CHAPTER XIX.
IN EVERY FIGHT, THE IMPOSSIBLE WINS.
No matter what we have been accustomed to, it is sad to bid it farewellforever. The glimpse of the Moon's wondrous world imparted to Barbicanand his companions had been, like that of the Promised Land to Moses onMount Pisgah, only a distant and a dark one, yet it was withinexpressibly mournful eyes that, silent and thoughtful, they nowwatched her fading away slowly from their view, the convictionimpressing itself deeper and deeper in their souls that, slight as theiracquaintance had been, it was never to be renewed again. All doubt onthe subject was removed by the position gradually, but decidedly,assumed by the Projectile. Its base was turning away slowly and steadilyfrom the Moon, and pointing surely and unmistakably towards the Earth.
Barbican had been long carefully noticing this modification, but withoutbeing able to explain it. That the Projectile should withdraw a longdistance from the Moon and still be her satellite, he could understand;but, being her satellite, why not present towards her its heaviestsegment, as the Moon does towards the Earth? That was the point which hecould not readily clear up.
By carefully noting its path, he thought he could see that theProjectile, though now decidedly leaving the Moon, still followed acurve exactly analogous to that by which it had approached her. It musttherefore be describing a very elongated ellipse, which might possiblyextend even to the neutral point where the lunar and terrestrialattractions were mutually overcome.
With this surmise of Barbican's, his companions appeared rather disposedto agree, though, of course, it gave rise to new questions.
"Suppose we reach this dead point," asked Ardan; "what then is to becomeof us?"
"Can't tell!" was Barbican's unsatisfactory reply.
"But you can form a few hypotheses?"
"Yes, two!"
"Let us have them."
"The velocity will be either sufficient to carry us past the dead point,or it will not: sufficient, we shall keep on, just as we are now,gravitating forever around the Moon--"
--"Hypothesis number two will have at least one point in its favor,"interrupted as usual the incorrigible Ardan; "it can't be worse thanhypothesis number one!"
--"Insufficient," continued Barbican, laying down the law, "we shallrest forever motionless on the dead point of the mutually neutralizingattractions."
"A pleasant prospect!" observed Ardan: "from the worst possible to nobetter! Isn't it, Barbican?"
"Nothing to say," was Barbican's only reply.
"Have you nothing to say either, Captain?" asked Ardan, beginning to bea little vexed at the apparent apathy of his companions.
"Nothing whatever," replied M'Nicholl, giving point to his words by adespairing shake of his head.
"You don't mean surely that we're going to sit here, like bumps on alog, doing nothing until it will be too late to attempt anything?"
"Nothing whatever can be done," said Barbican gloomily. "It is vain tostruggle against the impossible."
"Impossible! Where did you get that word? I thought the Americanschoolboys had cut it out of their dictionaries!"
"That must have been since my time," said Barbican smiling grimly.
"It still sticks in a few old copies anyhow," drawled M'Nicholl drily,as he carefully wiped his glasses.
"Well! it has no business _here_!" said Ardan. "What! A pair of liveYankees and a Frenchman, of the nineteenth century too, recoil before anold fashioned word that hardly scared our grandfathers!"
"What can we do?"
"Correct the movement that's now running away with us!"
"Correct it?"
"Certainly, correct it! or modify it! or clap brakes on it! or takesome advantage of it that will be in our favor! What matters the exactterm so you comprehend me?"
"Easy talking!"
"As easy doing!"
"Doing what? Doing how?"
"The what, and the how, is your business, not mine! What kind of anartillery man is he who can't master his bullets? The gunner who cannotcommand his own gun should be rammed into it head foremost himself andblown from its mouth! A nice pair of savants _you_ are! There you sit ashelpless as a couple of babies, after having inveigled me--"
"Inveigled!!" cried Barbican and M'Nicholl starting to their feet in aninstant; "WHAT!!!"
