“Because, if you gain the first, the Columbiad will have burst, and the projectile with it; and Barbicane will no longer be there to reimburse your dollars.” “My stake is deposited at the bank in Baltimore,” replied Barbicane simply; “and if Nicholl is not there, it will go to his heirs.” “Ah, you practical men!” exclaimed Michel Ardan; “I admire you the more for not being able to understand you.” “Forty-two minutes past ten!” said Nicholl. “Only five minutes more!” answered Barbicane. “Yes, five little minutes!” replied Michel Ardan; “and we are enclosed in a projectile, at the bottom of a gun 900 feet long! And under this projectile are rammed 400,000 pounds of gun-cotton, which is equal to 1,600,000 pounds of ordinary powder! And friend Murchison, with his chronometer in hand, his eye fixed on the needle, his finger on the electric apparatus, is counting the seconds preparatory to launching us into interplanetary space.” “Enough, Michel, enough!” said Barbicane, in a serious voice; “let us prepare. A few instants alone separate us from an eventful moment. One clasp of the hand, my friends.” “Yes,” exclaimed Michel Ardan, more moved than he wished to appear; and the three bold companions were united in a last embrace. “God preserve us!” said the religious Barbicane. Michel Ardan and Nicholl stretched themselves on the couches placed in the center of the disc. “Forty-seven minutes past ten!” murmured the captain. “Twenty seconds more!” Barbicane quickly put out the gas and lay down by his companions, and the profound silence was only broken by the ticking of the chronometer marking the seconds. Suddenly a dreadful shock was felt, and the projectile, under the force of six billions of litres of gas, developed by the combustion of pyroxyle, mounted into space. CHAPTER II. THE FIRST HALF-HOUR What had happened? What effect had this frightful shock produced? Had the ingenuity of the constructors of the projectile obtained any happy result? Had the shock been deadened, thanks to the springs, the four plugs, the water-cushions, and the partition-breaks? Had they been able to subdue the frightful pressure of the initiatory speed of more than 11,000 yards, which was enough to traverse Paris or New York in a second? This was evidently the question suggested to the thousand spectators of this moving scene. They forgot the aim of the journey, and thought only of the travelers. And if one of them—Joseph T. Maston for example—could have cast one glimpse into the projectile, what would he have seen? Nothing then. The darkness was profound. But its cylindro- conical partitions had resisted wonderfully. Not a rent or a dent anywhere! The wonderful projectile was not even heated under the intense deflagration of the powder, nor liquefied, as they seemed to fear, in a shower of aluminum.