econds and getting ready to launch us into the limitless regions
of planetary--"

"Ardan, dear friend," interrupted Barbican, in a grave tone, "a serious
moment is now at hand. Let us meet it with some interior recollection.
Give me your hands, my dear friends."

"Certainly," said Ardan, with tears in his voice, and already at the
other extreme of his apparent levity.

The three brave men united in one last, silent, but warm and impulsively
affectionate pressure.

"And now, great God, our Creator, protect us! In Thee we trust!" prayed
Barbican, the others joining him with folded hands and bowed heads.

"Ten, forty-six!" whispered the Captain, as he and Ardan quietly took
their places on the mattresses.

Only forty seconds more!

Barbican rapidly extinguishes the gas and lies down beside his
companions.

The deathlike silence now reigning in the Projectile is interrupted only
by the sharp ticking of the chronometer as it beats the seconds.

Suddenly, a dreadful shock is felt, and the Projectile, shot up by the
instantaneous development of 200,000 millions of cubic feet of gas, is
flying into space with inconceivable rapidity!

CHAPTER II.

THE FIRST HALF HOUR.

What had taken place within the Projectile? What effect had been
produced by the frightful concussion? Had Barbican's ingenuity been
attended with a fortunate result? Had the shock been sufficiently
deadened by the springs, the buffers, the water layers, and the
partitions so readily ruptured? Had their combined effect succeeded in
counteracting the tremendous violence of a velocity of 12,000 yards a
second, actually sufficient to carry them from London to New York in six
minutes? These, and a hundred other questions of a similar nature were
asked that night by the millions who had been watching the explosion
from the base of Stony Hill. Themselves they forgot altogether for the
moment; they forgot everything in their absorbing anxiety regarding the
fate of the daring travellers. Had one among them, our friend Marston,
for instance, been favored with a glimpse at the interior of the
projectile, what would he have seen?

Nothing at all at first, on account of the darkness; except that the
walls had solidly resisted the frightful shock. Not a crack, nor a bend,
nor a dent could be perceived; not even the slightest injury had the
admirably constructed piece of mechanical workmanship endured. It had
not yielded an inch to the enormous pressure