"Come, come!" went on Ardan, not giving his indignant friends time toutter a syllable; "I don't want any recrimination! I'm not the one tocomplain! I'll even let up a little if you consider the expression toostrong! I'll even withdraw it altogether, and assert that the tripdelights me! that the Projectile is a thing after my own heart! that Iwas never in better spirits than at the present moment! I don'tcomplain, I only appeal to your own good sense, and call upon you withall my voice to do everything possible, so that we may go _somewhere_,since it appears we can't get to the Moon!"
"But that's exactly what we want to do ourselves, friend Ardan," saidBarbican, endeavoring to give an example of calmness to the impatientM'Nicholl; "the only trouble is that we have not the means to do it."
"Can't we modify the Projectile's movement?"
"No."
"Nor diminish its velocity?"
"No."
"Not even by lightening it, as a heavily laden ship is lightened, bythrowing cargo overboard?"
"What can we throw overboard? We have no ballast like balloon-men."
"I should like to know," interrupted M'Nicholl, "what would be the goodof throwing anything at all overboard. Any one with a particle of commonsense in his head, can see that the lightened Projectile should onlymove the quicker!"
"Slower, you mean," said Ardan.
"Quicker, I mean," replied the Captain.
"Neither quicker nor slower, dear friends," interposed Barbican,desirous to stop a quarrel; "we are floating, you know, in an absolutevoid, where specific gravity never counts."
"Well then, my friends," said Ardan in a resigned tone that he evidentlyendeavored to render calm, "since the worst is come to the worst, thereis but one thing left for us to do!"
"What's that?" said the Captain, getting ready to combat some new pieceof nonsense.
"To take our breakfast!" said the Frenchman curtly.
It was a resource he had often fallen back on in difficultconjunctures. Nor did it fail him now.
Though it was not a project that claimed to affect either the velocityor the direction of the Projectile, still, as it was eminentlypracticable and not only unattended by no inconvenience on the one handbut evidently fraught with many advantages on the other, it met withdecided and instantaneous success. It was rather an early hour forbreakfast, two o'clock in the morning, yet the meal was keenly relished.Ardan served it up in charming style and crowned the dessert with a fewbottles of a wine especially selected for the occasion from his ownprivate stock. It was a _Tokay Imperial_ of 1863, the genuine _Essenz_,from Prince Esterhazy's own wine cellar, and the best brain stimulantand brain clearer in the world, as every connoisseur knows.
It was near four o'clock in the morning when our travellers, now wellfortified physically and morally, once more resumed their observationswith renewed courage and determination, and with a system of recordingreally perfect in its arrangements.
Around the Projectile, they could still see floating most of the objectsthat had been dropped out of the window. This convinced them that,during their revolution around the Moon, they had not passed through anyatmosphere; had anything of the kind been encountered, it would haverevealed its presence by its retarding effect on the different objectsthat now followed close in the wake of the Projectile. One or two thatwere missing had been probably struck and carried off by a fragment ofthe exploded bolide.
Of the Earth nothing as yet could be seen. She was only one day Old,having been New the previous evening, and two days were still to elapsebefore her crescent would be sufficiently cleared of the solar rays tobe capable of performing her ordinary duty of serving as a time-piecefor the Selenites. For, as the reflecting reader need hardly bereminded,
since she rotates with perfect regularity on her axis, she canmake such rotations visible to the Selenites by bringing some particularpoint on her surface once every twenty-four hours directly over the samelunar meridian.
Towards the Moon, the view though far less distinct, was still almost asdazzling as ever. The radiant Queen of Night still glittered in all hersplendor in the midst of the starry host, whose pure white light seemedto borrow only additional purity and silvery whiteness from the gorgeouscontrast. On her disc, the "seas" were already beginning to assume theashy tint so well known to us on Earth, but the rest of her surfacesparkled with all its former radiation, _Tycho_ glowing like a sun inthe midst of the general resplendescence.
Barbican attempted in vain to obtain even a tolerable approximation ofthe velocity at which the Projectile was now moving. He had to contenthimself with the knowledge that it was diminishing at a uniform rate--ofwhich indeed a little reflection on a well known law of Dynamics readilyconvinced him. He had not much difficulty even in explaining the matterto his friends.
