News For Marston!

: All Around The Moon

In a few minutes, consciousness had restored order on board the

Susquehanna, but the excitement was as great as ever. They had escaped

by a hairsbreadth the terrible fate of being both burned and drowned

without a moment's warning, without a single soul being left alive to

tell the fatal tale; but on this neither officer nor man appeared to

bestow the slightest thought. They were wholly engrossed with the

terrible cata trophe that had befallen the famous adventurers. What was

the loss of the Susquehanna and all it contained, in comparison to the

loss experienced by the world at large in the terrible tragic

denouement just witnessed? The worst had now come to the worst. At

last the long agony was over forever. Those three gallant men, who had

not only conceived but had actually executed the grandest and most

daring enterprise of ancient or modern times, had paid by the most

fearful of deaths, for their sublime devotion to science and their

unselfish desire to extend the bounds of human knowledge! Before such a

reflection as this, all other considerations were at once reduced to

proportions of the most absolute insignificance.



But was the death of the adventurers so very certain after all? Hope is

hard to kill. Consciousness had brought reflection, reflection doubt,

and doubt had resuscitated hope.



"It's they!" had exclaimed the little Midshipman, and the cry had

thrilled every heart on board as with an electric shock. Everybody had

instantly understood it. Everybody had felt it to be true. Nothing could

be more certain than that the meteor which had just flashed before their

eyes was the famous projectile of the Baltimore Gun Club. Nothing could

be truer than that it contained the three world renowned men and that it

now lay in the black depths of the Pacific Ocean.



But here opinions began to diverge. Some courageous breasts soon refused

to accept the prevalent idea.



"They're killed by the shock!" cried the crowd.



"Killed?" exclaimed the hopeful ones; "Not a bit of it! The water here

is deep enough to break a fall twice as great."



"They're smothered for want of air!" exclaimed the crowd.



"Their stock may not be run out yet!" was the ready reply. "Their air

apparatus is still on hand."





"They're burned to a cinder!" shrieked the crowd.



"They had not time to be burned!" answered the Band of Hope. "The

Projectile did not get hot till it reached the atmosphere, through which

it tore in a few seconds."



"If they're neither burned nor smothered nor killed by the shock,

they're sure to be drowned!" persisted the crowd, with redoubled

lamentations.



"Fish 'em up first!" cried the Hopeful Band. "Come! Let's lose no time!

Let's fish 'em up at once!"



The cries of Hope prevailed. The unanimous opinion of a council of the

officers hastily summoned together by the Captain was to go to work and

fish up the Projectile with the least possible delay. But was such an

operation possible? asked a doubter. Yes! was the overwhelming reply;

difficult, no doubt, but still quite possible. Certainly, however, such

an attempt was not immediately possible as the Susquehanna had no

machinery strong enough or suitable enough for a piece of work involving

such a nicety of detailed operations, not to speak of its exceeding

difficulty. The next unanimous decision, therefore, was to start the

vessel at once for the nearest port, whence they could instantly

telegraph the Projectile's arrival to the Baltimore Gun Club.



But what was the nearest port? A serious question, to answer which in

a satisfactory manner the Captain had to carefully examine his sailing

charts. The neighboring shores of the California Peninsula, low and

sandy, were absolutely destitute of good harbors. San Diego, about a

day's sail directly north, possessed an excellent harbor, but, not yet

having telegraphic communication with the rest of the Union, it was of

course not to be thought of. San Pedro Bay was too open to be approached

in winter. The Santa Barbara Channel was liable to the same objection,

not to mention the trouble often caused by kelp and wintry fogs. The bay

of San Luis Obispo was still worse in every respect; having no islands

to act as a breakwater, landing there in winter was often impossible.

The harbor of the picturesque old town of Monterey was safe enough, but

some uncertainty regarding sure telegraphic communications with San

Francisco, decided the council not to venture it. Half Moon Bay, a

little to the north, would be just as risky, and in moments like the

present when every minute was worth a day, no risk involving the

slightest loss of time could be ventured.



