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city or lonely country, continually experience every shock that thrills
the Earth's crust? At sea, where between waves or winds or paddles or
screws or machinery, everything is tremor, quiver or jar? In the air,
where the balloon is incessantly twirling, oscillating, on account of
the ever varying strata of different densities, and even occasionally
threatening to spill you out? The Projectile alone, floating grandly
through the absolute void, in the midst of the profoundest silence,
could offer to its inmates the possibility of enjoying slumber the most
complete, repose the most profound.
There is no telling how long our three daring travellers would have
continued to enjoy their sleep, if it had not been suddenly terminated
by an unexpected noise about seven o'clock in the morning of December
2nd, eight hours after their departure.
This noise was most decidedly of barking.
"The dogs! It's the dogs!" cried Ardan, springing up at a bound.
"They must be hungry!" observed the Captain.
"We have forgotten the poor creatures!" cried Barbican.
"Where can they have gone to?" asked Ardan, looking for them in all
directions.
At last they found one of them hiding under the sofa. Thunderstruck and
perfectly bewildered by the terrible shock, the poor animal had kept
close in its hiding place, never daring to utter a sound, until at last
the pangs of hunger had proved too strong even for its fright.
They readily recognized the amiable Diana, but they could not allure the
shivering, whining animal from her retreat without a good deal of
coaxing. Ardan talked to her in his most honeyed and seductive accents,
while trying to pull her out by the neck.
"Come out to your friends, charming Diana," he went on, "come out, my
beauty, destined for a lofty niche in the temple of canine glory! Come
out, worthy scion of a race deemed worthy by the Egyptians to be a
companion of the great god, Anubis, by the Christians, to be a friend of
the good Saint Roch! Come out and partake of a glory before which the
stars of Montargis and of St. Bernard shall henceforward pale their
ineffectual fire! Come out, my lady, and let me think o'er the countless
multiplication of thy species, so that, while sailing through the
interplanetary spaces, we may indulge in endless flights of fancy on
the number and variety of thy descendants who will ere long render the
Selenitic atmosphere vocal with canine ululation!"
[Illustration: MORE HUNGRY THAN EITHER.]
Diana, whether flattered or not, allowed herself to be dragged out,
still uttering short, plaintive whines. A hasty examination satisfying
her friends that she was more frightened than hurt and more hungry than
either, they continued their search for her companion.
"Satellite! Satellite! Step this way, sir!" cried Ardan. But no
Satellite appeared and, what was worse, not the slightest sound indicated
his presence. At last he was discovered on a ledge in the upper portion
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