"Once admitting," said he, "the Projectile to describe an orbit roundthe Moon, that orbit must of necessity be an ellipse. Every moving bodycirculating regularly around another, describes an ellipse. Science hasproved this incontestably. The satellites describe ellipses around theplanets, the planets around the Sun, the Sun himself describes anellipse around the unknown star that serves as a pivot for our wholesolar system. How can our Baltimore Gun Club Projectile then escape theuniversal law?
"Now what is the consequence of this law? If the orbit were a _circle_,the satellite would always preserve the same distance from its primary,and its velocity should therefore be constant. But the orbit being an_ellipse_, and the attracting body always occupying one of the foci, thesatellite must evidently lie nearer to this focus in one part of itsorbit than in another. The Earth when nearest to the Sun, is in her_perihelion_; when most distant, in her _aphelion_. The Moon, withregard to the Earth, is similarly in her _perigee_, and her _apogee_.Analogous expressions denoting the relations of the Projectile towardsthe Moon, would be _periselene_ and _aposelene_. At its _aposelene_ theProjectile's velocity would have reached its minimum; atthe _periselene_, its maximum. As it is to the former point that we arenow moving, clearly the velocity must keep on diminishing until thatpoint is reached. Then, _if it does not die out altogether_, it mustspring up again, and even accelerate as it reapproaches the Moon. Nowthe great trouble is this: If the _Aposelenetic_ point should coincidewith the point of lunar attraction, our velocity must certainly become_nil_, and the Projectile must remain relatively motionless forever!"
"What do you mean by 'relatively motionless'?" asked M'Nicholl, who wascarefully studying the situation.
"I mean, of course, not absolutely motionless," answered Barbican;"absolute immobility is, as you are well aware, altogether impossible,but motionless with regard to the Earth and the--"
"By Mahomet's jackass!" interrupted Ardan hastily, "I must say we're aprecious set of _imbeciles_!"
"I don't deny it, dear friend," said Barbican quietly, notwithstandingthe unceremonious interruption; "but why do you say so just now?"
"Because though we are possessed of the power of retarding the velocitythat takes us from the Moon, we have never thought of employing it!"
"What do you mean?"
"Do you forget the rockets?"
"It's a fact!" cried M'Nicholl. "How have we forgotten them?"
"I'm sure I can't tell," answered Barbican, "unless, perhaps, because wehad too many other things to think about. Your thought, my dear friend,is a most happy one, and, of course, we shall utilize it."
"When? How soon?"
"At the first favorable opportunity, not sooner. For you can see foryourselves, dear friends," he went on explaining, "that with the presentobliquity of the Projectile with regard to the lunar disc, a dischargeof our rockets would be more likely to send us away from the Moon thantowards her. Of course, you are both still desirous of reaching theMoon?"
"Most emphatically so!"
"Then by reserving our rockets for the last chance, we may possibly getthere after all. In consequence of some force, to me utterlyinexplicable, the Projectile still seems disposed to turn its basetowards the Earth. In fact, it is likely enough that at the neutralpoint its cone will point vertically to the Moon. That being the momentwhen its velocity will most probably be _nil_, it will also be themoment for us to discharge our rockets, and the possibility is that wemay force a direct fall on the lunar disc."
"Good!" cried Ardan, clapping hands.
"Why didn't we execute this grand manoeuvre the first time we reachedthe neutral point?" asked M'Nicholl a little crustily.
"It would be useless," answered Barbican; "the Projectile's velocity atthat time, as you no doubt remember, not only did not need rockets, butwas actually too great to be affected by them."
"True!" chimed in Ardan; "a wind of four miles an hour is very littleuse to a steamer going ten."
"That assertion," cried M'Nicholl, "I am rather dis--"
--"Dear friends," interposed Barbican, his pale face beaming and hisclear voice ringing with the new excitement; "let us just now waste notime in mere words. We have one more chance, perhaps a great one. Let usnot throw it away! We have been on the brink of despair--"
--"Beyond it!" cried Ardan.
