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"_Must_ fall!" he exclaimed, starting up suddenly. "Let us see about
that! It is now seven o'clock in the morning. We must have, therefore,
been at least thirty-two hours on the road, and more than half of our
passage is already made. If we are going to fall at all, we must be
falling now! I'm certain we're not, but, Barbican, you have to find it
out!"

Barbican caught the idea like lightning, and, seizing a compass, he
began through the floor window to measure the visual angle of the
distant Earth. The apparent immobility of the Projectile allowed him to
do this with great exactness. Then laying aside the instrument, and
wiping off the thick drops of sweat that bedewed his forehead, he began
jotting down some figures on a piece of paper. The Captain looked on
with keen interest; he knew very well that Barbican was calculating
their distance from the Earth by the apparent measure of the terrestrial
diameter, and he eyed him anxiously.

Pretty soon his friends saw a color stealing into Barbican's pale face,
and a triumphant light glittering in his eye.

"No, my brave boys!" he exclaimed at last throwing down his pencil,
"we're not falling! Far from it, we are at present more than 150
thousand miles from the Earth!"

"Hurrah!" }
"Bravo!" } cried M'Nicholl and Ardan, in a breath.

"We have passed the point where we should have stopped if we had had no
more initial velocity than the Cambridge men allowed us!"

"Hurrah! hurrah!"

"Bravo, Bravissimo!"

"And we're still going up!"

"Glory, glory, hallelujah!" sang M'Nicholl, in the highest excitement.

"_Vive ce cher Barbican!_" cried Ardan, bursting into French as usual
whenever his feelings had the better of him.

"Of course we're marching on!" continued M'Nicholl, "and I know the
reason why, too. Those 400,000 pounds of gun-cotton gave us greater
initial velocity than we had expected!"

"You're right, Captain!" added Barbican; "besides, you must not forget
that, by getting rid of the water, the Projectile was relieved of
considerable weight!"

"Correct again!" cried the Captain. "I had not thought of that!"

"Therefore, my brave boys," continued Barbican, with some excitement;
"away with melancholy! We're all right!"

"Yes; everything is lovely and the goose hangs high!" cried the Captain,
who on grand occasions was not above a little slang.

"Talking of goose reminds me of breakfast," cried Ardan; "I assure you,
my fright has not taken away my appetite!"

"Yes," continued Barbican. "Captain, you're quite right. Our initial
velocity very fortunately was much greater than what our Cambridge
friends had calculated for us!"

"Hang our Cambridge friends and their calculations!" cried Ardan, with
some asperity; "as usual with your scientific men they've more brass
than brains! If we're not now bed-fellows with the oysters in the Gulf
of Mexico, no thanks to our kind Cambridge friends. But talking of
oysters, let me remind you again that breakfast is ready.

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