From the Earth to the Moon; and, Round the Moon

CHAPTER XVI

THE SOUTH­ERN HEMI­SPHERE

The pro­jec­tile had just es­caped a ter­ri­ble dan­ger, and a very un­forseen one. Who would have thought of such an en­counter with me­te­ors? These erring bod­ies might cre­ate se­ri­ous per­ils for the trav­el­ers. They were to them so many sand­banks up­on that sea of ether which, less for­tu­nate than sailors, they could not es­cape. But did these ad­ven­tur­ers com­plain of space? No, not since na­ture had giv­en them the splen­did sight of a cos­mi­cal me­te­or burst­ing from ex­pan­sion, since this inim­itable fire­work, which no Rug­gieri could im­itate, had lit up for some sec­onds the in­vis­ible glo­ry of the moon. In that flash, con­ti­nents, seas, and forests had be­come vis­ible to them. Did an at­mo­sphere, then, bring to this un­known face its life-​giv­ing atoms? Ques­tions still in­sol­uble, and for­ev­er closed against hu­man cu­ri­ousi­ty!

It was then half-​past three in the af­ter­noon. The pro­jec­tile was fol­low­ing its curvi­lin­ear di­rec­tion round the moon. Had its course again been al­tered by the me­te­or? It was to be feared so. But the pro­jec­tile must de­scribe a curve un­al­ter­ably de­ter­mined by the laws of me­chan­ical rea­son­ing. Bar­bi­cane was in­clined to be­lieve that this curve would be rather a parabo­la than a hy­per­bo­la. But ad­mit­ting the parabo­la, the pro­jec­tile must quick­ly have passed through the cone of shad­ow pro­ject­ed in­to space op­po­site the sun. This cone, in­deed, is very nar­row, the an­gu­lar di­am­eter of the moon be­ing so lit­tle when com­pared with the di­am­eter of the orb of day; and up to this time the pro­jec­tile had been float­ing in this deep shad­ow. What­ev­er had been its speed (and it could not have been in­signif­icant), its pe­ri­od of oc­cul­ta­tion con­tin­ued. That was ev­ident, but per­haps that would not have been the case in a sup­pos­ed­ly rigid­ly parabol­ical tra­jec­to­ry– a new prob­lem which tor­ment­ed Bar­bi­cane’s brain, im­pris­oned as he was in a cir­cle of un­knowns which he could not un­rav­el.

Nei­ther of the trav­el­ers thought of tak­ing an in­stant’s re­pose. Each one watched for an un­ex­pect­ed fact, which might throw some new light on their ura­no­graph­ic stud­ies. About five o’clock, Michel Ar­dan dis­tribut­ed, un­der the name of din­ner, some pieces of bread and cold meat, which were quick­ly swal­lowed with­out ei­ther of them aban­don­ing their scut­tle, the glass of which was in­ces­sant­ly en­crust­ed by the con­den­sa­tion of va­por.

About forty-​five min­utes past five in the evening, Nicholl, armed with his glass, sight­ed to­ward the south­ern bor­der of the moon, and in the di­rec­tion fol­lowed by the pro­jec­tile, some bright points cut up­on the dark shield of the sky. They looked like a suc­ces­sion of sharp points length­ened in­to a tremu­lous line. They were very bright. Such ap­peared the ter­mi­nal line of the moon when in one of her oc­tants.

They could not be mis­tak­en. It was no longer a sim­ple me­te­or. This lu­mi­nous ridge had nei­ther col­or nor mo­tion. Nor was it a vol­cano in erup­tion. 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 sum­mit of the moun­tains sit­uat­ed on the south­ern bor­ders of the moon. We are ev­ident­ly near­ing the south pole.”

“Af­ter hav­ing passed the north pole,” replied Michel. “We have made the cir­cuit of our satel­lite, then?”

“Yes, my good Michel.”

“Then, no more hy­per­bo­las, no more parabo­las, no more open curves to fear?”

“No, but a closed curve.”

“Which is called—-“

“An el­lipse. In­stead of los­ing it­self in in­ter­plan­etary space, it is prob­able that the pro­jec­tile will de­scribe an el­lip­ti­cal or­bit around the 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 care­less French­man with his most ami­able smile.