"
This assertion of Barbican's, made so positively by a man who never
decided unless when thoroughly convinced, was a great triumph for Ardan,
who, as the gracious reader doubtless remembers, had had a famous
dispute with M'Nicholl on that very subject at Tampa.[D] His eyes
brightened and a smile of pleasure played around his lips, but, with a
great effort at self-restraint, he kept perfectly silent and would not
permit himself even to look in the direction of the Captain. As for
M'Nicholl, he was apparently too much absorbed in _Doerfel_ and
_Leibnitz_ to mind anything else.
These mountains rose from plains of moderate extent, bounded by an
indefinite succession of walled hollows and ring ramparts. They are the
only chains met in this region of ridge-brimmed craters and circles;
distinguished by no particular feature, they project a few pointed peaks
here and there, some of which exceed four miles and a half in height.
This altitude, however, foreshortened as it was by the vertical position
of the Projectile, could not be noticed just then, even if correct
observation had been permitted by the dazzling surface.
Once more again before the travellers' eyes the Moon's disc revealed
itself in all the old familiar features so characteristic of lunar
landscapes--no blending of tones, no softening of colors, no graduation
of shadows, every line glaring in white or black by reason of the total
absence of refracted light.
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