--"But I now begin to see a possibility, nay, a very decidedprobability, of our being able to attain the great end at last!"
"Bravo!" cried Ardan.
"Hurrah!" cried M'Nicholl.
"Yes! my brave boys!" cried Barbican as enthusiastically as hiscompanions; "all's not over yet by a long shot!"
What had brought about this great revulsion in the spirits of our boldadventurers? The breakfast? Prince Esterhazy's Tokay? The latter, mostprobably. What had become of the resolutions they had discussed so ablyand passed so decidedly a few hours before? _Was the Moon inhabited? No!Was the Moon habitable? No!_ Yet in the face of all this--or rather ascoolly as if such subjects had never been alluded to--here were thereckless scientists actually thinking of nothing but how to work heavenand earth in order to get there!
One question more remained to be answered before they played their lasttrump, namely: "At what precise moment would the Projectile reach theneutral point?"
To this Barbican had very little trouble in finding an answer. The timespent in proceeding from the south pole to the dead point beingevidently equal to the time previously spent in proceeding from the deadpoint to the north pole--to ascertain the former, he had only tocalculate the latter. This was easily done. To refer to his notes, tocheck off the different rates of velocity at which they had readied thedifferent parallels, and to turn these rates into time, required only avery few minutes careful calculation. The Projectile then was to reachthe point of neutral attraction at one o'clock in the morning ofDecember 8th. At the present time, it was five o'clock in the morning ofthe 7th; therefore, if nothing unforeseen should occur in the meantime,their great and final effort was to be made about twenty hours later.
The rockets, so often alluded to as an idea of Ardan's and already fullydescribed, had been originally provided to break the violence of theProjectile's fall on the lunar surface; but now the dauntless travellerswere about to employ them for a purpose precisely the reverse. In anycase, having been put in proper order for immediate use, nothing morenow remained to be done till the moment should come for firing them off.
"Now then, friends," said M'Nicholl, rubbing his eyes but hardly able tokeep them open, "I'm not over fond of talking, but this time I think Imay offer a slight proposition."
"We shall be most happy to entertain it, my dear Captain," saidBarbican.
ARDAN GAZED ON THE PAIR.]
"I propose we lie down and take a good nap."
"Good gracious!" protested Ardan; "What next?"
"We have not had a blessed wink for forty hours," continued the Captain;"a little sleep would recuperate us wonderfully."
&nbs
p; "No sleep now!" exclaimed Ardan.
"Every man to his taste!" said M'Nicholl; "mine at present is certainlyto turn in!" and suiting the action to the word, he coiled himself onthe sofa, and in a few minutes his deep regular breathing showed hisslumber to be as tranquil as an infant's.
Barbican looked at him in a kindly way, but only for a very short time;his eyes grew so filmy that he could not keep them open any longer. "TheCaptain," he said, "may not be without his little faults, but for goodpractical sense he is worth a ship-load like you and me, Ardan. By Jove,I'm going to imitate him, and, friend Michael, you might do worse!"
In a short time he was as unconscious as the Captain.
Ardan gazed on the pair for a few minutes, and then began to feel quitelonely. Even his animals were fast asleep. He tried to look out, butobserving without having anybody to listen to your observations, is dullwork. He looked again at the sleeping pair, and then he gave in.
"It can't be denied," he muttered, slowly nodding his head, "that evenyour practical men sometimes stumble on a good idea."
Then curling up his long legs, and folding his arms under his head, hisrestless brain was soon forming fantastic shapes for itself in themysterious land of dreams.
But his slumbers were too much disturbed to last long. After an uneasy,restless, unrefreshing attempt at repose, he sat up at about half-pastseven o'clock, and began stretching himself, when he found hiscompanions already awake and discussing the situation in whispers.
The Projectile, they were remarking, was still pursuing its way from theMoon, and turning its conical point more and more in her direction. Thislatter phenomenon, though as puzzling as ever, Barbican regarded withdecided pleasure: the more directly the conical summit pointed to theMoon at the exact moment, the more directly towards her surface wouldthe rockets communicate their reactionary motion.
