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lights of the Projectile.

Ardan and the Captain had commenced examining the floor, previous to
operating on the bottom light. But Barbican was the first to get through
his work at one of the side lights, and M'Nicholl and Ardan soon heard
him shouting:

"No, my friends!" he exclaimed, in tones of decided emotion; "we have
_not_ fallen back to Earth; nor are we lying in the bottom of the Gulf
of Mexico. No! We are driving through space! Look at the stars
glittering all around! Brighter, but smaller than we have ever seen them
before! We have left the Earth and the Earth's atmosphere far behind
us!"

"Hurrah! Hurrah!" cried M'Nicholl and Ardan, feeling as if electric
shocks were coursing through them, though they could see nothing,
looking down from the side light, but the blackest and profoundest
obscurity.

Barbican soon convinced them that this pitchy blackness proved that they
were not, and could not be, reposing on the surface of the Earth, where
at that moment, everything was illuminated by the bright moonlight; also
that they had passed the different layers of the atmosphere, where the
diffused and refracted rays would be also sure to reveal themselves
through the lights of the Projectile. They were, therefore, certainly
moving. No doubt was longer possible.

"It's a fact!" observed the Captain, now quite convinced. "Then I've
lost!"

"Let me congratulate you!" cried Ardan, shaking his hand.

"Here is your nine thousand dollars, friend Barbican," said the Captain,
taking a roll of greenbacks of high denomination out of his
porte-monnaie.

"You want a receipt, don't you, Captain?" asked Barbican, counting the
money.

"Yes, I should prefer one, if it is not too much trouble," answered
M'Nicholl; "it saves dispute."

Coolly and mechanically, as if seated at his desk, in his office,
Barbican opened his memorandum book, wrote a receipt on a blank page,
dated, signed and sealed it, and then handed it to the Captain, who put
it away carefully among the other papers of his portfolio.

Ardan, taking off his hat, made a profound bow to both of his
companions, without saying a word. Such formality, under such
extraordinary circumstances, actually paralysed his tongue for the
moment. No wonder that he could not understand those Americans. Even
Indians would have surprised him by an exhibition of such stoicism.
After indulging in silent wonder for a minute or two, he joined his
companions who were now busy looking out at the starry sky.

"Where is the Moon?" he asked. "How is it that we cannot see her?"

"The fact of our not seeing her," answered Barbican, "gives me very
great satisfaction in one respect; it shows that our Projectile was shot
so rapidly out of the Columbiad that it had not time to be impressed
with the slightest revolving motion--for us a most fortunate matter. As
for the rest--see, there is _Cassiopeia_, a little to the left is
_Andromeda_, further down is the great square of _Pegasus_, and to the

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