600,000 lbs. of
ordinary powder! And friend Murchison, with his chronometer in hand and
his eye fixed on the hand and his finger on the electric knob, is
counting the seconds to hurl us into the planetary regions."

"Enough, Michel, enough!" said Barbicane in a grave tone. "Let us
prepare ourselves. A few seconds only separate us from a supreme moment.
Your hands, my friends."

"Yes," cried Michel Ardan, more moved than he wished to appear.

The three bold companions shook hands.

"God help us!" said the religious president.

Michel Ardan and Nicholl lay down on their beds in the centre of the
floor.

"Thirteen minutes to eleven," murmured the captain.

Twenty seconds more! Barbicane rapidly put out the gas, and lay down
beside his companions.

The profound silence was only broken by the chronometer beating the
seconds.

Suddenly a frightful shock was felt, and the projectile, under the
impulsion of 6,000,000,000 litres of gas developed by the deflagration
of the pyroxyle, rose into space.

CHAPTER II.

THE FIRST HALF-HOUR.

What had happened? What was the effect of the frightful shock? Had the
ingenuity of the constructors of the projectile been attended by a happy
result? Was the effect of the shock deadened, thanks to the springs, the
four buffers, the water-cushions, and the movable partitions? Had they
triumphed over the frightful impulsion of the initial velocity of 11,000
metres a second? This was evidently the question the thousands of
witnesses of the exciting scene asked themselves. They forgot the object
of the journey, and only thought of the travellers! Suppose one of
them--J.T. Maston, for instance--had been able to get a glimpse of the
interior of the projectile, what would he have seen?

Nothing then. The obscurity was profound in the bullet. Its
cylindro-conical sides had resisted perfectly. There was not a break, a
crack, or a dint in them. The admirable projectile was not hurt by the
intense deflagration of the powders, instead of being liquefied, as it
was feared, into a shower of aluminium.

In the interior there was very little disorder on the whole. A few
objects had been violently hurled up to the roof, but the most important
did not seem to have suffered from the shock. Their fastenings were
intact.

On the movable disc, crushed down to the bottom by the smashing of the
partitions and the escape of the water, three bodies lay motionless. Did
Barbicane, Nicholl, and M