The screws fastening the
bolts by which the external plates of the deadlights were solidly
pinned, readily yielded to the pressure of a powerful wrench. The bolts
were then driven outwards, and the holes which had contained them were
immediately filled with solid plugs of India rubber. The bolts once
driven out, the external plates dropped by their own weight, turning on
a hinge, like portholes, and the strong plate-glass forming the light
immediately showed itself. A second light exactly similar, could be
cleared away on the opposite side of the Projectile; a third, on the
summit of the dome, and a fourth, in the centre of the bottom. The
travellers could thus take observations in four different directions,
having an opportunity of gazing at the firmament through the side
lights, and at the Earth and the Moon through the lower and the upper
lights of the Projectile.
Ardan and the Captain had commenced examining the floor, previous to
operating on the bottom light. But Barbican was the first to get through
his work at one of the side lights, and M'Nicholl and Ardan soon heard
him shouting:
"No, my friends!" he exclaimed, in tones of decided emotion; "we have
_not_ fallen back to Earth; nor are we lying in the bottom of the Gulf
of Mexico.
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