Evidently, therefore, the most advisable plan was to sail directly for

the bay of San Francisco, the Golden Gate, the finest harbor on the

Pacific Coast and one of the safest in the world. Here telegraphic

communication with all parts of the Union was assured beyond a doubt.

San Francisco, about 750 miles distant, the Susquehanna could probably

make in three days; with a little increased pressure, possibly in two

days and a-half. The sooner then she started, the better.



The fires were soon in full blast. The vessel could get under weigh at

once. In fact, nothing delayed immediate departure but the consideration

that two miles of sounding line were still to be hauled up from the

ocean depths. Rut the Captain, after a moment's thought, unwilling that

any more time should be lost, determined to cut it. Then marking its

position by fastening its end to a buoy, he could haul it up at his

leisure on his return.



"Besides," said he, "the buoy will show us the precise spot where the

Projectile fell."



"As for that, Captain," observed Brownson, "the exact spot has been

carefully recorded already: 27 deg. 7' north latitude by 41 deg. 37' west

longitude, reckoning from the meridian of Washington."



"All right, Lieutenant," said the Captain curtly. "Cut the line!"



A large cone-shaped metal buoy, strengthened still further by a couple

of stout spars to which it was securely lashed, was soon rigged up on

deck, whence, being hoisted overboard, the whole apparatus was carefully

lowered to the surface of the sea. By means of a ring in the small end

of the buoy, the latter was then solidly attached to the part of the

sounding line that still remained in the water, and all possible

precautions were taken to diminish the danger of friction, caused by the

contrary currents, tidal waves, and the ordinary heaving swells of

ocean.



It was now a little after three o'clock in the morning. The Chief

Engineer announced everything to be in perfect readiness for starting.

The Captain gave the signal, directing the pilot to steer straight for

San Francisco, north-north by west. The waters under the stern began to

boil and foam; the ship very soon felt and yielded to the power that

animated her; and in a few minutes she was making at least twelve knots

an hour. Her sailing powers were somewhat higher than this, but it was

necessary to be careful in the neighborhood of such a dangerous coast as

that of California.



Seven hundred and fifty miles of smooth waters presented no very

difficult task to a fast traveller like the Susquehanna, yet it was

not till two days and a-half afterwards that she sighted the Golden

Gate. As usual, the coast was foggy; neither Point Lobos nor Point

Boneta could be seen. But Captain Bloomsbury, well acquainted with every

portion of this coast, ran as close along the southern shore as he

dared, the fog-gun at Point Boneta safely directing his course. Here

expecting to be able to gain a few hours time by signalling to the outer

telegraph station on Point Lobos, he had caused to be painted on a sail

in large black letters: "THE MOONMEN ARE BACK!" but the officers in

attendance, though their fog-horn could be easily heard--the distance

not being quite two miles--were unfortunately not able to see it.

Perhaps they did see it, but feared a hoax.



Giving the Fort Point a good wide berth, the Susquehanna found the fog

gradually clearing away, and by half-past three the passengers, looking

under it, enjoyed the glorious view of the Contra Costa mountains east

of San Francisco, which had obtained for this entrance the famous and

well deserved appellation of the Golden Gate. In another half hour, they

had doubled Black Point, and were lying safely at anchor between the

islands of Alcatraz and Yerba Buena. In less than five minutes

afterwards the Captain was quickly lowered into his gig, and eight stout

pairs of arms were pulling him rapidly to shore.



The usual crowd of idlers had collected that evening on the summit of

Telegraph Hill to enjoy the magnificent view, which for variety, extent,

beauty and grandeur, is probably unsurpassed on earth. Of course, the

inevitable reporter, hot after an item, was not absent. The

Susquehanna had hardly crossed the bar, when they caught sight of her.

A government vessel entering the bay at full speed, is something to look

at even in San Francisco. Even during the war, it would be considered

rather unusual. But they soon remarked that her bowsprit was completely

broken off. Very unusual. Something decidedly is the matter. See! The

vessel is hardly anchored when the Captain leaves her and makes for

Megg's Wharf at North Point as hard as ever his men can pull! Something

must be the matter--and down the steep hill they all rush as fast as

ever their legs can carry them to the landing at Megg's Wharf.



