m the
Earth; but by allowing for friction and gravity, we can hardly be more
than 5,500 miles. Yes, friend Barbican, Petit does not seem to be very
wrong in his calculations."

But Barbican hardly heard the observation. He had not yet answered the
puzzling question that had already presented itself to them for
solution; and until he had done so he could not attend to anything else.

"That's all very well and good, Captain," he replied in an absorbed
manner, "but we have not yet been able to account for a very strange
phenomenon. Why didn't we hear the report?"

No one replying, the conversation came to a stand-still, and Barbican,
still absorbed in his reflections, began clearing the second light of
its external shutter. In a few minutes the plate dropped, and the Moon
beams, flowing in, filled the interior of the Projectile with her
brilliant light. The Captain immediately put out the gas, from motives
of economy as well as because its glare somewhat interfered with the
observation of the interplanetary regions.

The Lunar disc struck the travellers as glittering with a splendor and
purity of light that they had never witnessed before. The beams, no
longer strained through the misty atmosphere of the Earth, streamed
copiously in through the glass and coated the interior walls of the
Projectile with a brilliant silvery plating. The intense blackness of
the sky enhanced the dazzling radiance of the Moon. Even the stars
blazed with a new and unequalled splendor, and, in the absence of a
refracting atmosphere, they flamed as bright in the close proximity of
the Moon as in any other part of the sky.

You can easily conceive the interest with which these bold travellers
gazed on the Starry Queen, the final object of their daring journey. She
was now insensibly approaching the zenith, the mathematical point which
she was to reach four days later. They presented their telescopes, but
her mountains, plains, craters and general characteristics hardly came
out a particle more sharply than if they had been viewed from the Earth.
Still, her light, unobstructed by air or vapor, shimmered with a lustre
actually transplendent. Her disc shone like a mirror of polished
platins. The travellers remained for some time absorbed in the silent
contemplation of the glorious scene.

"How they're gazing at her this very moment from Stony Hill!" said the
Captain at last to break the silence.

"By Jove!" cried Ardan; "It's true! Captain yo