What?" asked Ardan, much bewildered. "We are already far beyond the
limits of the terrestrial atmosphere! Why do you think so?"

M'Nicholl was still too much flustered to venture a word.

"If you want me to answer your question satisfactorily, my dear Ardan,"
replied Barbican, with a quiet smile, "you will have the kindness to put
your questions in English."

"What do you mean, Barbican!" asked Ardan, hardly believing his ears.

"Hurrah!" cried M'Nicholl, in the tone of a man who has suddenly made a
welcome but most unexpected discovery.

"I don't know exactly how it is with the Captain," continued Barbican,
with the utmost tranquillity, "but for my part the study of the
languages never was my strong point, and though I always admired the
French, and even understood it pretty well, I never could converse in it
without giving myself more trouble than I always find it convenient to
assume."

"You don't mean to say that I have been talking French to you all this
time!" cried Ardan, horror-stricken.

"The most elegant French I ever heard, backed by the purest Parisian
accent," replied Barbican, highly amused; "Don't you think so, Captain?"
he added, turning to M'Nicholl, whose countenance still showed the most
comical traces of bewilderment.

"Well, I swan to man!" cried the Captain, who always swore a little
when his feelings got beyond his control; "Ardan, the Boss has got the
rig on both of us this time, but rough as it is on you it is a darned
sight more so on me. Be hanged if I did not think you were talking
English the whole time, and I put the whole blame for not understanding
you on the disordered state of my brain!"

Ardan only stared, and scratched his head, but Barbican actually--no,
not _laughed_, that serene nature could not _laugh_. His cast-iron
features puckered into a smile of the richest drollery, and his eyes
twinkled with the wickedest fun; but no undignified giggle escaped the
portal of those majestic lips.

"It _sounds_ like French, I'd say to myself," continued the Captain,
"but I _know_ it's English, and by and by, when this whirring goes out
of my head, I shall easily understand it."

Ardan now looked as if he was beginning to see the joke.

"The most puzzling part of the thing to me," went on M'Nicholl, giving
his experience with the utmost gravity, "was why English sounded so like
_French_. If it was simple incomprehensible gibberish, I could readily
blame the state of my ears for it