ke a
roaring tempest to the farthest limits of the atmosphere.

Then, after this irresistible outburst, the hymn was ended, the last
harmonies died away by degrees, and a silent murmur floated over the
profoundly-excited crowd.

In the meantime the Frenchman and the two Americans had stepped into the
inclosure round which the crowd was pressing. They were accompanied by
the members of the Gun Club, and deputations sent by the European
observatories. Barbicane was coolly and calmly giving his last orders.
Nicholl, with compressed lips and hands crossed behind his back, walked
with a firm and measured step. Michel Ardan, always at his ease, clothed
in a perfect travelling suit, with leather gaiters on his legs, pouch at
his side, in vast garment of maroon velvet, a cigar in his mouth,
distributed shakes of the hand with princely prodigality. He was full of
inexhaustible gaiety, laughing, joking, playing pranks upon the worthy
J.T. Maston, and was, in a word, "French," and, what is worse,
"Parisian," till the last second.

Ten o'clock struck. The moment had come to take their places in the
projectile; the necessary mechanism for the descent the door-plate to
screw down, the removal of the cranes and scaffolding hung over the
mouth of the Columbiad, took some time.

Barbicane had set his chronometer to the tenth of a second by that of
the engineer Murchison, who was entrusted with setting fire to the
powder by means of the electric spark; the travellers shut up in the
projectile could thus watch the impassive needle which was going to mark
the precise instant of their departure.

The moment for saying farewell had come. The scene was touching; in
spite of his gaiety Michel Ardan felt touched. J.T. Maston had found
under his dry eyelids an ancient tear that he had, doubtless, kept for
the occasion. He shed it upon the forehead of his dear president.

"Suppose I go too?" said he. "There is still time!"

"Impossible, old fellow," answered Barbicane.

A few moments later the three travelling companions were installed in
the projectile, and had screwed down the door-plate, and the mouth of
the Columbiad, entirely liberated, rose freely towards the sky.

Nicholl, Barbicane, and Michel Ardan were definitively walled up in
their metal vehicle.

Who could predict the universal emotion then at its paroxysm?

The moon was rising in a firmament of limpid purity, outshining on her
passage the twinkling fire of the stars; sh