The Captain could hardly force his way through the dense throng, but he

made no attempt whatever to gratify their ill dissembled curiosity.



"Carriage!" he cried, in a voice seldom heard outside the din of battle.



In a moment seventeen able-bodied cabmen were trying to tear him limb

from limb.



"To the telegraph office! Like lightning!" were his stifled mutterings,

as he struggled in the arms of the Irish giant who had at last

succeeded in securing him.



"To the telegraph office!" cried most of the crowd, running after him

like fox hounds, but the more knowing ones immediately began questioning

the boatmen in the Captain's gig. These honest fellows, nothing loth to

tell all that they knew and more that they invented, soon had the

satisfaction of finding themselves the centrepoint of a wonder stricken

audience, greedily swallowing up every item of the extraordinary news

and still hungrily gaping for more.



By this time, however, an important dispatch was flying east, bearing

four different addresses: To the Secretary of the U.S. Navy, Washington;

To Colonel Joseph Wilcox, Vice-President pro tem., Baltimore Gun Club,

Md; To J.T. Marston, Esq. Long's Peak, Grand County, Colorado; and To

Professor Wenlock, Sub-Director of the Cambridge Observatory, Mass.



This dispatch read as follows:



"In latitude twenty-seven degrees seven minutes north and longitude

forty-one degrees thirty-seven minutes west shortly after one

o'clock on the morning of twelfth instant Columbiad Projectile fell

in Pacific--send instructions--



BLOOMSBURY,



Captain, SUSQUEHANNA."



In five minutes more all San Francisco had the news. An hour later, the

newspaper boys were shrieking it through the great cities of the

States. Before bed-time every man, woman, and child in the country had

heard it and gone into ecstasies over it. Owing to the difference in

longitude, the people of Europe could not hear it till after midnight.

But next morning the astounding issue of the great American enterprise

fell on them like a thunder clap.



We must, of course, decline all attempts at describing the effects of

this most unexpected intelligence on the world at large.



The Secretary of the Navy immediately telegraphed directions to the

Susquehanna to keep a full head of steam up night and day so as to be

ready to give instant execution to orders received at any moment.



The Observatory authorities at Cambridge held a special meeting that

very evening, where, with all the serene calmness so characteristic of

learned societies, they discussed the scientific points of the question

in all its bearings. But, before committing themselves to any decided

opinion, they unanimously resolved to wait for the development of

further details.



At the rooms of the Gun Club in Baltimore there was a terrible time. The

kind reader no doubt remembers the nature of the dispatch sent one day

previously by Professor Belfast from the Long's Peak observatory,

announcing that the Projectile had been seen but that it had become the

Moon's satellite, destined to revolve around her forever and ever till

time should be no more. The reader is also kindly aware by this time

that such dispatch was not supported by the slightest foundations in

fact. The learned Professor, in a moment of temporary cerebral

excitation, to which even the greatest scientist is just as liable as

the rest of us, had taken some little meteor or, still more probably,

some little fly-speck in the telescope for the Projectile. The worst of

it was that he had not only boldly proclaimed his alleged discovery to

the world at large but he had even explained all about it with the well

known easy pomposity that "Science" sometimes ventures to assume. The

consequences of all this may be readily guessed. The Baltimore Gun Club

had split up immediately into two violently opposed parties. Those

gentlemen who regularly conned the scientific magazines, took every word

of the learned Professor's dispatch for gospel--or rather for something

of far higher value, and more strictly in accordance with the highly

advanced scientific developments of the day. But the others, who never

read anything but the daily papers and who could not bear the idea of

losing Barbican, laughed the whole thing to scorn. Belfast, they said,

had seen as much of the Projectile as he had of the "Open Polar Sea,"

and the rest of the dispatch was mere twaddle, though asserted with all

the sternness of a religious dogma and enveloped in the usual scientific

slang.



