing with the air tempered the
dryness; and many apartments in London, Paris, or New York, and many
theatres, were certainly not in such a healthy condition.</p>
<p>But that it might act with regularity, the apparatus must be kept
in perfect order; so each morning Michel visited the escape
regulators, tried the taps, and regulated the heat of the gas by the
pyrometer. Everything had gone well up to that time, and the
travellers, imitating the worthy Joseph T. Maston, began to acquire a
degree of embonpoint, which would have rendered them unrecognizable
if their imprisonment had been prolonged to some months. In a word,
they behaved like chickens in a coop; they were getting fat.</p>
<p>In looking through the scuttle Barbicane saw the spectre of the
dog, and other divers objects which had been thrown from the
projectile obstinately following them. Diana howled lugubriously on
seeing the remains of Satellite, which seemed as motionless as if
they reposed on the solid earth.</p>
<p>"Do you know, my friends," said Michel Ardan, "that if one of us
had succumbed to the shock consequent on departure, we should have
had a great deal of trouble to bury him? What am I saying? to
<i>etherize</i> him, as here ether takes the place of earth. You see
the accusing body would have followed us into space like a
remorse."</p>
<p>"That would have been sad," said Nicholl.</p>
<p>"Ah!" continued Michel, "what I regret is not being able to take a
walk outside. What voluptuousness to float amid this radiant ether,
to bathe oneself in it, to wrap oneself in the sun's pure rays. If
Barbicane had only thought of furnishing us with a diving apparatus
and an air-pump, I could have ventured out and assumed fanciful
attitudes of feigned monsters on the top of the projectile."</p>
<p>"Well, old Michel," replied Barbicane, "you would not have made a
feigned monster long, for in spite of your diver's dress, swollen by
the expansion of air within you, you would have burst like a shell,
or rather like a balloon which has risen too high. So do not regret
it, and do not forget this—as long as we float in space, all
sentimental walks beyond the projectile are forbidden."</p>
<p>Michel Ardan allowed himself to be convinced to a certain extent.
He admitted that the thing was difficult but not <i>impossible</i>, a
word which he never uttered.</p>
<p>The conversation passed from this subject to another, not failing
for an instant. It seemed to the three friends as though, under
present conditions, ideas shot up in their brains as leaves shoot at
the first warmth of spring. They felt bewildered. In the middle of
the questions and answers which crossed each other, Nicholl put one
question which did not find an immediate solution.</p>
<p>"Ah, indeed!" said he; "it is all very well to go to the moon, but
how to get back again?"</p>
<p>His two interlocutors looked surprised. One would have thought
that this possibility now occurred to them for the first time.</p>
<p>"What do you mean by that, Nicholl?" asked Barbicane gravely.</p>
<p>"To ask for means to leave a country," added Michel, "when we have
not yet arrived there, seems to me rather inopportune."</p>
<p>"I do not say that, wishing to draw back," replied Nicholl; "but I
repeat my question, and I ask, 'How shall we return?'"</p>
<p>"I know nothing about it," answered Barbicane.</p>
<p>"And I," said Michel, "if I had known how to return, I would never
have started."</p>
<div class="illus"><ANTIMG alt="Illustration: I COULD HAVE VENTURED OUT ON THE TOP OF THE PROJECTILE." id="ventured" src="images/ventured.jpg" /></div>
<div class="caption">"I COULD HAVE VENTURED OUT ON THE TOP OF THE
PROJECTILE."</div>
<p>"There's an answer!" cried Nicholl.</p>
<p>"I quite approve of Michel's words," said Barbicane; "and add,
that the question has no real interest. Later, when we think it
advisable to return, we will take counsel together. If the Columbiad
is not there, the projectile will be."</p>
<p>"That is a step certainly. A ball without a gun!"</p>
<p>"The gun," replied Barbicane, "can be manufactured. The powder can
be made. Neither metals, saltpetre, nor coal can fail in the depths
of the moon, and we need only go 8000 leagues in order to fall upon
the terrestrial globe by virtue of the mere laws of weight."</p>
<p>"Enough," said Michel with animation. "Let it be no longer a
question of returning: we have already entertained it too long. As to
communicating with our former earthly colleagues, that will not be
difficult."</p>
<p>"And how?"</p>
<p>"By means of meteors launched by lunar volcanos."</p>
<p>"Well thought of, Michel," said Barbicane in a convinced tone of
voice. "Laplace has calculated that a force five times greater than
that of our gun would suffice to send a meteor from the moon to the
earth, and there is not one volcano which has not a greater power of
propulsion than that."</p>
<p>"Hurrah!" exclaimed Michel; "these meteors are handy postmen, and
cost nothing. And how we shall be able to laugh at the post-office
administration. But now I think of it—"</p>
<p>"What do you think of?"</p>
<p>"A capital idea. Why did we not fasten a thread to our projectile,
and we could have exchanged telegrams with the earth?"</p>
<p>"The deuce!" answered Nicholl. "Do you consider the weight of a
thread 250,000 miles long nothing?"</p>
<p>"As nothing. They could have trebled the Columbiad's charge; they
could have quadrupled or quintupled it!" exclaimed Michel, with whom
the verb took a higher intonation each time.</p>
<p>"There is but one little objection to make to your proposition,"
replied Barbicane, "which is that, during the rotary motion of the
globe, our thread would have wound itself round it like a chain on a
capstan, and that it would inevitably have brought us to the
ground."</p>
<p>"By the thirty-nine stars of the Union!" said Michel, "I have
nothing but impracticable ideas to-day; ideas worthy of J. T. Maston.
