If these three men would permit themselves to hazard an expression at all on the subject, which they didn't, each could have done it by his own favorite motto, so admirably expressive of his individual nature. "_Donnez tete baissee!_" (Go it baldheaded!) showed Ardan's uncalculating impetuosity and his Celtic blood. "_Fata quocunque vocant!_" (To its logical consequence!) revealed Barbican's imperturbable stoicism, culture hardening rather than loosening the original British phlegm. Whilst M'Nicholl's "Screw down the valve and let her rip!" betrayed at once his unconquerable Yankee coolness and his old experiences as a Western steamboat captain. Where were they now, at eight o'clock in the morning of the day called in America the sixth of December? Near the Moon, very certainly; near enough, in fact, for them to perceive easily in the dark the great round screen which she formed between themselves and the Projectile on one side, and the Earth, Sun, and stars on the other. But as to the exact distance at which she lay from them--they had no possible means of calculating it. The Projectile, impelled and maintained by forces inexplicable and even incomprehensible, had come within less than thirty miles from the Moon's north pole. But during those two hours of immersion in the dark shadow, had this distance been increased or diminished? There was evidently no stand-point whereby to estimate either the Projectile's direction or its velocity. Perhaps, moving rapidly away from the Moon, it would be soon out of her shadow altogether. Perhaps, on the contrary, gradually approaching her surface, it might come into contact at any moment with some sharp invisible peak of the Lunar mountains--a catastrophe sure to put a sudden end to the trip, and the travellers too. An excited discussion on this subject soon sprang up, in which all naturally took part. Ardan's imagination as usual getting the better of his reason, he maintained very warmly that the Projectile, caught and retained by the Moon's attraction, could not help falling on her surface, just as an aerolite cannot help falling on our Earth. "Softly, dear boy, softly," replied Barbican; "aerolites _can_ help falling on the Earth, and the proof is, that few of them _do_ fall--most of them don't. Therefore, even granting that we had already assumed the nature of an aerolite, it does not necessarily follow that we should fall on the Moon." "But," objected Ardan, "if we approach only near enough, I don't see how we can help--" "You don't see, it may be," said Barbican, "but you can see, if you only reflect a moment. Have you not often seen the November meteors, for instance, streaking the skies, thousands at a time?" "Yes; on several occasions I was so fortunate." "Well, did you ever see any of them strike the Earth's surface?" asked Barbican. "I can't say I ever did," was the candid reply, "but--"