atmosphere at
two or three leagues from the earth, others describe their trajectory at
a distance the atmosphere cannot reach. Some of these meteors are from
one to two miles wide, and move at a speed of forty miles a second,
following an inverse direction from the movement of the earth.

This shooting star suddenly appeared in the darkness at a distance of at
least 100 leagues, and measured, according to Barbicane's estimate, a
diameter of 2,000 metres. It moved with the speed of about thirty
leagues a minute. It cut across the route of the projectile, and would
reach it in a few minutes. As it approached it grew larger in an
enormous proportion.

If possible, let the situation of the travellers be imagined! It is
impossible to describe it. In spite of their courage, their
_sang-froid_, their carelessness of danger, they were mute, motionless,
with stiffened limbs, a prey to fearful terror. Their projectile, the
course of which they could not alter, was running straight on to this
burning mass, more intense than the open mouth of a furnace. They seemed
to be rushing towards an abyss of fire.

Barbicane seized the hands of his two companions, and all three looked
through their half-closed eyelids at the red-hot asteroid. If they still
thought at all, they must have given themselves up as lost!

Two minutes after the sudden appearance of the bolis, two centuries of
agony, the projectile seemed about to strike against it, when the ball
of fire burst like a bomb, but without making any noise in the void,
where sound, which is only the agitation of the strata of air, could not
be made.

Nicholl uttered a cry. His companions and he rushed to the port-lights.

What a spectacle! What pen could describe it, what palette would be rich
enough in colours to reproduce its magnificence?

It was like the opening of a crater, or the spreading of an immense
fire. Thousands of luminous fragments lit up space with their fires.
Every size, colour, and shade were there. There were yellow, red, green,
grey, a crown of multi-coloured fireworks. There only remained of the
enormous and terrible globe pieces carried in all directions, each an
asteroid in its turn, some shining like swords, some surrounded by white
vapour, others leaving behind them a trail of cosmic dust.

These incandescent blocks crossed each other, knocked against each
other, and were scattered into smaller fragments, of which some struck
the projectile. Its left w