The three friends looked, listened, without speaking, hardly breathing. The beating of their hearts might have been heard in the absolute silence.
"Are we falling?" asked Michel Ardan at last.
"No," answered Nicholl; "for the bottom of the projectile has not turned towards the lunar disc!"
At that moment Barbicane left his window and turned towards his two companions. He was frightfully pale, his forehead wrinkled, his lips contracted.
"We are falling!" said he.
"Ah!" cried Michel Ardan, "upon the moon?"
"Upon the earth!" answered Barbicane.
"The devil!" cried Michel Ardan; and he added philosophically, "when we entered the bullet we did not think it would be so difficult to get out of it again."
In fact, the frightful fall had begun. The velocity kept by the projectile had sent it beyond the neutral point. The explosion of the fuses had not stopped it. That velocity which had carried the projectile beyond the neutral line as it went was destined to do the same upon its return. The law of physics condemned it, in its elliptical orbit, to pass by every point it had already passed.
It was a terrible fall from a height of 78,000 leagues, and which no springs could deaden. According to the laws of ballistics the projectile would strike the earth with a velocity equal to that which animated it as it left the Columbiad—a velocity of "16,000 metres in the last second!"