Nearly seventeen hours, however, were still to elapse before thatmoment, that all important moment, would arrive.
The time began to drag. The excitement produced by the Moon's vicinityhad died out. Our travellers, though as daring and as confident as ever,could not help feeling a certain sinking of heart at the approach of themoment for deciding either alternative of their doom in thisworld--their fall to the Moon, or their eternal imprisonment in achangeless orbit. Barbican and M'Nicholl tried to kill time by revisingtheir calculations and putting their notes in order; Ardan, byfeverishly walking back and forth from window to window, and stoppingfor a second or two to throw a nervous glance at the cold, silent andimpassive Moon.
Now and then reminiscences of our lower world would flit across theirbrains. Visions of the famous Gun Club rose up before them the oftenest,with their dear friend Marston always the central figure. What was hisbustling, honest, good-natured, impetuous heart at now? Most probably hewas standing bravely at his post on the Rocky Mountains, his eye gluedto the great Telescope, his whole soul peering through its tube. Had heseen the Projectile before it vanished behind the Moon's north pole?Could he have caught a glimpse of it at its reappearance? If so, couldhe have concluded it to be the satellite of a satellite! Could Belfasthave announced to the world such a startling piece of intelligence? Wasthat all the Earth was ever to know of their great enterprise? What werethe speculations of the Scientific World upon the subject? etc., etc.
In listless questions and desultory conversation of this kind the dayslowly wore away, without the occurrence of any incident whatever torelieve its weary monotony. Midnight arrived, December the seventh wasdead. As Ardan said: "_Le Sept Decembre est mort; vive le Huit!_" In onehour more, the neutral point would be reached. At what velocity was theProjectile now moving? Barbican could not exactly tell, but he feltquite certain that no serious error had slipped into his calculations.At one o'clock that night, _nil_ the velocity was to be, and _nil_ itwould be!
Another phenomenon, in any case, was to mark the arrival of the exactmoment. At the dead point, the two attractions, terrestrial and lunar,would again exactly counterbalance each other. For a few seconds,objects would no longer possess the slightest weight. This curiouscircumstance, which had so much surprised and amused the travellers atits first occurrence, was now to appear again as soon as the conditionsshould become identical. During these few seconds then would come themoment for striking the decisive blow.
They could soon notice the gradual approach of this important instant.Objects began to weigh sensibly lighter. The conical point of theProjectile had become almost directly under the centre of the lunarsurface. This gladdened the hearts of the bold adventurers. The recoilof the rockets losing none of its power by oblique action, the chancespronounced decidedly in their favor. Now, only supposing theProjectile's velocity to be absolutely annihilated at the dead point,the slightest force directing it towards the Moon would be _certain_ tocause it finally to fall on her surface.
Supposing!--but supposing the contrary!
--Even these brave adventurers had not the courage to suppose thecontrary!
"Five minutes to one o'clock," said M'Nicholl, his eyes never quittinghis watch.
"Ready?" asked Barbican of Ardan.
"Ay, ay, sir!" was Ardan's reply, as he made sure that the electricapparatus to discharge the rockets was in perfect working order.
"Wait till I give the word," said Barbican, pulling out his chronometer.
The moment was now evidently close at hand. The objects lying around hadno weight. The travellers felt their bodies to be as buoyant as ahydrogen balloon. Barbican let go his chronometer, but it kept its placeas firmly in empty space before his eyes as if it had been nailed to thewall!
"One o'clock!" cried Barbican in a solemn tone.
Ardan instantly touched the discharging key of the little electricbattery. A dull, dead, distant report was immediately heard,communicated probably by the vibration of the Projectile to the internalair. But Ardan saw through the window a long thin flash, which vanishedin a second. At the same moment, the three friends becameinstantaneously conscious of a slight shock experienced by theProjectile.
They looked at each other, speechless, breathless, for about as long asit would take you to count five: the silence so intense that they couldeasily hear the pulsation of their hearts. Ardan was the first to breakit.
