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"You know
the Cambridge men said the journey had to be done in 97 hours 13 minutes
and 20 seconds. That's as much as to say that if we're not up to time we
shall miss the Moon."

"Correct," said Barbican. "But we _can't_ be behind time. We started,
you know, on December 1st, at 13 minutes and 20 seconds before 11
o'clock, and we were to arrive four days later at midnight precisely.
To-day is December 5th Gentlemen, please examine your watches. It is now
half past three in the afternoon. Eight hours and a half are sufficient
to take us to our journey's end. Why should we not arrive there?"

"How about being ahead of time?" asked the Captain.

"Just so!" said Ardan. "You know we have discovered the initial velocity
to have been greater than was expected."

"Not at all! not at all!" cried Barbican "A slight excess of velocity
would have done no harm whatever had the direction of the Projectile
been perfectly true. No. There must have been a digression. We must have
been switched off!"

"Switched off? By what?" asked both his listeners in one breath.

"I can't tell," said Barbican curtly.

"Well!" said Ardan; "if Barbican can't tell, there is an end to all
further talk on the subject. We're switched off--that's enough for me.
What has done it? I don't care. Where are we going to? I don't care.
What is the use of pestering our brains about it? We shall soon find
out. We are floating around in space, and we shall end by hauling up
somewhere or other."

But in this indifference Barbican was far from participating. Not that
he was not prepared to meet the future with a bold and manly heart. It
was his inability to answer his own question that rendered him uneasy.
What _had_ switched them off? He would have given worlds for an answer,
but his brain sorely puzzled sought one in vain.

In the mean time, the Projectile continued to turn its side rather than
its base towards the Moon; that is, to assume a lateral rather than a
direct movement, and this movement was fully participated in by the
multitude of the objects that had been thrown outside. Barbican could
even convince himself by sighting several points on the lunar surface,
by this time hardly more than fifteen or eighteen thousand miles
distant, that the velocity of the Projectile instead of accelerating was
becoming more and more uniform. This was another proof that there was
no perpendicular fall. However, though the original impulsive force was
still superior to the Moon's attraction, the travellers were evidently
approaching the lunar disc, and there was every reason to hope that they
would at last reach a point where, the lunar attraction at last having
the best of it, a decided fall should be the result.

The three friends, it need hardly be said, continued to make their
observations with redoubled interest, if redoubled interest were
possible. But with all their care they could as yet determine nothing
regarding the topographical details of our radiant satellite.

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