But certainly they were all soon talking
over the matter as calmly as you or I would discuss the advisability of
taking a sail on the lake some beautiful evening in July.
Their first remarks were decidedly peculiar and quite characteristic.
Other men would have asked themselves where the Projectile was taking
them to. Do you think such a question ever occurred to them? Not a bit
of it. They simply began asking each other what could have been the
cause of this new and strange state of things.
"Off the track, it appears," observed Ardan. "How's that?"
"My opinion is," answered the Captain, "that the Projectile was not
aimed true. Every possible precaution had been taken, I am well aware,
but we all know that an inch, a line, even the tenth part of a hair's
breadth wrong at the start would have sent us thousands of miles off our
course by this time."
"What have you to say to that, Barbican?" asked Ardan.
"I don't think there was any error at the start," was the confident
reply; "not even so much as a line! We took too many tests proving the
absolute perpendicularity of the Columbiad, to entertain the slightest
doubt on that subject. Its direction towards the zenith being
incontestable, I don't see why we should not reach the Moon when she
comes to the zenith.
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