ful observations that Barbican continued to take did not however
prevent him from endeavoring to solve his difficult problem. What _had_
switched them off? The hours passed on, but brought no result. That the
adventurers were approaching the Moon was evident, but it was just as
evident that they should never reach her. The nearest point the
Projectile could ever possibly attain would only be the result of two
opposite forces, the attractive and the repulsive, which, as was now
clear, influenced its motion. Therefore, to land in the Moon was an
utter impossibility, and any such idea was to be given up at once and
for ever.

"_Quand meme_! What of it!" cried Ardan; after some moments' silence.
"We're not to land in the Moon! Well! let us do the next best
thing--pass close enough to discover her secrets!"

But M'Nicholl could not accept the situation so coolly. On the contrary,
he decidedly lost his temper, as is occasionally the case with even
phlegmatic men. He muttered an oath or two, but in a voice hardly loud
enough to reach Barbican's ear. At last, impatient of further restraint,
he burst out:

"Who the deuce cares for her secrets? To the hangman with her secrets!
We started to land in the Moon! That's what's got to be done! That I
want or nothing! Confound the darned thing, I say, whatever it was,
whether on the Earth or off it, that shoved us off the track!"

"On the Earth or off it!" cried Barbican, striking his head suddenly;
"now I see it! You're right, Captain! Confound the bolide that we met
the first night of our journey!"

"Hey?" cried Ardan.

"What do you mean?" asked M'Nicholl.

"I mean," replied Barbican, with a voice now perfectly calm, and in a
tone of quiet conviction, "that our deviation is due altogether to that
wandering meteor."

"Why, it did not even graze us!" cried Ardan.

"No matter for that," replied Barbican. "Its mass, compared to ours, was
enormous, and its attraction was undoubtedly sufficiently great to
influence our deviation."

"Hardly enough to be appreciable," urged M'Nicholl.

"Right again, Captain," observed Barbican. "But just remember an
observation of your own made this very afternoon: an inch, a line, even
the tenth part of a hair's breadth wrong at the beginning, in a journey
of 240 thousand miles, would be sufficient to make us miss the Moon!"

CHAPTER X.

THE OBSERVERS OF THE MOON.

Barbican's happy conjecture had probably hit the nail on the head. T