These words inspired such confidence, that Michel Ardan carried all the Gun Club with him in his enthusiasm. What he said seemed so simple and so easy, so sure of success, that none could be so sordidly attached to this earth as to hesitate to follow the three travellers on their lunar expedition. All being ready at last, it remained to place the projectile in the Columbiad, an operation abundantly accompanied by dangers and difficulties. The enormous shell was conveyed to the summit of Stones Hill. There, powerful cranes raised it, and held it suspended over the mouth of the cylinder. It was a fearful moment! What if the chains should break under its enormous weight? The sudden fall of such a body would inevitably cause the gun-cotton to explode! Fortunately this did not happen; and some hours later the projectile-vehicle descended gently into the heart of the cannon and rested on its couch of pyroxyle, a veritable bed of explosive eider-down. Its pressure had no result, other than the more effectual ramming down of the charge of the Columbiad. "I have lost," said the Captain, who forthwith paid President Barbicane the sum of 3000 dollars. Barbicane did not wish to accept the money from one of his fellow-travellers, but gave way at last before the determination of Nicholl, who wished before leaving the earth to fulfil all his engagements. "Now," said Michel Ardan, "I have only one thing more to wish for you, my brave Captain." "What is that?" asked Nicholl. "It is that you may lose your two other bets! Then we shall be sure not to be stopped on our journey!" Illustration: AN INNUMERABLE MULTITUDE COVERED THE PRAIRIE ROUND STONE'S HILL. CHAPTER XXVI. FIRE! The first of December had arrived! the fatal day! for, if the projectile were not discharged that very night at 10h. 46m. 40s. p.m., more than eighteen years must roll by before the moon would again present herself under the same conditions of zenith and perigee. The weather was magnificent. Despite the approach of winter, the sun shone brightly, and bathed in its radiant light that earth which three of its denizens were about to abandon for a new world. How many persons lost their rest on the night which preceded this long-expected day! All hearts beat with disquietude, save only the heart of Michel Ardan. That imperturbable personage came and went with his habitual business-like air, while nothing whatever denoted that any unusual matter preoccupied his mind. After dawn, an innumerable multitude covered the prairie which extends, as far as the eye can reach, round Stones Hill. Every quarter of an hour the railway brought fresh accessions of sightseers; and, according to the statement of the _Tampa Town Observer_, not less than five millions of spectators thronged the soil of Florida.