myself, aye, actually to revel
in the pure rays of the glorious sun! I should have ventured out on the
very point of the Projectile, and there I should have danced and
postured and kicked and bobbed and capered in a style that Taglioni
never dreamed of!"

"Shouldn't I like to see you!" cried the Captain grimly, smiling at the
idea.

"You would not see him long!" observed Barbican quietly. "The air
confined in his body, freed from external pressure, would burst him like
a shell, or like a balloon that suddenly rises to too great a height in
the air! A scaphander would have been a fatal gift. Don't regret its
absence, friend Michael; never forget this axiom: _As long as we are
floating in empty space, the only spot where safety is possible is
inside the Projectile!_"

The words "possible" and "impossible" always grated on Ardan's ears. If
he had been a lexicographer, he would have rigidly excluded them from
his dictionary, both as meaningless and useless. He was preparing an
answer for Barbican, when he was cut out by a sudden observation from
M'Nicholl.

"See here, friends!" cried the Captain; "this going to the Moon is all
very well, but how shall we get back?"

His listeners looked at each other with a surprised and perplexed air.
The question, though a very natural one, now appeared to have presented
itself to their consideration absolutely for the first time.

"What do you mean by such a question, Captain?" asked Barbican in a
grave judicial tone.

"Mac, my boy," said Ardan seriously, "don't it strike you as a little
out of order to ask how you are to return when you have not got there
yet?"

"I don't ask the question with any idea of backing out," observed the
Captain quietly; "as a matter of purely scientific inquiry, I repeat my
question: how are we to return?"

"I don't know," replied Barbican promptly.

"For my part," said Ardan; "if I had known how to get back, I should
have never come at all!"

"Well! of all the answers!" said the Captain, lifting his hands and
shaking his head.

"The best under the circumstances;" observed Barbican; "and I shall
further observe that such a question as yours at present is both useless
and uncalled for. On some future occasion, when we shall consider it
advisable to return, the question will be in order, and we shall discuss
it with all the attention it deserves. Though the Columbiad is at Stony
Hill, the Projectile will still be in the Moon."

"Much we shall