"No!" cried Barbicane in a few minutes' time, "we are not falling! We are already more than 50,000 leagues from the earth! We have passed the point the projectile ought to have stopped at if its speed had been only 11,000 metres at our departure! We are still ascending!"
"That is evident," answered Nicholl; "so we must conclude that our initial velocity, under the propulsion of the 400,000 lbs. of gun-cotton, was greater than the 11,000 metres. I can now explain to myself why we met with the second satellite, that gravitates at more than 2,000 leagues from the earth, in less than thirteen minutes."
"That explanation is so much the more probable," added Barbicane, "because by throwing out the water in our movable partitions the projectile was made considerably lighter all at once."
"That is true," said Nicholl.
"Ah, my brave Nicholl," cried Barbicane, "we are saved!"
"Very well then," answered Michel Ardan tranquilly, "as we are saved, let us have breakfast."
Nicholl was not mistaken. The initial speed had happily been greater than that indicated by the Cambridge Observatory, but the Cambridge Observatory had no less been mistaken.
The travellers, recovered from their false alarm, sat down to table and breakfasted merrily. Though they ate much they talked more. Their confidence was greater after the "algebra incident."
"Why should we not succeed?" repeated Michel Ardan. "Why should we not arrive? We are on the road; there are no obstacles before us, and no stones on our route. It is free—freer than that of a ship that has to struggle with the sea, or a balloon with the wind against it! Now if a ship can go where it pleases, or a balloon ascend where it pleases, why should not our projectile reach the goal it was aimed at?"
"It will reach it," said Barbicane.