he travellers felt their bodies to be as buoyant as a
hydrogen balloon. Barbican let go his chronometer, but it kept its place
as firmly in empty space before his eyes as if it had been nailed to the
wall!

"One o'clock!" cried Barbican in a solemn tone.

Ardan instantly touched the discharging key of the little electric
battery. A dull, dead, distant report was immediately heard,
communicated probably by the vibration of the Projectile to the internal
air. But Ardan saw through the window a long thin flash, which vanished
in a second. At the same moment, the three friends became
instantaneously conscious of a slight shock experienced by the
Projectile.

They looked at each other, speechless, breathless, for about as long as
it would take you to count five: the silence so intense that they could
easily hear the pulsation of their hearts. Ardan was the first to break
it.

"Are we falling or are we not?" he asked in a loud whisper.

"We're not!" answered M'Nicholl, also hardly speaking above his breath.
"The base of the Projectile is still turned away as far as ever from the
Moon!"

Barbican, who had been looking out of the window, now turned hastily
towards his companions. His face frightened them. He was deadly pale;
his eyes stared, and his lips were painfully contracted.

"We _are_ falling!" he shrieked huskily.

"Towards the Moon?" exclaimed his companions.

"No!" was the terrible reply. "Towards the Earth!"

"_Sacre!_" cried Ardan, as usually letting off his excitement in French.

"Fire and fury!" cried M'Nicholl, completely startled out of his
habitual _sang froid_.

"Thunder and lightning!" swore the usually serene Barbican, now
completely stunned by the blow. "I had never expected this!"

Ardan was the first to recover from the deadening shock: his levity came
to his relief.

"First impressions are always right," he muttered philosophically. "The
moment I set eyes on the confounded thing, it reminded me of the
Bastille; it is now proving its likeness to a worse place: easy enough
to get into, but no redemption out of it!"

There was no longer any doubt possible on the subject. The terrible fall
had begun. The Projectile had retained velocity enough not only to carry
it beyond the dead point, but it was even able to completely overcome
the feeble resistance offered by the rockets. It was all clear now. The
same velocity that had carried the Projectile beyond the neutral point
on its way to the