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In
fact, all precautions possible, humanly speaking, had been taken to
counteract this, the first, and possibly one of the very greatest
dangers to which the courageous adventurers would be exposed.
Ardan expressed himself to be quite pleased with the appearance of
things in general.
"It's a prison, to be sure," said he "but not one of your ordinary
prisons that always keep in the one spot. For my part, as long as I can
have the privilege of looking out of the window, I am willing to lease
it for a hundred years. Ah! Barbican, that brings out one of your stony
smiles. You think our lease may last longer than that! Our tenement may
become our coffin, eh? Be it so. I prefer it anyway to Mahomet's; it may
indeed float in the air, but it won't be motionless as a milestone!"
[Illustration: TURN ON THE GAS.]
Barbican, having made sure by personal inspection that everything was in
perfect order, consulted his chronometer, which he had carefully set a
short time before with Chief Engineer Murphy's, who had been charged to
fire off the Projectile.
"Friends," he said, "it is now twenty minutes past ten. At 10 46' 40'',
precisely, Murphy will send the electric current into the gun-cotton. We
have, therefore, twenty-six minutes more to remain on earth."
"Twenty-six minutes and twenty seconds," observed Captain M'Nicholl, who
always aimed at mathematical precision.
"Twenty-six minutes!" cried Ardan, gaily. "An age, a cycle, according to
the use you make of them. In twenty-six minutes how much can be done!
The weightiest questions of warfare, politics, morality, can be
discussed, even decided, in twenty-six minutes. Twenty-six minutes well
spent are infinitely more valuable than twenty-six lifetimes wasted! A
few seconds even, employed by a Pascal, or a Newton, or a Barbican, or
any other profoundly intellectual being
Whose thoughts wander through eternity--"
"As mad as Marston! Every bit!" muttered the Captain, half audibly.
"What do you conclude from this rigmarole of yours?" interrupted
Barbican.
"I conclude that we have twenty-six good minutes still left--"
"Only twenty-four minutes, ten seconds," interrupted the Captain, watch
in hand.
"Well, twenty-four minutes, Captain," Ardan went on; "now even in
twenty-four minutes, I maintain--"
"Ardan," interrupted Barbican, "after a very little while we shall have
plenty of time for philosophical disputations. Just now let us think of
something far more pressing."
"More pressing! what do you mean? are we not fully prepared?"
"Yes, fully prepared, as far at least as we have been able to foresee.
But we may still, I think, possibly increase the number of precautions
to be taken against the terrible shock that we are so soon to
experience."
"What? Have you any doubts whatever of the effectiveness of your
brilliant and extremely original idea? Don't you think that the layers
of water, regularly disposed in easily-ruptured partitions beneath this
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