ere up and dressed at a very early
hour. This was to be the last day of their journey, if all calculations
were correct. That very night, at 12 o'clock, within nineteen hours at
furthest, at the very moment of Full Moon, they were to reach her
resplendent surface. At that hour was to be completed the most
extraordinary journey ever undertaken by man in ancient or modern times.
Naturally enough, therefore, they found themselves unable to sleep after
four o'clock in the morning; peering upwards through the windows now
visibly glittering under the rays of the Moon, they spent some very
exciting hours in gazing at her slowly enlarging disc, and shouting at
her with confident and joyful hurrahs.

The majestic Queen of the Stars had now risen so high in the spangled
heavens that she could hardly rise higher. In a few degrees more she
would reach the exact point of space where her junction with the
Projectile was to be effected. According to his own observations,
Barbican calculated that they should strike her in the northern
hemisphere, where her plains, or _seas_ as they are called, are immense,
and her mountains are comparatively rare. This, of course, would be so
much the more favorable, if, as was to be apprehended, the lunar
atmosphere was confined exclusively to the low lands.

"Besides," as Ardan observed, "a plain is a more suitable landing place
than a mountain. A Selenite deposited on the top of Mount Everest or
even on Mont Blanc, could hardly be considered, in strict language, to
have arrived on Earth."

"Not to talk," added M'Nicholl, "of the comfort of the thing! When you
land on a plain, there you are. When you land on a peak or on a steep
mountain side, where are you? Tumbling over an embankment with the train
going forty miles an hour, would be nothing to it."

"Therefore, Captain Barbican," cried the Frenchman, "as we should like
to appear before the Selenites in full skins, please land us in the snug
though unromantic North. We shall have time enough to break our necks in
the South."

Barbican made no reply to his companions, because a new reflection had
begun to trouble him, to talk about which would have done no good. There
was certainly something wrong. The Projectile was evidently heading
towards the northern hemisphere of the Moon. What did this prove?
Clearly, a deviation resulting from some cause. The bullet, lodged,
aimed, and fired with the most careful mathematical precision, had been
calcul