"Are we falling or are we not?" he asked in a loud whisper.
"We're not!" answered M'Nicholl, also hardly speaking above his breath."The base of the Projectile is still turned away as far as ever from theMoon!"
Barbican, who had been looking out of the window, now turned hastilytowards his companions. His face frightened them. He was deadly pale;his eyes stared, and his lips were painfully contracted.
"We _are_ falling!" he shrieked huskily.
"Towards the Moon?" exclaimed his companions.
"No!" was the terrible reply. "Towards the Earth!"
"_Sacre!_" cried Ardan, as usually letting off his excitement in French.
"Fire and fury!" cried M'Nicholl, completely startled out of hishabitual _sang froid_.
"Thunder and lightning!" swore the usually serene Barbican, nowcompletely stunned by the blow. "I had never expected this!"
Ardan was the first to recover from the deadening shock: his levity cameto his relief.
"First impressions are always right," he muttered philosophically. "Themoment I set eyes on the confounded thing, it reminded me of theBastille; it is now proving its likeness to a worse place: easy enoughto get into, but no redemption out of it!"
There was no longer any doubt possible on the subject. The terrible fallhad begun. The Projectile had retained velocity enough not only to carryit beyond the dead point, but it was even able to completely overcomethe feeble resistance offered by the rockets. It was all clear now. Thesame velocity that had carried the Projectile beyond the neutral pointon its way to the Moon, was still swaying it on its return to the Earth.A well known law of motion required that, in the path which it was nowabout to describe, _it should repass, on its return through all thepoints through which it
had already passed during its departure_.
No wonder that our friends were struck almost senseless when the fearfulfall they were now about to encounter, flashed upon them in all itshorror. They were to fall a clear distance of nearly 200 thousand miles!To lighten or counteract such a descent, the most powerful springs,checks, rockets, screens, deadeners, even if the whole Earth wereengaged in their construction--would produce no more effect than so manyspiderwebs. According to a simple law in Ballistics, _the Projectile wasto strike the Earth with a velocity equal to that by which it had beenanimated when issuing from the mouth of the Columbiad_--a velocity of atleast seven miles a second!
To have even a faint idea of this enormous velocity, let us make alittle comparison. A body falling from the summit of a steeple a hundredand fifty feet high, dashes against the pavement with a velocity offifty five miles an hour. Falling from the summit of St. Peter's, itstrikes the earth at the rate of 300 miles an hour, or five timesquicker than the rapidest express train. Falling from the neutralpoint, the Projectile should strike the Earth with a velocity of morethan 25,000 miles an hour!
"We are lost!" said M'Nicholl gloomily, his philosophy yielding todespair.
"One consolation, boys!" cried Ardan, genial to the last. "We shall dietogether!"
"If we die," said Barbican calmly, but with a kind of suppressedenthusiasm, "it will be only to remove to a more extended sphere of ourinvestigations. In the other world, we can pursue our inquiries underfar more favorable auspices. There the wonders of our great Creator,clothed in brighter light, shall be brought within a shorter range. Weshall require no machine, nor projectile, nor material contrivance ofany kind to be enabled to contemplate them in all their grandeur and toappreciate them fully and intelligently. Our souls, enlightened by theemanations of the Eternal Wisdom, shall revel forever in the blessedrays of Eternal Knowledge!"
"A grand view to take of it, dear friend Barbican;" replied Ardan, "anda consoling one too. The privilege of roaming at will through God'sgreat universe should make ample amends for missing the Moon!"
M'Nicholl fixed his eyes on Barbican admiringly, feebly muttering withhardly moving lips:
"Grit to the marrow! Grit to the marrow!"
Barbican, head bowed in reverence, arms folded across his breast, meeklyand uncomplainingly uttered with sublime resignation:
"Thy will be done!"
"Amen!" answered his companions, in a loud and fervent whisper.
* * * * *
They were soon falling through the boundless regions of space withinconceivable rapidity!