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of the Projectile and remained there awhile whistling _Malbrouk_, whilst
his companions amused themselves in looking through the floor window.

Ardan was coming down the ladder, when his whistling was cut short by a
sudden exclamation of surprise.

"What's the matter?" asked Barbican quickly, as he looked up and saw the
Frenchman pointing to something outside the Projectile.

Approaching the window, Barbican saw with much surprise a sort of
flattened bag floating in space and only a few yards off. It seemed
perfectly motionless, and, consequently, the travellers knew that it
must be animated by the same ascensional movement as themselves.

"What on earth can such a consarn be, Barbican?" asked Ardan, who every
now and then liked to ventilate his stock of American slang. "Is it one
of those particles of meteoric matter you were speaking of just now,
caught within the sphere of our Projectile's attraction and accompanying
us to the Moon?"

"What I am surprised at," observed the Captain, "is that though the
specific gravity of that body is far inferior to that of our Projectile,
it moves with exactly the same velocity."

"Captain," said Barbican, after a moment's reflection, "I know no more
what that object is than you do, but I can understand very well why it
keeps abreast with the Projectile."

"Very well then, why?"

"Because, my dear Captain, we are moving through a vacuum, and because
all bodies fall or move--the same thing--with equal velocity through a
vacuum, no matter what may be their shape or their specific gravity. It
is the air alone that makes a difference of weight. Produce an
artificial vacuum in a glass tube and you will see that all objects
whatever falling through, whether bits of feather or grains of shot,
move with precisely the same rapidity. Up here, in space, like cause and
like effect."

"Correct," assented M'Nicholl. "Everything therefore that we shall throw
out of the Projectile is bound to accompany us to the Moon."

"Well, we _were_ smart!" cried Ardan suddenly.

"How so, friend Michael?" asked Barbican.

"Why not have packed the Projectile with ever so many useful objects,
books, instruments, tools, et cetera, and fling them out into space once
we were fairly started! They would have all followed us safely! Nothing
would have been lost! And--now I think on it--why not fling ourselves
out through the window? Shouldn't we be as safe out there as that
bolide? What fun it would be to feel ourselves sustained and upborne in
the ether, more highly favored even than the birds, who must keep on
flapping their wings continually to prevent themselves from falling!"

"Very true, my dear boy," observed Barbican; "but how could we breathe?"

"It's a fact," exclaimed the Frenchman. "Hang the air for spoiling our
fun! So we must remain shut up in our Projectile?"

"Not a doubt of it!"

--"Oh Thunder!" roared Ardan, suddenly striking his forehead.

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