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free to say, rather perplexes me. Since our Earth lies between us and
the Sun, why don't we see the sunlight forming a great ring around the
globe, in other words, instead of the full Sun that we plainly see there
below, why do we not witness an annular eclipse?"

"Your cool, clear head has not yet quite recovered from the shock, my
dear Captain;" replied Barbican, with a smile. "For two reasons we can't
see the ring eclipse: on account of the angle the Moon's orbit makes
with the Earth, the three bodies are not at present in a direct line;
we, therefore, see the Sun a little to the west of the earth; secondly,
even if they were exactly in a straight line, we should still be far
from the point whence an annular eclipse would be visible."

"That's true," said Ardan; "the cone of the Earth's shadow must extend
far beyond the Moon."

"Nearly four times as far," said Barbican; "still, as the Moon's orbit
and the Earth's do not lie in exactly the same plane, a Lunar eclipse
can occur only when the nodes coincide with the period of the Full Moon,
which is generally twice, never more than three times in a year. If we
had started about four days before the occurrence of a Lunar eclipse, we
should travel all the time in the dark. This would have been obnoxious
for many reasons."

"One, for instance?"

"An evident one is that, though at the present moment we are moving
through a vacuum, our Projectile, steeped in the solar rays, revels in
their light and heat. Hence great saving in gas, an important point in
our household economy."

In effect, the solar rays, tempered by no genial medium like our
atmosphere, soon began to glare and glow with such intensity, that the
Projectile under their influence, felt like suddenly passing from winter
to summer. Between the Moon overhead and the Sun beneath it was actually
inundated with fiery rays.

"One feels good here," cried the Captain, rubbing his hands.

"A little too good," cried Ardan. "It's already like a hot-house. With a
little garden clay, I could raise you a splendid crop of peas in
twenty-four hours. I hope in heaven the walls of our Projectile won't
melt like wax!"

"Don't be alarmed, dear friend," observed Barbican, quietly. "The
Projectile has seen the worst as far as heat is concerned; when tearing
through the atmosphere, she endured a temperature with which what she is
liable to at present stands no comparison. In fact, I should not be
astonished if, in the eyes of our friends at Stony Hill, it had
resembled for a moment or two a red-hot meteor."

"Poor Marston must have looked on us as roasted alive!" observed Ardan.

"What could have saved us I'm sure I can't tell," replied Barbican. "I
must acknowledge that against such a danger, I had made no provision
whatever."

"I knew all about it," said the Captain, "and on the strength of it, I
had laid my fifth wager."

"Probably," laughed Ardan, "there was not time enough to get grilled in:

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