that the Projectile was not
aimed true. Every possible precaution had been taken, I am well aware,
but we all know that an inch, a line, even the tenth part of a hair's
breadth wrong at the start would have sent us thousands of miles off our
course by this time."

"What have you to say to that, Barbican?" asked Ardan.

"I don't think there was any error at the start," was the confident
reply; "not even so much as a line! We took too many tests proving the
absolute perpendicularity of the Columbiad, to entertain the slightest
doubt on that subject. Its direction towards the zenith being
incontestable, I don't see why we should not reach the Moon when she
comes to the zenith."

"Perhaps we're behind time," suggested Ardan.

"What have you to say to that, Barbican?" asked the Captain. "You know
the Cambridge men said the journey had to be done in 97 hours 13 minutes
and 20 seconds. That's as much as to say that if we're not up to time we
shall miss the Moon."

"Correct," said Barbican. "But we _can't_ be behind time. We started,
you know, on December 1st, at 13 minutes and 20 seconds before 11
o'clock, and we were to arrive four days later at midnight precisely.
To-day is December 5th Gentlemen, please examine your watches. It is now
half past three in the afternoon. Eight hours and a half are sufficient
to take us to our journey's end. Why should we not arrive there?"

"How about being ahead of time?" asked the Captain.

"Just so!" said Ardan. "You know we have discovered the initial velocity
to have been greater than was expected."

"Not at all! not at all!" cried Barbican "A slight excess of velocity
would have done no harm whatever had the direction of the Projectile
been perfectly true. No. There must have been a digression. We must have
been switched off!"

"Switched off? By what?" asked both his listeners in one breath.

"I can't tell," said Barbican curtly.

"Well!" said Ardan; "if Barbican can't tell, there is an end to all
further talk on the subject. We're switched off--that's enough for me.
What has done it? I don't care. Where are we going to? I don't care.
What is the use of pestering our brains about it? We shall soon find
out. We are floating around in space, and we shall end by hauling up
somewhere or other."

But in this indifference Barbican was far from participating. Not that
he was not prepared to meet the future with a bold and manly heart. It
was his inability to answer his own questi