"What do you mean by 'relatively motionless'?" asked M'Nicholl, who was carefully studying the situation.
"I mean, of course, not absolutely motionless," answered Barbican; "absolute immobility is, as you are well aware, altogether impossible, but motionless with regard to the Earth and the—"
"By Mahomet's jackass!" interrupted Ardan hastily, "I must say we're a precious set of imbéciles!"
"I don't deny it, dear friend," said Barbican quietly, notwithstanding the unceremonious interruption; "but why do you say so just now?"
"Because though we are possessed of the power of retarding the velocity that takes us from the Moon, we have never thought of employing it!"
"What do you mean?"
"Do you forget the rockets?"
"It's a fact!" cried M'Nicholl. "How have we forgotten them?"
"I'm sure I can't tell," answered Barbican, "unless, perhaps, because we had too many other things to think about. Your thought, my dear friend, is a most happy one, and, of course, we shall utilize it."
"When? How soon?"
"At the first favorable opportunity, not sooner. For you can see for yourselves, dear friends," he went on explaining, "that with the present obliquity of the Projectile with regard to the lunar disc, a discharge of our rockets would be more likely to send us away from the Moon than towards her. Of course, you are both still desirous of reaching the Moon?"
"Most emphatically so!"
"Then by reserving our rockets for the last chance, we may possibly get there after all. In consequence of some force, to me utterly inexplicable, the Projectile still seems disposed to turn its base towards the Earth. In fact, it is likely enough that at the neutral point its cone will point vertically to the Moon. That being the moment when its velocity will most probably be nil, it will also be the moment for us to discharge our rockets, and the possibility is that we may force a direct fall on the lunar disc."
"Good!" cried Ardan, clapping hands.
"Why didn't we execute this grand manoeuvre the first time we reached the neutral point?" asked M'Nicholl a little crustily.
"It would be useless," answered Barbican; "the Projectile's velocity at that time, as you no doubt remember, not only did not need rockets, but was actually too great to be affected by them."
"True!" chimed in Ardan; "a wind of four miles an hour is very little use to a steamer going ten."
"That assertion," cried M'Nicholl, "I am rather dis—"
—"Dear friends," interposed Barbican, his pale face beaming and his clear voice ringing with the new excitement; "let us just now waste no time in mere words. We have one more chance, perhaps a great one. Let us not throw it away! We have been on the brink of despair—"
—"Beyond it!" cried Ardan.
—"But I now begin to see a possibility, nay, a very decided probability, of our being able to attain the great end at last!"
"Bravo!" cried Ardan.
"Hurrah!" cried M'Nicholl.
"Yes! my brave boys!" cried Barbican as enthusiastically as his companions; "all's not over yet by a long shot!"
What had brought about this great revulsion in the spirits of our bold adventurers? The breakfast? Prince Esterhazy's Tokay? The latter, most probably. What had become of the resolutions they had discussed so ably and passed so decidedly a few hours before? Was the Moon inhabited? No! Was the Moon habitable? No! Yet in the face of all this—or rather as coolly as if such subjects had never been alluded to—here were the reckless scientists actually thinking of nothing but how to work heaven and earth in order to get there!
One question more remained to be answered before they played their last trump, namely: "At what precise moment would the Projectile reach the neutral point?"
To this Barbican had very little trouble in finding an answer. The time spent in proceeding from the south pole to the dead point being evidently equal to the time previously spent in proceeding from the dead point to the north pole—to ascertain the former, he had only to calculate the latter. This was easily done. To refer to his notes, to check off the different rates of velocity at which they had readied the different parallels, and to turn these rates into time, required only a very few minutes careful calculation. The Projectile then was to reach the point of neutral attraction at one o'clock in the morning of December 8th. At the present time, it was five o'clock in the morning of the 7th; therefore, if nothing unforeseen should occur in the meantime, their great and final effort was to be made about twenty hours later.
The rockets, so often alluded to as an idea of Ardan's and already fully described, had been originally provided to break the violence of the Projectile's fall on the lunar surface; but now the dauntless travellers were about to employ them for a purpose precisely the reverse. In any case, having been put in proper order for immediate use, nothing more now remained to be done till the moment should come for firing them off.
"Now then, friends," said M'Nicholl, rubbing his eyes but hardly able to keep them open, "I'm not over fond of talking, but this time I think I may offer a slight proposition."
"We shall be most happy to entertain it, my dear Captain," said Barbican.
"I propose we lie down and take a good nap."
"Good gracious!" protested Ardan; "What next?"
"We have not had a blessed wink for forty hours," continued the Captain; "a little sleep would recuperate us wonderfully."
"No sleep now!" exclaimed Ardan.
"Every man to his taste!" said M'Nicholl; "mine at present is certainly to turn in!" and suiting the action to the word, he coiled himself on the sofa, and in a few minutes his deep regular breathing showed his slumber to be as tranquil as an infant's.
Barbican looked at him in a kindly way, but only for a very short time; his eyes grew so filmy that he could not keep them open any longer. "The Captain," he said, "may not be without his little faults, but for good practical sense he is worth a ship-load like you and me, Ardan. By Jove, I'm going to imitate him, and, friend Michael, you might do worse!"
In a short time he was as unconscious as the Captain.
Ardan gazed on the pair for a few minutes, and then began to feel quite lonely. Even his animals were fast asleep. He tried to look out, but observing without having anybody to listen to your observations, is dull work. He looked again at the sleeping pair, and then he gave in.
"It can't be denied," he muttered, slowly nodding his head, "that even your practical men sometimes stumble on a good idea."
Then curling up his long legs, and folding his arms under his head, his restless brain was soon forming fantastic shapes for itself in the mysterious land of dreams.
But his slumbers were too much disturbed to last long. After an uneasy, restless, unrefreshing attempt at repose, he sat up at about half-past seven o'clock, and began stretching himself, when he found his companions already awake and discussing the situation in whispers.
The Projectile, they were remarking, was still pursuing its way from the Moon, and turning its conical point more and more in her direction. This latter phenomenon, though as puzzling as ever, Barbican regarded with decided pleasure: the more directly the conical summit pointed to the Moon at the exact moment, the more directly towards her surface would the rockets communicate their reactionary motion.
Nearly seventeen hours, however, were still to elapse before that moment, that all important moment, would arrive.
The time began to drag. The excitement produced by the Moon's vicinity had died out. Our travellers, though as daring and as confident as ever, could not help feeling a certain sinking of heart at the approach of the moment for deciding either alternative of their doom in this world—their fall to the Moon, or their eternal imprisonment in a changeless orbit. Barbican