g us along!"

"Command it?"

"Yes," resumed Michel, getting animated, "stop it or modify it; use it
for the accomplishment of our plans."

"And how, pray?"

"That is your business! If artillerymen are not masters of their bullets
they are no longer artillerymen. If the projectile commands the gunner,
the gunner ought to be rammed instead into the cannon! Fine _savants_,
truly! who don't know now what to do after having induced me--"

"Induced!" cried Barbicane and Nicholl. "Induced! What do you mean by
that?"

"No recriminations!" said Michel. "I do not complain. The journey
pleases me. The bullet suits me. But let us do all that is humanly
possible to fall somewhere, if only upon the moon."

"We should only be too glad, my worthy Michel," answered Barbicane, "but
we have no means of doing it."

"Can we not modify the motion of the projectile?"

"No."

"Nor diminish its speed?"

"No."

"Not even by lightening it like they lighten an overloaded ship?"

"What can we throw out?" answered Nicholl. "We have no ballast on board.
And besides, it seems to me that a lightened projectile would go on more
quickly."

"Less quickly," said Michel.

"More quickly," replied Nicholl.

"Neither more nor less quickly," answered Barbicane, wishing to make his
two friends agree, "for we are moving in the void where we cannot take
specific weight into account."

"Very well," exclaimed Michel Ardan in a determined tone; "there is only
one thing to do."

"What is that?" asked Nicholl.

"Have breakfast," imperturbably answered the audacious Frenchman, who
always brought that solution to the greatest difficulties.

In fact, though that operation would have no influence on the direction
of the projectile, it might be attempted without risk, and even
successfully from the point of view of the stomach. Decidedly the
amiable Michel had only good ideas.

They breakfasted, therefore, at 2 a.m., but the hour was not of much
consequence. Michel served up his habitual _menu_, crowned by an amiable
bottle out of his secret cellar. If ideas did not come into their heads
the Chambertin of 1863 must be despaired of.

The meal over, observations began again.

The objects they had thrown out of the projectile still followed it at
the same invariable distance. It was evident that the bullet in its
movement of translation round the moon had not passed through any
atmosphere, for the specific weight of these objects would have modi