appen."

"And the prime fact to be remembered," interposed Servadac, "is that the
combined velocity of the two bodies will be about 21,000 miles an hour."

"Express speed, and no mistake!" muttered Ben Zoof.

"Just so," assented Procope. "Now, the two bodies may impinge either
directly or obliquely. If the impact is sufficiently oblique, Gallia may
do precisely what she did before: she may graze the earth; she may,
or she may not, carry off a portion of the earth's atmosphere and
substance, and so she may float away again into space; but her orbit
would undoubtedly be deranged, and if we survive the shock, we
shall have small chance of ever returning to the world of our
fellow-creatures."

"Professor Rosette, I suppose," Ben Zoof remarked, "would pretty soon
find out all about that."

"But we will leave this hypothesis," said the lieutenant; "our
own experience has sufficiently shown us its advantages and its
disadvantages. We will proceed to consider the infinitely more serious
alternative of direct impact; of a shock that would hurl the comet
straight on to the earth, to which it would become attached."

"A great wart upon her face!" said Ben Zoof, laughing.

The captain held up his finger to his orderly, making him understand
that he should hold his tongue.

"It is, I presume, to be taken for granted," continued Lieutenant
Procope, "that the mass of the earth is comparatively so large that, in
the event of a direct collision, her own motion would not be sensibly
retarded, and that she would carry the comet along with her, as part of
herself."

"Very little question of that, I should think," said Servadac.

"Well, then," the lieutenant went on, "what part of this comet of ours
will be the part to come into collision with the earth? It may be the
equator, where we are; it may be at the exactly opposite point, at our
antipodes; or it may be at either pole. In any case, it seems hard to
foresee whence there is to come the faintest chance of deliverance."

"Is the case so desperate?" asked Servadac.

"I will tell you why it seems so. If the side of the comet on which we
are resident impinges on the earth, it stands to reason that we must be
crushed to atoms by the violence of the concussion."

"Regular mincemeat!" said Ben Zoof, whom no admonitions could quite
reduce to silence.

"And if," said the lieutenant, after a moment's pause, and the slightest
possible frown at the interruption--"and if the collis