This conversation between the officers of the Susquehanna was kept up until nearly one in the morning. We cannot say what blundering systems were broached, what inconsistent theories advanced by these bold spirits. Since Barbicane’s attempt, nothing seemed impossible to the Americans. They had already designed an expedition, not only of savants, but of a whole colony toward the Selenite borders, and a complete army, consisting of infantry, artillery, and cavalry, to conquer the lunar world. At one in the morning, the hauling in of the sounding-line was not yet completed; 1,670 fathoms were still out, which would entail some hours’ work. According to the commander’s orders, the fires had been lighted, and steam was being got up. The Susquehanna could have started that very instant. At that moment (it was seventeen minutes past one in the morning) Lieutenant Bronsfield was preparing to leave the watch and return to his cabin, when his attention was attracted by a distant hissing noise. His comrades and himself first thought that this hissing was caused by the letting off of steam; but lifting their heads, they found that the noise was produced in the highest regions of the air. They had not time to question each other before the hissing became frightfully intense, and suddenly there appeared to their dazzled eyes an enormous meteor, ignited by the rapidity of its course and its friction through the atmospheric strata. This fiery mass grew larger to their eyes, and fell, with the noise of thunder, upon the bowsprit, which it smashed close to the stem, and buried itself in the waves with a deafening roar! A few feet nearer, and the Susquehanna would have foundered with all on board! At this instant Captain Blomsberry appeared, half-dressed, and rushing on to the forecastle-deck, whither all the officers had hurried, exclaimed, “With your permission, gentlemen, what has happened?” And the midshipman, making himself as it were the echo of the body, cried, “Commander, it is ‘they’ come back again!” CHAPTER XXI. J. T. MASTON RECALLED “It is ‘they’ come back again!” the young midshipman had said, and every one had understood him. No one doubted but that the meteor was the projectile of the Gun Club. As to the travelers which it enclosed, opinions were divided regarding their fate. “They are dead!” said one. “They are alive!” said another; “the crater is deep, and the shock was deadened.” “But they must have wanted air,” continued a third speaker; “they must have died of suffocation.” “Burned!” replied a fourth; “the projectile was nothing but an incandescent mass as it crossed the atmosphere.” “What does it matter!” they exclaimed unanimously; “living or dead, we must pull them out!”