But it was
inconceivably brighter than either, and was furthermore strangely
relieved by the pitchy blackness both of sky and Moon. In fact, it soon
became so brilliant as to dispel in a moment all doubt as to its
particular nature. No meteor could present such a perfect shape; no
volcano, such dazzling splendor.
"The Sun!" cried Barbican.
"The Sun?" asked M'Nicholl and Ardan in some astonishment.
"Yes, dear friends; it is the Sun himself that you now see; these
summits that you behold him gilding are the mountains that lie on the
Moon's southern rim. We are rapidly nearing her south pole."
"After doubling her north pole!" cried Ardan; "why, we must be
circumnavigating her!"
"Exactly; sailing all around her."
"Hurrah! Then we're all right at last! There's nothing more to fear from
your hyperbolas or parabolas or any other of your open curves!"
"Nothing more, certainly, from an open curve, but every thing from a
closed one."
"A closed curve! What is it called? And what is the trouble?"
"An eclipse it is called; and the trouble is that, instead of flying off
into the boundless regions of space, our Projectile will probably
describe an elliptical orbit around the Moon--"
--"What!" cried M'Nicholl, in amazement, "and be her satellite for
ever!"
"All right and proper," said Ardan; "why shouldn't she have one of her
own?"
"Only, my dear friend," said Barbican to Ardan, "this change of curve
involves no change in the doom of the Projectile.
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