"It seems like old times again, to be flying through space," remarked Jack. "My! but we aren't making half the speed of which the projectile is capable. Why, we're only going about twenty miles a second," and he spoke as if that was a mere nothing.
"Twenty miles is some speed," observed Mark.
"The earth goes around the sun at the rate of nineteen miles a second, or about seventy-five times as fast as the swiftest cannon-ball, so you see, Jack, you are 'going some,' as the boys say."
"Yes, but we went much faster when we went to Mars. Still, no matter how fast we travel, you'd never realize it inside here."
This was true. So well balanced was the projectile, and so delicately poised was the machinery, that the terrifically fast rate of travel, rivalling that of the earth, was no more noticed than we, on this globe, notice our pace of nineteen miles a second around the sun.
"Everything seems to be all right," observed Professor Henderson, as he looked out of the plate-glass window of the pilot house into a sea of rolling mist, which represented the ether, for they had soon passed through the atmosphere of the earth, which scientists estimate to be two hundred miles in thickness.
"Are we going to move any faster than this?" asked Jack, who seemed possessed of a speed mania.
"Not right away," replied Mr. Henderson. "Professor Roumann wants to thoroughly test the Cardite motor first. Then, when he finds that it works all right, we may go faster. But we will be at the moon soon enough as it is. It is time we headed more directly on our proper way, though, so I think I will ask Mr. Roumann to step here and aid me in getting the projectile on the right course. You boys had better remain also and learn how it is done. You may need to know some time."
"I'll call the professor here, if he can leave the engine room," said Mark, and he found the German bending over some complicated apparatus. The scientist announced that the machines would run themselves automatically for a while, so he accompanied the lad back to the pilot-house.
There, consulting big charts of the heavens, and by making some intricate calculations, which the boys partly understood, the German and Mr. Henderson were able to locate the exact position of the moon, though that body was not then in sight, being behind the earth.