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They are the
most ill-treated brutes in all creation. They are not only banged during
life; they are banged worse after death!"
"Hey! How do you make that out?" asked his companions, surprised.
"Because we make their skins into drum heads!" replied Ardan, with an
air, as if answering a conundrum.
Barbican and M'Nicholl could hardly help laughing at the absurd reply of
their lively companion, but their hilarity was soon stopped by the
expression his face assumed as he bent over Satellite's body, where it
lay stretched on the sofa.
"What's the matter now?" asked Barbican.
"Satellite's attack is over," replied Ardan.
"Good!" said M'Nicholl, misunderstanding him.
"Yes, I suppose it is good for the poor fellow," observed Ardan, in
melancholy accents. "Life with one's skull broken is hardly an enviable
possession. Our grand acclimatization project is knocked sky high, in
more senses than one!"
There was no doubt of the poor dog's death. The expression of Ardan's
countenance, as he looked at his friends, was of a very rueful order.
"Well," said the practical Barbican, "there's no help for that now; the
next thing to be done is to get rid of the body. We can't keep it here
with us forty-eight hours longer."
"Of course not," replied the Captain, "nor need we; our lights, being
provided with hinges, can be lifted back. What is to prevent us from
opening one of them, and flinging the body out through it!"
The President of the Gun Club reflected a few minutes; then he spoke:
"Yes, it can be done; but we must take the most careful precautions."
"Why so?" asked Ardan.
"For two simple reasons;" replied Barbican; "the first refers to the air
enclosed in the Projectile, and of which we must be very careful to lose
only the least possible quantity."
"But as we manufacture air ourselves!" objected Ardan.
"We manufacture air only partly, friend Michael," replied Barbican. "We
manufacture only oxygen; we can't supply nitrogen--By the bye, Ardan,
won't you watch the apparatus carefully every now and then to see that
the oxygen is not generated too freely. Very serious consequences would
attend an immoderate supply of oxygen--No, we can't manufacture
nitrogen, which is so absolutely necessary for our air and which might
escape readily through the open windows."
"What! the few seconds we should require for flinging out poor
Satellite?"
"A very few seconds indeed they should be," said Barbican, very gravely.
"Your second reason?" asked Ardan.
"The second reason is, that we must not allow the external cold, which
must be exceedingly great, to penetrate into our Projectile and freeze
us alive."
"But the Sun, you know--"
"Yes, the Sun heats our Projectile, but it does not heat the vacuum
through which we are now floating. Where there is no air there can
neither be heat nor light; just as wherever the rays of the Sun do not
arrive directly, it must be both cold and dark.
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