"What is that?" asked Nicholl.
"Have breakfast," imperturbably answered the audacious Frenchman, who always brought that solution to the greatest difficulties.
In fact, though that operation would have no influence on the direction of the projectile, it might be attempted without risk, and even successfully from the point of view of the stomach. Decidedly the amiable Michel had only good ideas.
They breakfasted, therefore, at 2 a.m., but the hour was not of much consequence. Michel served up his habitual menu, crowned by an amiable bottle out of his secret cellar. If ideas did not come into their heads the Chambertin of 1863 must be despaired of.
The meal over, observations began again.
The objects they had thrown out of the projectile still followed it at the same invariable distance. It was evident that the bullet in its movement of translation round the moon had not passed through any atmosphere, for the specific weight of these objects would have modified their respective distances.
There was nothing to see on the side of the terrestrial globe. The earth was only a day old, having been new at midnight the day before, and two days having to go by before her crescent, disengaged from the solar rays, could serve as a clock to the Selenites, as in her movement of rotation each of her points always passes the same meridian of the moon every twenty-four hours.
The spectacle was a different one on the side of the moon; the orb was shining in all its splendour amidst innumerable constellations, the rays of which could not trouble its purity. Upon the disc the plains again wore the sombre tint which is seen from the earth. The rest of the nimbus was shining, and amidst the general blaze Tycho stood out like a sun.
Barbicane could not manage any way to appreciate the velocity of the projectile, but reasoning demonstrated that this speed must be uniformly diminishing in conformity with the laws of rational mechanics.
In fact, it being admitted that the bullet would describe an orbit round the moon, that orbit must necessarily be elliptical. Science proves that it must be thus. No mobile circulation round any body is an exception to that law. All the orbits described in space are elliptical, those of satellites round their planets, those of planets around their sun, that of the sun round the unknown orb that serves as its central pivot. Why should the projectile of the Gun Club escape that natural arrangement?