"Ask it, captain."
"Did you hear the detonation, which must certainly have been formidable?"
"No," answered Ardan, much surprised, "I certainly did not hear it."
"And you, Barbicane?"
"I did not either."
"What do you make of that?" asked Nicholl.
"What indeed!" murmured the president; "why did we not hear the detonation?"
The three friends looked at one another rather disconcertedly. Here was an inexplicable phenomenon. The projectile had been fired, however, and there must have been a detonation.
"We must know first where we are," said Barbicane, "so let us open the panel."
This simple operation was immediately accomplished. The screws that fastened the bolts on the outer plates of the right-hand skylight yielded to the coach-wrench. These bolts were driven outside, and obturators wadded with indiarubber corked up the hole that let them through. The exterior plate immediately fell back upon its hinges like a port-hole, and the lenticular glass that covered the hole appeared. An identical light-port had been made in the other side of the projectile, another in the dome, and a fourth in the bottom. The firmament could therefore be observed in four opposite directions—the firmament through the lateral windows, and the earth or the moon more directly through the upper or lower opening of the bullet.