Assuredly Barbicane & Co. might be proud of the work they were about to complete. Why was not J. T. Maston there to admire the admirable execution of the works which was worthy of the precision of the calculations that had inspired them? And above all things why was he far away when the formidable detonation would awake the echoes of the most distant horizons of Africa? In thinking of him his colleagues had no notion that he had had to leave Ballistic Cottage after escaping from Baltimore Gaol, and was now in hiding to save his precious life. They knew not to what a degree public opinion had risen against the North Polar Practical Association. They knew not what would be the massacres, quarterings, and roastings if the people happened to lay hold of them. Indeed they were fortunate that when the mine was fired they could only be saluted by the shouts of the Wamasai. “At last!” said Captain Nicholl, when on the evening of the 22nd of September they were strolling about at the mouth of the mine. “Yes! At last! And also—Ha!” and Barbicane gave a sigh of relief. “If you had to begin again?” “Bah! We should begin again!” “What luck,” said Nicholl, “that we should have at our disposal this admirable meli-melonite!” “Which will make you illustrious, Nicholl!” “Doubtless, Barbicane,” said the captain modestly. “But do you know how many galleries we should have had to drive in the flanks of Kilimanjaro to obtain the same result if we had only had fulmi-cotton like that which flung our projectile at the Moon?” “Tell me.” “One hundred and eighty, Barbicane!” “Well, we would have driven them!” “And a hundred and eighty projectiles of a hundred and eighty thousand tons!” “We would have made them, Nicholl!” There is no nonsense about men of this stamp. But when artillerists have made the round of the Moon, or what could they not be capable? * * * * * And that very evening, an hour or two only before the discharge was to take place, and while Barbicane and Nicholl were thus congratulating themselves, Alcide Pierdeux, shut up in his room at Baltimore, jumped to his feet and whooped like a Redskin. “Whoooop! Mr. J. T. Maston! You brute, you shall swallow your problem, you shall! And why didn’t I see that before! In the name of a cosine! If I knew where you were I would ask you to supper, and we would have a glass of champagne together at the very moment your gun is to go off!” And he capered round the room and whirled his arms about like a railway signal gone mad. “Whoooop, you old plum-tree! You must have had a big bang when you calculated the cannon of Kilimanjaro! Hurrah for the cannon of Kilimanjaro; and how many more would you like? That is not only the _sine quâ non_, my boy, but the _sine cannon_! Whoooop!” CHAPTER XVIII. THE WAMASAI WAIT FOR THE WORD TO FIRE.