"And I," replied Barbicane, "I repeat—who says they have not done it?"
"When?"
"Hundreds of centuries ago, before man's appearance upon earth."
"And the bullet? Where is the bullet? I ask to see the bullet!"
"My friend," answered Barbicane, "the sea covers five-sixths of our globe, hence there are five good reasons for supposing that the lunar projectile, if it has been fired, is now submerged at the bottom of the Atlantic or Pacific, unless it was buried down some abyss at the epoch when the earth's crust was not sufficiently formed."
"Old fellow," answered Michel, "you have an answer to everything, and I bow before your wisdom. There is one hypothesis I would rather believe than the others, and that is that the Selenites being older than we are wiser, and have not invented gunpowder at all."
At that moment Diana claimed her share in the conversation by a sonorous bark. She asked for her breakfast.
"Ah!" said Michel Ardan, "our arguments make us forget Diana and
Satellite!"
A good dish of food was immediately offered to the dog, who devoured it with great appetite.
"Do you know, Barbicane," said Michel, "we ought to have made this projectile a sort of Noah's Ark, and have taken a couple of all the domestic animals with us to the moon."