"Yes," answered Nicholl. "Twenty-three minutes and six seconds to eleven." "I hear, captain. Well, before another quarter of an hour is over you will have to make over another nine thousand dollars to the president, four thousand because the Columbiad will not burst, and five thousand because the bullet will rise higher than six miles into the air." "I have the dollars," answered Nicholl, striking his coat pocket, "and I only want to pay." "Come, Nicholl, I see you are a man of order, what I never could be; but allow me to tell you that your series of bets cannot be very advantageous to you." "Why?" asked Barbicane. "Because if you win the first the Columbiad will have burst, and the bullet with it, and Barbicane will not be there to pay you your dollars." "My wager is deposited in the Baltimore Bank," answered Barbicane simply; "and in default of Nicholl it will go to his heirs." "What practical men you are!" cried Michel Ardan. "I admire you as much as I do not understand you." "Eighteen minutes to eleven," said Nicholl. "Only five minutes more," answered Barbicane. "Yes, five short minutes!" replied Michel Ardan. "And we are shut up in a bullet at the bottom of a cannon 900 feet long! and under this bullet there are 400,000 lbs. of gun-cotton, worth more than 1,600,000 lbs. of ordinary powder! And friend Murchison, with his chronometer in hand and his eye fixed on the hand and his finger on the electric knob, is counting the seconds to hurl us into the planetary regions." "Enough, Michel, enough!" said Barbicane in a grave tone. "Let us prepare ourselves. A few seconds only separate us from a supreme moment. Your hands, my friends." "Yes," cried Michel Ardan, more moved than he wished to appear. The three bold companions shook hands. "God help us!" said the religious president. Michel Ardan and Nicholl lay down on their beds in the centre of the floor. "Thirteen minutes to eleven," murmured the captain. Twenty seconds more! Barbicane rapidly put out the gas, and lay down beside his companions. The profound silence was only broken by the chronometer beating the seconds. Suddenly a frightful shock was felt, and the projectile, under the impulsion of 6,000,000,000 litres of gas developed by the deflagration of the pyroxyle, rose into space. CHAPTER II. THE FIRST HALF-HOUR.