The meeting held in the Club House, 24 Monument Square, Baltimore, on

the evening of the 13th, had been therefore disorderly in the highest

degree. Long before the appointed hour, the great hall was densely

packed and the greatest uproar prevailed. Vice-President Wilcox took the

chair, and all was comparatively quiet until Colonel Bloomsbury, the

Honorary Secretary in Marston's absence, commenced to read Belfast's

dispatch. Then the scene, according to the account given in the next

day's Sun, from whose columns we condense our report, actually

"beggared description." Roars, yells, cheers, counter-cheers, clappings,

hissings, stampings, squallings, whistlings, barkings, mewings, cock

crowings, all of the most fearful and demoniacal character, turned the

immense hall into a regular pandemonium. In vain did President Wilcox

fire off his detonating bell, with a report on ordinary occasions as

loud as the roar of a small piece of ordnance. In the dreadful noise

then prevailing it was no more heard than the fizz of a lucifer match.



Some cries, however, made themselves occasionally heard in the pauses of

the din. "Read! Read!" "Dry up!" "Sit down!" "Give him an egg!" "Fair

play!" "Hurrah for Barbican!" "Down with his enemies!" "Free Speech!"

"Belfast won't bite you!" "He'd like to bite Barbican, but his teeth

aren't sharp enough!" "Barbican's a martyr to science, let's hear his

fate!" "Martyr be hanged; the Old Man is to the good yet!" "Belfast is

the grandest name in Science!" "Groans for the grandest name!" (Awful

groans.) "Three cheers for Old Man Barbican!" (The exceptional strength

alone of the walls saved the building, from being blown out by an

explosion in which at least 5,000 pairs of lungs participated.)



"Three cheers for M'Nicholl and the Frenchman!" This was followed by

another burst of cheering so hearty, vigorous and long continued that

the scientific party, or Belfasters as they were now called, seeing

that further prolongation of the meet was perfectly useless, moved to

adjourn. It was carried unanimously. President Wilcox left the chair,

the meeting broke up in the wildest disorder--the scientists rather

crest fallen, but the Barbican men quite jubilant for having been so

successful in preventing the reading of that detested dispatch.



Little sleeping was done that night in Baltimore, and less business next

day. Even in the public schools so little work was done by the children

that S.T. Wallace, Esq., President of the Education Board, advised an

anticipation of the usual Christmas recess by a week. Every one talked

of the Projectile; nothing was heard at the corners but discussions

regarding its probable fate. All Baltimore was immediately rent into two

parties, the Belfasters and the Barbicanites. The latter was the

most enthusiastic and noisy, the former decidedly the most numerous and

influential.



Science, or rather pseudo-science, always exerts a mysterious attraction

of an exceedingly powerful nature over the generality--that is, the more

ignorant portion of the human race. Assert the most absurd nonsense,

call it a scientific truth, and back it up with strange words which,

like potentiality, etc., sound as if they had a meaning but in

reality have none, and nine out of every ten men who read your book will

believe you. Acquire a remarkable name in one branch of human knowledge,

and presto! you are infallible in all. Who can contradict you, if you

only wrap up your assertions in specious phrases that not one man in a

million attempts to ascertain the real meaning of? We like so much to be

saved the trouble of thinking, that it is far easier and more

comfortable to be led than to contradict, to fall in quietly with the

great flock of sheep that jump blindly after their leader than to remain

apart, making one's self ridiculous by foolishly attempting to argue.

Real argument, in fact, is very difficult, for several reasons: first,

you must understand your subject well, which is hardly likely;

secondly, your opponent must also understand it well, which is even less

likely; thirdly, you must listen patiently to his arguments, which is

still less likely; and fourthly, he must listen to yours, the least

likely of all. If a quack advertises a panacea for all human ills at a

dollar a bottle, a hundred will buy the bottle, for one that will try

how many are killed by it. What would the investigator gain by charging

the quack with murder? Nobody would believe him, because nobody would

take the trouble to follow his arguments. His adversary, first in the

field, had gained the popular ear, and remained the unassailable master

of the situation. Our love of "Science" rests upon our admiration of

intellect, only unfortunately the intellect is too often that of other

people, not our own.



