Round the Moon - Jules Verne (books to read in your 20s .TXT) 📗

Barbicane and his companions immediately rushed to the uncovered porthole. No ray of light illuminated it. Profound darkness surrounded the projectile. This darkness did not prevent Barbicane exclaiming⁠—

“No, my friends, we have not fallen on the earth again! No, we are not immersed at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico! Yes, we are going up through space! Look at those stars that are shining in the darkness, and the impenetrable darkness that lies between the earth and us!”

“Hurrah! hurrah!” cried Michel Ardan and Nicholl with one voice.

In fact, the thick darkness proved that the projectile had left the earth, for the ground, then brilliantly lighted by the moon, would have appeared before the eyes of the travellers if they had been resting upon it. This darkness proved also that the projectile had passed beyond the atmosphere, for the diffused light in the air would have been reflected on the metallic sides of the projectile, which reflection was also wanting. This light would have shone upon the glass of the light-port, and that glass was in darkness. Doubt was no longer possible. The travellers had quitted the earth.

“I have lost.” said Nicholl.

“I congratulate you upon it,” answered Ardan.

“Here are nine thousand dollars,” said the captain, taking a bundle of notes out of his pocket.

“Will you have a receipt?” asked Barbicane as he took the money.

“If you do not mind,” answered Nicholl; “it is more regular.”

And as seriously and phlegmatically as if he had been in his countinghouse, President Barbicane drew out his memorandum-book and tore out a clear page, wrote a receipt in pencil, dated it, signed it, and gave it to the captain, who put it carefully into his pocketbook.

Michel Ardan took off his hat and bowed to his two companions without speaking a word. Such formality under such circumstances took away his power of speech. He had never seen anything so American.

Once their business over, Barbicane and Nicholl went back to the light-port and looked at the constellations. The stars stood out clearly upon the dark background of the sky. But from this side the moon could not be seen, as she moves from east to west, rising gradually to the zenith. Her absence made Ardan say⁠—

“And the moon? Is she going to fail us?”

“Do not frighten yourself,” answered Barbicane, “Our spheroid is at her post, but we cannot see her from this side. We must open the opposite light-port.”

At the very moment when Barbicane was going to abandon one window to set clear the opposite one, his attention was attracted by the approach of a shining object. It was an enormous disc the colossal dimensions of which could not be estimated. Its face turned towards the earth was brilliantly lighted. It looked like a small moon reflecting the light of the large one. It advanced at prodigious speed, and seemed to describe round the earth an orbit right across the passage of the projectile. To the movement of translation of this object was added a movement of rotation upon itself. It was therefore behaving like all celestial bodies abandoned in space.

“Eh!” cried Michel Ardan. “Whatever is that? Another projectile?”

Barbicane did not answer. The apparition of this enormous body surprised him and made him uneasy. A collision was possible which would have had deplorable results, either by making the projectile deviate from its route and fall back upon the earth, or be caught up by the attractive power of the asteroid.

President Barbicane had rapidly seized the consequences of these three hypotheses, which in one way or other would fatally prevent the success of his attempt. His companions were silently watching the object, which grew prodigiously larger as it approached, and through a certain optical illusion it seemed as if the projectile were rushing upon it.

“Ye gods!” cried Michel Ardan; “there will be a collision on the line!”

The three travellers instinctively drew back. Their terror was extreme, but it did not last long, hardly a few seconds. The asteroid passed at a distance of a few hundred yards from the projectile and disappeared, not so much on account of the rapidity of its course, but because its side opposite to the moon was suddenly confounded with the absolute darkness of space.

“A good journey to you!” cried Michel Ardan, uttering a sigh of satisfaction. “Is not infinitude large enough to allow a poor little bullet to go about without fear? What was that pretentious globe which nearly knocked against us?”

“I know!” answered Barbicane.

“Of course! you know everything.”

“It is a simple asteroid,” said Barbicane; “but so large that the attraction of the earth has kept it in the state of a satellite.”

“Is it possible!” exclaimed Michel Ardan. “Then the earth has two moons like Neptune?”

“Yes, my friend, two moons, though she is generally supposed to have but one. But this second moon is so small and her speed so great that the inhabitants of the earth cannot perceive her. It was by taking into account certain perturbations that a French astronomer, M. Petit, was able to determine the existence of this second satellite and calculate its elements. According to his observations, this asteroid accomplishes its revolution round the earth in three hours and twenty minutes only. That implies prodigious speed.”

“Do all astronomers admit the existence of this satellite?” asked Nicholl.

“No,” answered Barbicane; “but if they had met it like we have they could not doubt any longer. By the by, this asteroid, which would have much embarrassed us had it knocked against us, allows us to determine our position in space.”

“How?” said Ardan.

“Because its distance is known, and where we met it we were exactly at 8,140 kilometres from the surface of the terrestrial globe.”

“More than 2,000 leagues!” cried Michel Ardan. “That beats the express trains of the pitiable globe called the earth!”

“I should think it did,” answered Nicholl, consulting his chronometer; “it is eleven o’clock, only thirteen minutes since we left the American continent.”

“Only thirteen minutes?” said Barbicane.

“That is all,” answered Nicholl; “and if