een
thirty-two hours on the road. We have come more than half way, and we
are not falling yet that I know of!"

Barbicane did not answer, but after a rapid glance at the captain he
took a compass, which he used to measure the angular distance of the
terrestrial globe. Then through the lower port-light he made a very
exact observation from the apparent immobility of the projectile. Then
rising and wiping the perspiration from his brow, he put down some
figures upon paper. Nicholl saw that the president wished to find out
from the length of the terrestrial diameter the distance of the bullet
from the earth. He looked at him anxiously.

"No!" cried Barbicane in a few minutes' time, "we are not falling! We
are already more than 50,000 leagues from the earth! We have passed the
point the projectile ought to have stopped at if its speed had been only
11,000 metres at our departure! We are still ascending!"

"That is evident," answered Nicholl; "so we must conclude that our
initial velocity, under the propulsion of the 400,000 lbs. of
gun-cotton, was greater than the 11,000 metres. I can now explain to
myself why we met with the second satellite, that gravitates at more
than 2,000 leagues from the earth, in less than thirteen minutes."

"That explanation is so much the more probable," added Barbicane,
"because by throwing out the water in our movable partitions the
projectile was made considerably lighter all at once."

"That is true," said Nicholl.

"Ah, my brave Nicholl," cried Barbicane, "we are saved!"

"Very well then," answered Michel Ardan tranquilly, "as we are saved,
let us have breakfast."

Nicholl was not mistaken. The initial speed had happily been greater
than that indicated by the Cambridge Observatory, but the Cambridge
Observatory had no less been mistaken.

The travellers, recovered from their false alarm, sat down to table and
breakfasted merrily. Though they ate much they talked more. Their
confidence was greater after the "algebra incident."

"Why should we not succeed?" repeated Michel Ardan. "Why should we not
arrive? We are on the road; there are no obstacles before us, and no
stones on our route. It is free--freer than that of a ship that has to
struggle with the sea, or a balloon with the wind against it! Now if a
ship can go where it pleases, or a balloon ascend where it pleases, why
should not our projectile reach the goal it was aimed at?"

"It will reach it," said Barbicane.

"If onl