CHAPTER XVI.
THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE.
Exceedingly narrow and exceedingly fortunate had been the escape of the
Projectile. And from a danger too the most unlikely and the most
unexpected. Who would have ever dreamed of even the possibility of such
an encounter? And was all danger over? The sight of one of these erratic
bolides certainly justified the gravest apprehensions of our travellers
regarding the existence of others. Worse than the sunken reefs of the
Southern Seas or the snags of the Mississippi, how could the Projectile
be expected to avoid them? Drifting along blindly through the boundless
ethereal ocean, _her_ inmates, even if they saw the danger, were totally
powerless to turn her aside. Like a ship without a rudder, like a
runaway horse, like a collapsed balloon, like an iceberg in an Atlantic
storm, like a boat in the Niagara rapids, she moved on sullenly,
recklessly, mechanically, mayhap into the very jaws of the most
frightful danger, the bright intelligences within no more able to modify
her motions even by a finger's breadth than they were able to affect
Mercury's movements around the Sun.
But did our friends complain of the new perils now looming up before
them? They never thought of such a thing.
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