the disc--a pure effect of irradiation.

Whilst the travellers were trying to pierce the profound darkness of
space, a brilliant shower of falling stars shone before their eyes.
Hundreds of meteors, inflamed by contact with the atmosphere, streaked
the darkness with luminous trails, and lined the cloudy part of the disc
with their fire. At that epoch the earth was in her perihelion, and the
month of December is so propitious to these shooting stars that
astronomers have counted as many as 24,000 an hour. But Michel Ardan,
disdaining scientific reasoning, preferred to believe that the earth was
saluting with her finest fireworks the departure of her three children.

This was all they saw of the globe lost in the darkness, an inferior
star of the solar world, which for the grand planets rises or sets as a
simple morning or evening star! Imperceptible point in space, it was now
only a fugitive crescent, this globe where they had left all their
affections.

For a long time the three friends, not speaking, yet united in heart,
watched while the projectile went on with uniformly decreasing velocity.
Then irresistible sleep took possession of them. Was it fatigue of body
and mind? Doubtless, for after the excitement of the last hours passed
upon earth, reaction must inevitably set in.

"Well," said Michel, "as we must sleep, let us go to sleep."

Stretched upon their beds, all three were soon buried in profound
slumber.

But they had not been unconscious for more than a quarter of an hour
when Barbicane suddenly rose, and, waking his companions, in a loud
voice cried--

"I've found it!"

"What have you found?" asked Michel Ardan, jumping out of bed.

"The reason we did not hear the detonation of the Columbiad!"

"Well?" said Nicholl.

"It was because our projectile went quicker than sound."

CHAPTER III.

TAKING POSSESSION.

This curious but certainly correct explanation once given, the three
friends fell again into a profound sleep. Where would they have found a
calmer or more peaceful place to sleep in? Upon earth, houses in the
town or cottages in the country feel every shock upon the surface of the
globe. At sea, ships, rocked by the waves, are in perpetual movement. In
the air, balloons incessantly oscillate upon the fluid strata of
different densities. This projectile alone, travelling in absolute void
amidst absolute silence, offered absolute repose to its inhabitants.

The sleep of the three