They
felt almost as if they had been suddenly deprived of their sight. That
thick, dismal savage blackness, which Victor Hugo's pen is so fond of
occasionally revelling in, surrounded them on all sides and crushed them
like an iron shroud.
It was felt worse than ever when, breakfast being over, Ardan carefully
turned off the gas, and everything within the Projectile was as dark as
without. However, though they could not see each other's faces, they
could hear each other's voices, and therefore they soon began to talk.
The most natural subject of conversation was this terrible night 354
hours long, which the laws of nature have imposed on the Lunar
inhabitants. Barbican undertook to give his friends some explanation
regarding the cause of the startling phenomenon, and the consequences
resulting from it.
"Yes, startling is the word for it," observed Barbican, replying to a
remark of Ardan's; "and still more so when we reflect that not only are
both lunar hemispheres deprived, by turns, of sun light for nearly 15
days, but that also the particular hemisphere over which we are at this
moment floating is all that long night completely deprived of
earth-light.
Pages:
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250