"_Donnez tete baissee!_" (Go it baldheaded!) showed Ardan's
uncalculating impetuosity and his Celtic blood. "_Fata quocunque
vocant!_" (To its logical consequence!) revealed Barbican's
imperturbable stoicism, culture hardening rather than loosening the
original British phlegm. Whilst M'Nicholl's "Screw down the valve and
let her rip!" betrayed at once his unconquerable Yankee coolness and his
old experiences as a Western steamboat captain.
Where were they now, at eight o'clock in the morning of the day called
in America the sixth of December? Near the Moon, very certainly; near
enough, in fact, for them to perceive easily in the dark the great round
screen which she formed between themselves and the Projectile on one
side, and the Earth, Sun, and stars on the other. But as to the exact
distance at which she lay from them--they had no possible means of
calculating it. The Projectile, impelled and maintained by forces
inexplicable and even incomprehensible, had come within less than thirty
miles from the Moon's north pole. But during those two hours of
immersion in the dark shadow, had this distance been increased or
diminished? There was evidently no stand-point whereby to estimate
either the Projectile's direction or its velocity.
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