by Jules Verne
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE END
We may remember the intense sympathy which had accompanied the travellerson their departure. If at the beginning of the enterprise they had excitedsuch emotion both in the old and new world, with what enthusiasm wouldthey be received on their return! The millions of spectators which hadbeset the peninsula of Florida, would they not rush to meet these sublimeadventurers? Those legions of strangers, hurrying from all parts of theglobe towards the American shores, would they leave the Union withouthaving seen Barbicane, Nicholl, and Michel Ardan? No! and the ardentpassion of the public was bound to respond worthily to the greatness ofthe enterprise. Human creatures who had left the terrestrial sphere, andreturned after this strange voyage into celestial space, could not failto be received as the prophet Elias would be if he came back to earth. Tosee them first, and then to hear them, such was the universal longing.
Barbicane, Michel Ardan, Nicholl, and the delegates of the Gun Club,returning without delay to Baltimore, were received with indescribableenthusiasm. The notes of President Barbicane's voyage were ready to begiven to the public. The _New York Herald_ bought the manuscript at aprice not yet known, but which must have been very high. Indeed, duringthe publication of "A Journey to the Moon," the sale of this paperamounted to five millions of copies. Three days after the return ofthe travellers to the earth, the slightest detail of their expeditionwas known. There remained nothing more but to see the heroes of thissuperhuman enterprise.
The expedition of Barbicane and his friends round the moon had enabledthem to correct the many admitted theories regarding the terrestrialsatellite. These savants had observed _de visu_, and under particularcircumstances. They knew what systems should be rejected, what retainedwith regard to the formation of that orb, its origin, its habitability.Its past, present, and future had even given up their last secrets. Whocould advance objections against conscientious observers, who at lessthan twenty-four miles distance had marked that curious mountain ofTycho, the strangest system of lunar orography? How answer those savantswhose sight had penetrated the abyss of Pluto's circle? How contradictthose bold ones whom the chances of their enterprise had borne over thatinvisible face of the disc, which no human eye until then had ever seen?It was now their turn to impose some limit on that Selenographic science,which had reconstructed the lunar world as Cuvier did the skeleton of afossil, and say, "The moon _was_ this, a habitable world, inhabited beforethe earth! The moon _is_ that, a world uninhabitable, and now uninhabited."
To celebrate the return of its most illustrious member and his twocompanions, the Gun Club decided upon giving a banquet, but a banquetworthy of the conquerors, worthy of the American people, and under suchconditions that all the inhabitants of the Union could directly take partin it.
All the head lines of railroads in the State were joined by flying rails;and on all the platforms, lined with the same flags, and decorated withthe same ornaments, were tables laid and all served alike. At certainhours, successively calculated, marked by electric clocks which beatthe seconds at the same time, the population were invited to take theirplace at the banquet tables. For four days, from the 5th to the 9th ofJanuary, the trains were stopped as they are on Sundays on the railwaysof the United States, and every road was open. One engine only at fullspeed, drawing a triumphal carriage, had the right of travelling forthose four days on the railroads of the United States. The engine wasmanned by a driver and a stoker, and bore, by special favour, the Hon.J. T. Maston, Secretary of the Gun Club. The carriage was reserved forPresident Barbicane, Colonel Nicholl, and Michel Ardan. At the whistleof the driver, amid the hurrahs, and all the admiring vociferationsof the American language, the train left the platform of Baltimore. Ittravelled at a speed of 160 miles in the hour. But what was this speedcompared with that which had carried the three heroes from the mouth ofthe Columbiad?
Thus they sped from one town to the other, finding whole populationsat table on their road, saluting them with the same acclamations,lavishing the same bravos! They travelled in this way through the eastof the Union, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine,and New Hampshire; the north and the west by New York, Ohio, Michigan,and Wisconsin; returning to the south by Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas,Texas, and Louisiana; they went to the southeast by Alabama and Florida,going up by Georgia and the Carolinas, visiting the centre by Tennessee,Kentucky, Virginia, and Indiana, and, after quitting the Washingtonstation, re-entered Baltimore, where for four days one would have thoughtthat the United States of America were seated at one immense banquet,saluting them simultaneously with the same hurrahs! The apotheosis wasworthy of these three heroes whom fable would have placed in the rank ofdemigods.
And now will this attempt, unprecedented in the annals of travels, leadto any practical result? Will direct communication with the moon ever beestablished? Will they ever lay the foundation of a travelling servicethrough the solar world? Will they go from one planet to another, fromJupiter to Mercury, and after awhile from one star to another, from thePolar to Sirius? Will this means of locomotion allow us to visit thosesuns which swarm in the firmament?
To such questions no answer can be given. But knowing the bold ingenuityof the Anglo-Saxon race, no one would be astonished if the Americans seekto make some use of President Barbicane's attempt.
Illustration: THE APOTHEOSIS WAS WORTHY OF THE THREE HEROES.
Thus, some time after the return of the travellers, the public receivedwith marked favour the announcement of a company, limited, with a capitalof a hundred million of dollars, divided into a hundred thousand sharesof a thousand dollars each, under the name of the "_National Companyof Interstellary Communication._" President Barbicane; Vice-president,Captain Nicholl; Secretary, J. T. Maston; Director of Movements, MichelArdan.
And as it is part of the American temperament to foresee everything inbusiness, even failure, the Honourable Harry Trolloppe, judge commissioner,and Francis Drayton, magistrate, were nominated beforehand!
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Transcriber's note:
Minor inconsistencies in the spelling of character names have beenregularized.
The spelling of the names of historical scientists "Boeer and Moedler"have been regularized to be consistent as possible with the author'sinconsistent spelling, which today are spelled variously but perhapsmost commonly "Beer and Moedler".
Obvious minor typesetting errors have been silently corrected.
