And that the Sultan of the Wamasai felt proud there is no need for us to insist!
On the 29th of August the works were completed. The tunnel was lined with the smooth iron tube built up within it. At the end lay stored two thousand tons of meli-melonite in communication with the box of fulminate. Then came the projectile three hundred and forty-five feet long. In front of the projectile was a space of fourteen hundred and fifty feet in which effect would be given to the impulse due to the expansion of the gas.
That being the case, there remained the question—a question of pure ballistics—would the projectile have the trajectory assigned to it by J. T. Maston? The calculations were correct. They indicated in what measure the projectile would deviate to the east of the meridian of Kilimanjaro in virtue of the earth’s rotation, and what would be the form of the hyperbolic curve which it described in virtue of its enormous initial velocity.
Second question: Would it be visible during its flight? No, for when it left the tube plunged in the darkness of the earth, it could not be seen, and besides owing to its moderate height it would have a very considerable angular velocity. Once it entered the zone of light, the smallness of its volume would conceal it from the most powerful glasses, and for a stronger reason it would, when free from the influence of terrestrial attraction, gravitate for ever round the Sun.
Assuredly Barbicane & Co. might be proud of the work they were about to complete. Why was not J. T. Maston there to admire the admirable execution of the works which was worthy of the precision of the calculations that had inspired them? And above all things why was he far away when the formidable detonation would awake the echoes of the most distant horizons of Africa?
In thinking of him his colleagues had no notion that he had had to leave Ballistic Cottage after escaping from Baltimore Gaol, and was now in hiding to save his precious life. They knew not to what a degree public opinion had risen against the North Polar Practical Association. They knew not what would be the massacres, quarterings, and roastings if the people happened to lay hold of them. Indeed they were fortunate that when the mine was fired they could only be saluted by the shouts of the Wamasai.
“At last!” said Captain Nicholl, when on the evening of the 22nd of September they were strolling about at the mouth of the mine.
“Yes! At last! And also—Ha!” and Barbicane gave a sigh of relief.
“If you had to begin again?”
“Bah! We should begin again!”