The very sound of Belfast's phrases, for instance, "satellite," "lunar

attraction," "immutable path of its orbit," etc, convinced the greater

part of the "intelligent" community that he who used them so flippantly

must be an exceedingly great man. Therefore, he had completely proved

his case. Therefore, the great majority of the ladies and gentlemen that

regularly attend the scientific lectures of the Peabody Institute,

pronounced Barbican's fate and that of his companions to be sealed. Next

morning's newspapers contained lengthy obituary notices of the Great

Balloon-attics as the witty man of the New York Herald phrased it,

some of which might be considered quite complimentary. These, all

industriously copied into the evening papers, the people were carefully

reading over again, some with honest regret, some deriving a great moral

lesson from an attempt exceedingly reprehensible in every point of view,

but most, we are sorry to acknowledge, with a feeling of ill concealed

pleasure. Had not they always said how it was to end? Was there anything

more absurd ever conceived? Scientific men too! Hang such science! If

you want a real scientific man, no wind bag, no sham, take Belfast! He

knows what he's talking about! No taking him in! Didn't he by means of

the Monster Telescope, see the Projectile, as large as life, whirling

round and round the Moon? Anyway, what else could have happened? Wasn't

it what anybody's common sense expected? Don't you remember a

conversation we had with you one day? etc., etc.



The Barbicanites were very doleful, but they never though of giving

in. They would die sooner. When pressed for a scientific reply to a

scientific argument, they denied that there was any argument to reply

to. What! Had not Belfast seen the Projectile? No! Was not the Great

Telescope then good for anything? Yes, but not for everything! Did not

Belfast know his business? No! Did they mean to say that he had seen

nothing at all? Well, not exactly that, but those scientific gentlemen

can seldom be trusted; in their rage for discovery, they make a mountain

out of a molehill, or, what is worse, they start a theory and then

distort facts to support it. Answers of this kind either led directly to

a fight, or the Belfasters moved away thoroughly disgusted with the

ignorance of their opponents, who could not see a chain of reasoning as

bright as the noonday sun.



Things were in this feverish state on the evening of the 14th, when, all

at once, Bloomsbury's dispatch arrived in Baltimore. I need not say that

it dropped like a spark in a keg of gun powder. The first question all

asked was: Is it genuine or bogus? real or got up by the stockbrokers?

But a few flashes backwards and forwards over the wires soon settled

that point. The stunning effects of the new blow were hardly over when

the Barbicanites began to perceive that the wonderful intelligence was

decidedly in their favor. Was it not a distinct contradiction of the

whole story told by their opponents? If Barbican and his friends were

lying at the bottom of the Pacific, they were certainly not

circumgyrating around the Moon. If it was the Projectile that had broken

off the bowsprit of the Susquehanna, it could not certainly be the

Projectile that Belfast had seen only the day previous doing the duty

of a satellite. Did not the truth of one incident render the other an

absolute impossibility? If Bloomsbury was right, was not Belfast an ass?

Hurrah!



The new revelation did not improve poor Barbican's fate a bit--no matter

for that! Did not the party gain by it? What would the Belfasters

say now? Would not they hold down their heads in confusion and disgrace?



The Belfasters, with a versatility highly creditable to human nature,

did nothing of the kind. Rapidly adopting the very line of tactics they

had just been so severely censuring, they simply denied the whole thing.

What! the truth of the Bloomsbury dispatch? Yes, every word of it! Had

not Bloomsbury seen the Projectile? No! Were not his eyes good for

anything? Yes, but not for everything! Did not the Captain know his

business? No! Did they mean to say that the bowsprit of the

Susquehanna had not been broken off? Well, not exactly that, but those

naval gentlemen are not always to be trusted; after a pleasant little

supper, they often see the wrong light-house, or, what is worse, in

their desire to shield their negligence from censure, they dodge the

blame by trying to show that the accident was unavoidable. The

Susquehanna's bowsprit had been snapped off, in all probability, by

some sudden squall, or, what was still more likely, some little aerolite

had struck it and frightened the crew into fits. When answers of this

kind did not lead to blows, the case was an exceptional one indeed. The

contestants were so numerous and so excited that the police at last

began to think of letting them fight it out without any interference.

