"
Ardan now looked as if he was beginning to see the joke.
"The most puzzling part of the thing to me," went on M'Nicholl, giving
his experience with the utmost gravity, "was why English sounded so like
_French_. If it was simple incomprehensible gibberish, I could readily
blame the state of my ears for it. But the idea that my bothered ears
could turn a mere confused, muzzled, buzzing reverberation into a sweet,
harmonious, articulate, though unintelligible, human language, made me
sure that I was fast becoming crazy, if I was not so already."
"Ha! ha! ha!" roared Ardan, laughing till the tears came. "Now I
understand why the poor Captain made me no reply all the time, and
looked at me with such a hapless woe-begone expression of countenance.
The fact is, Barbican, that shock was too much both for M'Nicholl and
myself. You are the only man among us whose head is fire-proof,
blast-proof, and powder-proof. I really believe a burglar would have
greater difficulty in blowing your head-piece open than in bursting one
of those famous American safes your papers make such a fuss about. A
wonderful head, the Boss's, isn't it M'Nicholl?"
"Yes," said the Captain, as slowly as if every word were a gem of the
profoundest thought, "the Boss has a fearful and a wonderful head!"
"But now to business!" cried the versatile Ardan, "Why do you think,
Barbican, that we are at present beyond the limits of the terrestrial
atmosphere?"
"For a very simple reason," said Barbican, pointing to the chronometer;
"it is now more than seven minutes after 11.
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