eed of lightning!"

"By the Nine gods of Porsena!" cried Ardan, "something is wrong with my
head to-day! My brain is out of joint, and I am making as nice a mess of
things as my friend Marston was ever capable of! By the bye--talking of
Marston--if we never return to the Earth, what is to prevent him from
following us to the Moon?"

"Nothing!" replied Barbican; "he is a faithful friend and a reliable
comrade. Besides, what is easier? Is not the Columbiad still at Stony
Hill? Cannot gun-cotton be readily manufactured on any occasion? Will
not the Moon again pass through the zenith of Florida? Eighteen years
from now, will she not occupy exactly the same spot that she does
to-day?"

"Certainly!" cried Ardan, with increasing enthusiasm, "Marston will
come! and Elphinstone of the torpedo! and the gallant Bloomsbury, and
Billsby the brave, and all our friends of the Baltimore Gun Club! And we
shall receive them with all the honors! And then we shall establish
projectile trains between the Earth and the Moon! Hurrah for J.T.
Marston!"

"Hurrah for Secretary Marston!" cried the Captain, with an enthusiasm
almost equal to Ardan's.

"Hurrah for my dear friend Marston!" cried Barbican, hardly less
excited than his comrades.

Our old acquaintance, Marston, of course could not have heard the joyous
acclamations that welcomed his name, but at that moment he certainly
must have felt his ears most unaccountably tingling. What was he doing
at the time? He was rattling along the banks of the Kansas River, as
fast as an express train could take him, on the road to Long's Peak,
where, by means of the great Telescope, he expected to find some traces
of the Projectile that contained his friends. He never forgot them for a
moment, but of course he little dreamed that his name at that very time
was exciting their vividest recollections and their warmest applause.

In fact, their recollections were rather too vivid, and their applause
decidedly too warm. Was not the animation that prevailed among the
guests of the Projectile of a very unusual character, and was it not
becoming more and more violent every moment? Could the wine have caused
it? No; though not teetotallers, they never drank to excess. Could the
Moon's proximity, shedding her subtle, mysterious influence over their
nervous systems, have stimulated them to a degree that was threatening
to border on frenzy? Their faces were as red as if they were standing
before a hot fire;