But I have a notion that, if we do not return to earth, J. T. Maston
will be able to come to us."</p>
<p>"Yes, he'll come," replied Barbicane; "he is a worthy and a
courageous comrade. Besides, what is easier? Is not the Columbiad
still buried in the soil of Florida? Is cotton and nitric acid wanted
wherewith to manufacture the pyroxile? Will not the moon again pass
to the zenith of Florida? In eighteen years' time will she not occupy
exactly the same place as to-day?"</p>
<p>"Yes," continued Michel, "yes, Marston will come, and with him our
friends Elphinstone, Blomsberry, all the members of the Gun Club, and
they will be well received. And by and by they will run trains of
projectiles between the earth and the moon! Hurrah for J. T.
Maston!"</p>
<p>It is probable that, if the Hon. J. T. Maston did not hear the
hurrahs uttered in his honour, his ears at least tingled. What was he
doing then? Doubtless posted in the Rocky Mountains, at the station
of Long's Peak, he was trying to find the invisible projectile
gravitating in space. If he was thinking of his dear companions, we
must allow that they were not far behind him; and that, under the
influence of a strange excitement, they were devoting to him their
best thoughts.</p>
<p>But whence this excitement, which was evidently growing upon the
tenants of the projectile? Their sobriety could not be doubted. This
strange irritation of the brain, must it be attributed to the
peculiar circumstances under which they found themselves, to their
proximity to the orb of night, from which only a few hours separated
them, to some secret influence of the moon acting upon their nervous
system? Their faces were as rosy as if they had been exposed to the
roaring flames of an oven; their voices resounded in loud accents;
their words escaped like a champagne cork driven out by carbonic
acid; their gestures became annoying, they wanted so much room to
perform them; and, strange to say, they none of them noticed this
great tension of the mind.</p>
<p>"Now," said Nicholl, in a short tone, "now that I do not know
whether we shall ever return from the moon, I want to know what we
are going to do there?"</p>
<p>"What we are going to do there?" replied Barbicane, stamping with
his foot as if he was in a fencing saloon; "I do not know."</p>
<p>"You do not know!" exclaimed Michel, with a bellow which provoked
a sonorous echo in the projectile.</p>
<p>"No, I have not even thought about it," retorted Barbicane, in the
same loud tone.</p>
<p>"Well, I know," replied Michel.</p>
<p>"Speak, then," cried Nicholl, who could no longer contain the
growling of his voice.</p>
<p>"I shall speak if it suits me," exclaimed Michel, seizing his
companions' arms with violence.</p>
<p>"<i>It must</i> suit you," said Barbicane, with an eye on fire and
a threatening hand. "It was you who drew us into this frightful
journey, and we want to know what for."</p>
<p>"Yes," said the captain, "now that I do not know <i>where</i> I am going,
I want to know <i>why</i> I am going."</p>
<p>"Why?" exclaimed 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 colonize the lunar regions; to
cultivate them, to people them, to transport thither all the
prodigies of art, of science, and industry; to civilize the
Selenites, unless they are more civilized than we are; and to
constitute them a republic, if they are not already one!"</p>
<p>"And if there are no Selenites?" retorted Nicholl, who, under the
influence of this unaccountable intoxication, was very
contradictory.</p>
<p>"Who said that there were no Selenites?" exclaimed Michel in a
threatening tone.</p>
<p>"I do," howled Nicholl.</p>
<p>"Captain," said Michel, "do not repeat that insolence, or I will
knock your teeth down your throat!"</p>
<p>The two adversaries were going to fall upon each other, and the
incoherent discussion threatened to merge into a fight, when
Barbicane intervened with one bound.</p>
<p>"Stop, miserable men," said he, separating his two companions; "if
there are no Selenites, we will do without them."</p>
<p>"Yes," exclaimed Michel, who was not particular; "yes, we will do
without them. We have only to make Selenites. Down with the
Selenites!"</p>
<p>"The empire of the moon belongs to us," said Nicholl. "Let us
three constitute the republic."</p>
<p>"I will be the congress," cried Michel.</p>
<p>"And I the senate," retorted Nicholl.</p>
<p>"And Barbicane, the president," howled Michel.</p>
<p>"Not a president elected by the nation," replied Barbicane.</p>
<p>"Very well, a president elected by the congress," cried Michel;
"and as I am the congress, you are unanimously elected!"</p>
<p>"Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! for President Barbicane," exclaimed
Nicholl.</p>
<p>"Hip! hip! hip!" vociferated Michel Ardan.</p>
<p>Then the President and the Senate struck up in a tremendous voice
the popular song "Yankee Doodle," whilst from the Congress resounded
the masculine tones of the "Marseillaise."</p>
<p>Then they struck up a frantic dance, with maniacal gestures,
idiotic stampings, and somersaults like those of the boneless clowns
in the circus. Diana, joining in the dance, and howling in her turn,
jumped to the top of the projectile. An unaccountable flapping of
wings was then heard amidst most fantastic cock-crows, while five or
six hens fluttered like bats against the walls.</p>
<div class="illus"><ANTIMG alt="Illustration: THEY STRUCK UP A FRANTIC DANCE." id="frantic" src=
"images/frantic.jpg" /></div>
<div class="caption">THEY STRUCK UP A FRANTIC DANCE.</div>
<p>Then the three travelling companions, acted upon by some
unaccountable influence above that of intoxication, inflamed by the
air which had set their respiratory apparatus on fire, fell
motionless to the bottom of the projectile.</p>
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