But whence came the animation that grew visibly greater in the inhabitants of the projectile? Their sobriety could not be questioned. Must this strange erethismus of the brain be attributed to the exceptional circumstances of the time, to that proximity of the Queen of Night from which a few hours only separated them, or to some secret influence of the moon acting on their nervous system? Their faces became as red as if exposed to the reverberation of a furnace; their respiration became more active, and their lungs played like forge-bellows; their eyes shone with extraordinary flame, and their voices became formidably loud, their words escaped like a champagne-cork driven forth by carbonic acid gas; their gestures became disquieting, they wanted so much room to perform them in. And, strange to say, they in no wise perceived this excessive tension of the mind. "Now," said Nicholl in a sharp tone--"now that I do not know whether we shall come back from the moon, I will know what we are going there for!" "What we are going there for!" answered Barbicane, stamping as if he were in a fencing-room; "I don't know." "You don't know!" cried Michel with a shout that provoked a sonorous echo in the projectile. "No, I have not the least idea!" answered Barbicane, shouting in unison with his interlocutor. "Well, then, I know," answered Michel. "Speak, then," said Nicholl, who could no longer restrain the angry tones of his voice. "I shall speak if it suits me!" cried Michel, violently seizing his companion's arm. "It must suit you!" said Barbicane, with eyes on fire and threatening hands. "It was you who drew us into this terrible journey, and we wish to know why!" "Yes," said the captain, "now I don't know where I am going, I will know why I am going." "Why?" cried Michel, jumping a yard high--"why? To take possession of the moon in the name of the United States! To add a fortieth State to the Union! To colonise the lunar regions, to cultivate them, people them, to take them all the wonders of art, science, and industry! To civilise the Selenites, unless they are more civilised than we are, and to make them into a republic if they have not already done it for themselves!" "If there are any Selenites!" answered Nicholl, who under the empire of this inexplicable intoxication became very contradictory. "Who says there are no Selenites?" cried Michel in a threatening tone. "I do!" shouted Nicholl. "Captain," said Michel, "do not repeat that insult or I will knock your teeth down your throat!" The two adversaries were about to rush upon one another, and this incoherent discussion was threatening to degenerate into a battle, when Barbicane interfered. "Stop, unhappy men," said he, putting his two companions back to back, "if there are no Selenites, we will do without them!" "Yes!" exclaimed Michel, who did not care more about them than that. "We have nothing to do with the Selenites! Bother the Selenites!"