e in;
but he secretly consoled himself by a hope which he had been
entertaining for some time, and which now looked like assuming the
appearance of a certainty. The Projectile had been lately approaching
the Moon's surface so rapidly that it at last seemed actually impossible
not to finally touch it somewhere in the neighborhood of the north pole,
whose dazzling ridges now presented themselves in sharp and strong
relief against the black sky. Therefore he kept silent, but quietly
bided his time.

The Projectile moved on, evidently getting nearer and nearer to the
lunar surface. The Moon now appeared to the travellers as she does to us
towards the beginning of her Second Quarter, that is as a bright
crescent instead of a hemisphere. On one side, glaring dazzling light;
on the other, cavernous pitchy darkness. The line separating both was
broken into a thousand bits of protuberances and concavities, dented,
notched, and jagged.

At six o'clock the travellers found themselves exactly over the north
pole. They were quietly gazing at the rapidly shifting features of the
wondrous view unrolling itself beneath them, and were silently wondering
what was to come next, when, suddenly, the Projectile passed the
dividing line. The Sun and Moon instantly vanished from view. The next
moment, without the slightest warning the travellers found themselves
plunged in an ocean of the most appalling darkness!

CHAPTER XIV.

A NIGHT OF FIFTEEN DAYS.

The Projectile being not quite 30 miles from the Moon's north pole when
the startling phenomenon, recorded in our last chapter, took place, a
few seconds were quite sufficient to launch it at once from the
brightest day into the unknown realms of night. The transition was so
abrupt, so unexpected, without the slightest shading off, from dazzling
effulgence to Cimmerian gloom, that the Moon seemed to have been
suddenly extinguished like a lamp when the gas is turned off.

"Where's the Moon?" cried Ardan in amazement.

"It appears as if she had been wiped out of creation!" cried M'Nicholl.

Barbican said nothing, but observed carefully. Not a particle, however,
could he see of the disc that had glittered so resplendently before his
eyes a few moments ago. Not a shadow, not a gleam, not the slightest
vestige could he trace of its existence. The darkness being profound,
the dazzling splendor of the stars only gave a deeper blackness to the
pitchy sky. No wonder. The travellers fou