gan with you,
Nicholl, because you were on the top. Now I'll go to Barbicane."

That said, Ardan and Nicholl raised the president of the Gun Club and
put him on a divan. Barbicane seemed to have suffered more than his
companions. He was bleeding, but Nicholl was glad to find that the
hemorrhage only came from a slight wound in his shoulder. It was a
simple scratch, which he carefully closed.

Nevertheless, Barbicane was some time before he came to himself, which
frightened his two friends, who did not spare their friction.

"He is breathing, however," said Nicholl, putting his ear to the breast
of the wounded man.

"Yes," answered Ardan, "he is breathing like a man who is in the habit
of doing it daily. Rub, Nicholl, rub with all your might."

And the two improvised practitioners set to work with such a will and
managed so well that Barbicane at last came to his senses. He opened his
eyes, sat up, took the hands of his two friends, and his first words
were--

"Nicholl, are we going on?"

Nicholl and Ardan looked at one another. They had not yet thought about
the projectile. Their first anxiety had been for the travellers, not for
the vehicle.

"Well, really, are we going on?" repeated Michel Ardan.

"Or are we tranquilly resting on the soil of Florida?" asked Nicholl.

"Or at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico?" added Michel Ardan.

"Impossible!" cried President Barbicane.

This double hypothesis suggested by his two friends immediately recalled
him to life and energy.

They could not yet decide the question. The apparent immovability of the
bullet and the want of communication with the exterior prevented them
finding it out. Perhaps the projectile was falling through space.
Perhaps after rising a short distance it had fallen upon the earth, or
even into the Gulf of Mexico, a fall which the narrowness of the
Floridian peninsula rendered possible.

The case was grave, the problem interesting. It was necessary to solve
it as soon as possible. Barbicane, excited, and by his moral energy
triumphing over his physical weakness, stood up and listened. A profound
silence reigned outside. But the thick padding was sufficient to shut
out all the noises on earth; However, one circumstance struck
Barbicane. The temperature in the interior of the projectile was
singularly high. The president drew out a thermometer from the envelope
that protected it and consulted it. The instrument showed 81 deg. Fahr.

"Yes!" he th