Barbicane watched him, while Michel Ardan nursed a growing headache
with both hands.
“Very well?” asked Barbicane, after some minutes’ silence.
“Well!” replied Nicholl; every calculation made, _v_ zero, that
is to say, the speed necessary for the projectile on leaving the
atmosphere, to enable it to reach the equal point of attraction,
ought to be—-”
“Yes?” said Barbicane.
“Twelve thousand yards.”
“What!” exclaimed Barbicane, starting; “you say—-”
“Twelve thousand yards.”
“The devil!” cried the president, making a gesture of despair.
“What is the matter?” asked Michel Ardan, much surprised.
“What is the matter! why, if at this moment our speed had
already diminished one-third by friction, the initiatory speed
ought to have been—-”
“Seventeen thousand yards.”
“And the Cambridge Observatory declared that twelve thousand
yards was enough at starting; and our projectile, which only
started with that speed—-”
“Well?” asked Nicholl.
“Well, it will not be enough.”
“Good.”
“We shall not be able to reach the neutral point.”
“The deuce!”
“We shall not even get halfway.”
“In the name of the projectile!” exclaimed Michel Ardan, jumping
as if it was already on the point of striking the terrestrial globe.
“And we shall fall back upon the earth!”
CHAPTER V
THE COLD OF SPACE
This revelation came like a thunderbolt. Who could have
expected such an error in calculation? Barbicane would not
believe it. Nicholl revised his figures: they were exact.
As to the formula which had determined them, they could not
suspect its truth; it was evident that an initiatory velocity of
seventeen thousand yards in the first second was necessary to
enable them to reach the neutral point.
The three friends looked at each other silently. There was no
thought of breakfast. Barbicane, with clenched teeth, knitted
brows, and hands clasped convulsively, was watching through
the window. Nicholl had crossed his arms, and was examining
his calculations. Michel Ardan was muttering:
“That is just like these scientific men: they never do anything else.
I would give twenty pistoles if we could fall upon the Cambridge
Observatory and crush it, together with the whole lot of dabblers
in figures which it contains.”
Suddenly a thought struck the captain, which he at once
communicated to Barbicane.
“Ah!” said he; “it is seven o’clock in the morning; we have
already been gone thirty-two hours; more than half our passage
is over, and we are not falling that I am aware of.”
Barbicane did not answer, but after a rapid glance at the
captain, took a pair of compasses wherewith to measure the
angular distance of the terrestrial globe; then from the lower
window he took an exact observation, and noticed that the
projectile was apparently stationary. Then rising and wiping
his forehead, on which large drops of perspiration were
standing, he put some figures on paper. Nicholl understood that
the president was deducting from the terrestrial diameter the
projectile’s distance from the earth. He watched him anxiously.
“No,” exclaimed Barbicane, after some moments, “no, we are not
falling! no, we are already more than 50,000 leagues from the earth.
We have passed the point at which the projectile would have stopped
if its speed had only been 12,000 yards at starting. We are still
going up.”
“That is evident,” replied Nicholl; “and we must conclude that
our initial speed, under the power of the 400,000 pounds of
gun-cotton, must have exceeded the required 12,000 yards.
Now I can understand how, after thirteen minutes only, we met the
second satellite, which gravitates round the earth at more than
2,000 leagues’ distance.”
“And this explanation is the more probable,” added Barbicane,
“Because, in throwing off the water enclosed between its
partition-breaks, the projectile found itself lightened of a
considerable weight.”
“Just so,” said Nicholl.
“Ah, my brave Nicholl, we are saved!”
“Very well then,” said Michel Ardan quietly; “as we are safe,
let us have breakfast.”
Nicholl was not mistaken. The initial speed had been, very
fortunately, much above that estimated by the Cambridge
Observatory; but the Cambridge Observatory had nevertheless made
a mistake.
The travelers, recovered from this false alarm, breakfasted merrily.
If they ate a good deal, they talked more. Their confidence was
greater after than before “the incident of the algebra.”