Marshal O'Kane, though ably assisted by his 12 officers and 500

patrolmen, had a terrible time of it. The most respectable men in

Baltimore, with eyes blackened, noses bleeding, and collars torn, saw

the inside of a prison that night for the first time in all their lives.

Men that even the Great War had left the warmest of friends, now abused

each other like fishwomen. The prison could not hold the half of those

arrested. They were all, however, discharged next morning, for the

simple reason that the Mayor and the aldermen had been themselves

engaged in so many pugilistic combats during the night that they were

altogether disabled from attending to their magisterial duties next day.



Our readers, however, may be quite assured that, even in the wildest

whirl of the tremendous excitement around them, all the members of the

Baltimore Gun Club did not lose their heads. In spite of the determined

opposition of the Belfasters who would not allow the Bloomsbury

dispatch to be read at the special meeting called that evening, a few

succeeded in adjourning to a committee-room, where Joseph Wilcox, Esq.,

presiding, our old friends Colonel Bloomsbury, Major Elphinstone, Tom

Hunter, Billsby the brave, General Morgan, Chief Engineer John Murphy,

and about as many more as were sufficient to form a quorum, declared

themselves to be in regular session, and proceeded quietly to debate on

the nature of Captain Bloomsbury's dispatch.



Was it of a nature to justify immediate action or not? Decided

unanimously in the affirmative. Why so? Because, whether actually true

or untrue, the incident it announced was not impossible. Had it indeed

announced the Projectile to have fallen in California or in South

America, there would have been good valid reasons to question its

accuracy. But by taking into consideration the Moon's distance, and the

time elapsed between the moment of the start and that of the presumed

fall (about 10 days), and also the Earth's revolution in the meantime,

it was soon calculated that the point at which the Projectile should

strike our globe, if it struck it at all, would be somewhere about 27 deg.

north latitude, and 42 deg. west longitude--the very identical spot given in

the Captain's dispatch! This certainly was a strong point in its favor,

especially as there was positively nothing valid whatever to urge

against it.



A decided resolution was therefore immediately taken. Everything that

man could do was to be done at once, in order to fish up their brave

associates from the depths of the Pacific. That very night, in fact,

whilst the streets of Baltimore were still resounding with the yells of

contending Belfasters and Barbicanites, a committee of four, Morgan,

Hunter, Murphy, and Elphinstone, were speeding over the Alleghanies in a

special train, placed at their disposal by the Baltimore and Ohio

Railroad Company, and fast enough to land them in Chicago pretty early

on the following evening.



Here a fresh locomotive and a Pullman car taking charge of them, they

were whirled off to Omaha, reaching that busy locality at about supper

time on the evening of December 16th. The Pacific Train, as it was

called though at that time running no further west than Julesburg,

instead of waiting for the regular hour of starting, fired up that very

night, and was soon pulling the famous Baltimore Club men up the slopes

of the Nebraska at the rate of forty miles an hour. They were awakened

before light next morning by the guard, who told them that Julesburg,

which they were just entering, was the last point so far reached by the

rails. But their regret at this circumstance was most unexpectedly and

joyfully interrupted by finding their hands warmly clasped and their

names cheerily cried out by their old and beloved friend, J.T. Marston,

the illustrious Secretary of the Baltimore Gun Club.



At the close of the first volume of our entertaining and veracious

history, we left this most devoted friend and admirer of Barbican

established firmly at his post on the summit of Long's Peak, beside the

Great Telescope, watching the skies, night and day, for some traces of

his departed friends. There, as the gracious Reader will also remember,

he had come a little too late to catch that sight of the Projectile

which Belfast had at first reported so confidently, but of which the

Professor by degrees had begun to entertain the most serious doubts.



