From the Earth to the Moon, Direct in Ninety-Seven Hours and Twenty Minutes: and a Trip Round It
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CHAPTER XVI.
THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE.
The projectile had just escaped a terrible danger, and a very unforeseenone. Who would have thought of such a rencontre with meteors? Theseerring bodies might create serious perils for the travellers. They wereto them so many sandbanks upon that sea of ether which, less fortunatethan sailors, they could not escape. But did these adventurers complainof space? No, not since nature had given them the splendid sight of acosmical meteor bursting from expansion, since this inimitable firework,which no Ruggieri could imitate, had lit up for some seconds the invisibleglory of the moon. In that flash, continents, seas, and forests hadbecome visible to them. Did an atmosphere, then, bring to this unknownface its life-giving atoms? Questions still insoluble, and for everclosed against human curiosity!
It was then half past three in the afternoon. The projectile wasfollowing its curvilinear direction round the moon. Had its course beenagain altered by the meteor? It was to be feared so. But the projectilemust describe a curve unalterably determined by the laws of mechanicalreasoning. Barbicane was inclined to believe that this curve would berather a parabola than a hyperbola. But admitting the parabola, theprojectile must quickly have passed through the cone of shadow projectedinto space opposite the sun. This cone, indeed, is very narrow, theangular diameter of the moon being so little when compared with thediameter of the orb of day; and up to this time the projectile hadbeen floating in this deep shadow. Whatever had been its speed (and itcould not have been insignificant) its period of occultation continued.That was evident, but perhaps that would not have been the case in asupposed rigidly parabolical trajectory,--a new problem which tormentedBarbicane's brain, imprisoned as he was in a circle of unknowns which hecould not unravel.
Illustration: "THE SUN!"
Neither of the travellers thought of taking an instant's repose. Eachone watched for an unexpected fact, which might throw some new light ontheir uranographic studies. About five o'clock, Michel Ardan distributed,under the name of dinner, some pieces of bread and cold meat, which werequickly swallowed without either of them abandoning their scuttle, theglass of which was incessantly encrusted by the condensation of vapour.
About forty-five minutes past five in the evening, Nicholl, armed withhis glass, sighted towards the southern border of the moon, and in thedirection followed by the projectile, some bright points cut upon thedark shield of the sky. They looked like a succession of sharp pointslengthened into a tremulous line. They were very bright. Such appearedthe terminal line of the moon when in one of her octants.
They could not be mistaken. It was no longer a simple meteor. Thisluminous ridge had neither colour nor motion. Nor was it a volcano ineruption. And Barbicane did not hesitate to pronounce upon it.
"The sun!" he exclaimed.
"What! the sun?" answered Nicholl and Michel Ardan.
"Yes, my friends, it is the radiant orb itself lighting up the summitof the mountains situated on the southern borders of the moon. We areevidently nearing the south pole."
"After having passed the north pole," replied Michel. "We have made thecircuit of our satellite, then?"
"Yes, my good Michel."
"Then, no more hyperbolas, no more parabolas, no more open curves tofear?"
"No, but a _closed_ curve."
"Which is called--"
"An ellipse. Instead of losing itself in interplanetary space, it isprobable that the projectile will describe an elliptical orbit aroundthe moon."
"Indeed!"
"And that it will become _her_ satellite."
"Moon of the moon!" cried Michel Ardan.
"Only, I would have you observe, my worthy friend," replied Barbicane,"that we are none the less lost for that."
"Yes, in another manner, and much more pleasantly," answered the carelessFrenchman with his most amiable smile.
Illustration: "LIGHT AND HEAT; ALL LIFE IS CONTAINED IN THEM."