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than watch and wait.
The Projectile was certainly approaching the Moon. It had by this time
turned over considerably under the influence of attraction, but its own
original motion still followed a decidedly oblique direction. The
consequence of these two forces might possibly be a tangent, line
approaching the edge of the Moon's disc. One thing was certain: the
Projectile had not yet commenced to fall directly towards her surface;
its base, in which its centre of gravity lay, was still turned away
considerably from the perpendicular.
Barbican's countenance soon showed perplexity and even alarm. His
Projectile was proving intractable to the laws of gravitation. The
_unknown_ was opening out dimly before him, the great boundless unknown
of the starry plains. In his pride and confidence as a scientist, he had
flattered himself with having sounded the consequence of every possible
hypothesis regarding the Projectile's ultimate fate: the return to the
Earth; the arrival at the Moon; and the motionless dead stop at the
neutral point. But here, a new and incomprehensible fourth hypothesis,
big with the terrors of the mystic infinite, rose up before his
disturbed mind, like a grim and hollow ghost. After a few seconds,
however, he looked at it straight in the face without wincing. His
companions showed themselves just as firm. Whether it was science that
emboldened Barbican, his phlegmatic stoicism that propped up the
Captain, or his enthusiastic vivacity that cheered the irrepressible
Ardan, I cannot exactly say. But certainly they were all soon talking
over the matter as calmly as you or I would discuss the advisability of
taking a sail on the lake some beautiful evening in July.
Their first remarks were decidedly peculiar and quite characteristic.
Other men would have asked themselves where the Projectile was taking
them to. Do you think such a question ever occurred to them? Not a bit
of it. They simply began asking each other what could have been the
cause of this new and strange state of things.
"Off the track, it appears," observed Ardan. "How's that?"
"My opinion is," answered the Captain, "that the Projectile was not
aimed true. Every possible precaution had been taken, I am well aware,
but we all know that an inch, a line, even the tenth part of a hair's
breadth wrong at the start would have sent us thousands of miles off our
course by this time."
"What have you to say to that, Barbican?" asked Ardan.
"I don't think there was any error at the start," was the confident
reply; "not even so much as a line! We took too many tests proving the
absolute perpendicularity of the Columbiad, to entertain the slightest
doubt on that subject. Its direction towards the zenith being
incontestable, I don't see why we should not reach the Moon when she
comes to the zenith."
"Perhaps we're behind time," suggested Ardan.
"What have you to say to that, Barbican?" asked the Captain.
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