In these doubts, however, Marston, strange to say, would not permit

himself for one moment to share. Belfast might shake his head as much as

he pleased; he, Marston, was no fickle reed to be shaken by every wind;

he firmly believed the Projectile to be there before him, actually in

sight, if he could only see it. All the long night of the 13th, and even

for several hours of the 14th, he never quitted the telescope for a

single instant. The midnight sky was in magnificent order; not a speck

dimmed its azure of an intensely dark tint. The stars blazed out like

fires; the Moon refused none of her secrets to the scientists who were

gazing at her so intently that night from the platform on the summit of

Long's Peak. But no black spot crawling over her resplendent surface

rewarded their eager gaze. Marston indeed would occasionally utter a

joyful cry announcing some discovery, but in a moment after he was

confessing with groans that it was all a false alarm. Towards morning,

Belfast gave up in despair and went to take a sleep; but no sleep for

Marston. Though he was now quite alone, the assistants having also

retired, he kept on talking incessantly to himself, expressing the most

unbounded confidence in the safety of his friends, and the absolute

certainty of their return. It was not until some hours after the Sun

had risen and the Moon had disappeared behind the snowy peaks of the

west, that he at last withdrew his weary eye from the glass through

which every image formed by the great reflector was to be viewed. The

countenance he turned on Belfast, who had now come back, was rueful in

the extreme. It was the image of grief and despair.



"Did you see nothing whatever during the night, Professor?" he asked of

Belfast, though he knew very well the answer he was to get.



"Nothing whatever."



"But you saw them once, didn't you?"



"Them! Who?"



"Our friends."



"Oh! the Projectile--well--I think I must have made some oversight."



"Don't say that! Did not Mr. M'Connell see it also?"



"No. He only wrote out what I dictated."



"Why, you must have seen it! I have seen it myself!"



"You shall never see it again! It's shot off into space."



"You're as wrong now as you thought you were right yesterday."



"I'm sorry to say I was wrong yesterday; but I have every reason to

believe I'm right to-day."



"We shall see! Wait till to-night!"



"To-night! Too late! As far as the Projectile is concerned, night is now

no better than day."



The learned Professor was quite right, but in a way which he did not

exactly expect. That very evening, after a weary day, apparently a month

long, during which Marston sought in vain for a few hours' repose, just

as all hands, well wrapped up in warm furs, were getting ready to assume

their posts once more near the mouth of the gigantic Telescope, Mr.

M'Connell hastily presented himself with a dispatch for Belfast.



The Professor was listlessly breaking the envelope, when he uttered a

sharp cry of surprise.



"Hey!" cried Marston quickly. "What's up now?"



"Oh!! The Pro--pro--projectile!!"



"What of it? What? Oh what?? Speak!!"



"IT'S BACK!!"



Marston uttered a wild yell of mingled horror, surprise, and joy, jumped

a little into the air, and then fell flat and motionless on the

platform. Had Belfast shot him with a ten pound weight, right between

the two eyes, he could not have knocked him flatter or stiffer. Having

neither slept all night, nor eaten all day, the poor fellow's system had

become so weak that such unexpected news was really more than he could

bear. Besides, as one of the Cambridge men of the party, a young medical

student, remarked: the thin, cold air of these high mountains was

extremely enervating.



The astronomers, all exceedingly alarmed, did what they could to recover

their friend from his fit, but it was nearly ten minutes before they had

the satisfaction of seeing his limbs moving with a slight quiver and

his breast beginning to heave. At last the color came back to his face

and his eyes opened. He stared around for a few seconds at his friends,

evidently unconscious, but his senses were not long in returning.



"Say!" he uttered at last in a faint voice.



"Well!" replied Belfast.



"Where is that infernal Pro--pro--jectile?"



"In the Pacific Ocean."



"What??"



He was on his feet in an instant.



"Say that again!"



"In the Pacific Ocean."



"Hurrah! All right! Old Barbican's not made into mincemeat yet! No,

sirree! Let's start!"



"Where for?"



"San Francisco!"



"When?"



"This instant!"



"In the dark?"



"We shall soon have the light of the Moon! Curse her! it's the least she

can do after all the trouble she has given us!"