"By the thirty-nine stars of the Union!" said Michel, "I have nothing but impracticable ideas to-day; ideas worthy of J. T. Maston. But I have a notion that, if we do not return to earth, J. T. Maston will be able to come to us." "Yes, he'll come," replied Barbicane; "he is a worthy and a courageous comrade. Besides, what is easier? Is not the Columbiad still buried in the soil of Florida? Is cotton and nitric acid wanted wherewith to manufacture the pyroxile? Will not the moon again pass to the zenith of Florida? In eighteen years' time will she not occupy exactly the same place as to-day?" "Yes," continued Michel, "yes, Marston will come, and with him our friends Elphinstone, Blomsberry, all the members of the Gun Club, and they will be well received. And by and by they will run trains of projectiles between the earth and the moon! Hurrah for J. T. Maston!" It is probable that, if the Hon. J. T. Maston did not hear the hurrahs uttered in his honour, his ears at least tingled. What was he doing then? Doubtless posted in the Rocky Mountains, at the station of Long's Peak, he was trying to find the invisible projectile gravitating in space. If he was thinking of his dear companions, we must allow that they were not far behind him; and that, under the influence of a strange excitement, they were devoting to him their best thoughts. But whence this excitement, which was evidently growing upon the tenants of the projectile? Their sobriety could not be doubted. This strange irritation of the brain, must it be attributed to the peculiar circumstances under which they found themselves, to their proximity to the orb of night, from which only a few hours separated them, to some secret influence of the moon acting upon their nervous system? Their faces were as rosy as if they had been exposed to the roaring flames of an oven; their voices resounded in loud accents; their words escaped like a champagne cork driven out by carbonic acid; their gestures became annoying, they wanted so much room to perform them; and, strange to say, they none of them noticed this great tension of the mind. "Now," said Nicholl, in a short tone, "now that I do not know whether we shall ever return from the moon, I want to know what we are going to do there?" "What we are going to do there?" replied Barbicane, stamping with his foot as if he was in a fencing saloon; "I do not know." "You do not know!" exclaimed Michel, with a bellow which provoked a sonorous echo in the projectile. "No, I have not even thought about it," retorted Barbicane, in the same loud tone. "Well, I know," replied Michel. "Speak, then," cried Nicholl, who could no longer contain the growling of his voice. "I shall speak if it suits me," exclaimed Michel, seizing his companions' arms with violence. "_It must_ suit you," said Barbicane, with an eye on fire and a threatening hand. "It was you who drew us into this frightful journey, and we want to know what for."