Jules Verne - All Around the Moon

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"He's now seventeen days in the ocean!"

The second time he spoke, the words seemed to be forced out of him.
Belfast admitted, for the sake of argument, that the Projectile had
fallen into the ocean, but he strongly denounced the absurd idea of its
occupants being still alive. "Under such circumstances," went on the
learned Professor, "further prolongation of vital energy would be simply
impossible. Want of air, want of food, want of courage--"

"No, sir!" interrupted Marston quite savagely. "Want of air, of meat, of
drink, as much as you like! But when you speak of Barbican's want of
courage, you don't know what you are talking about! No holy martyr ever
died at the stake with a loftier courage than my noble friend
Barbican!"

That night he asked the Captain if he would not sail down as far as Cape
San Lucas. Bloomsbury saw that further search was all labor lost, but he
respected such heroic grief too highly to give a positive refusal. He
consented to devote the following day, New Year's, to an exploring
expedition as far as Magdalena Bay, making the most diligent inquiries
in all directions.

But New Year's was just as barren of results as any of its predecessors,
and, a little before sunset, Captain Bloomsbury, regardless of further
entreaties and unwilling to risk further delay, gave orders to 'bout
ship and return to San Francisco.

The _Susquehanna_ was slowly turning around in obedience to her wheel,
as if reluctant to abandon forever a search in which humanity at large
was interested, when the look-out man, stationed in the forecastle,
suddenly sang out:

"A buoy to the nor'east, not far from shore!"

All telescopes were instantly turned in the direction indicated. The
buoy, or whatever object it was, could be readily distinguished. It
certainly did look like one of those buoys used to mark out the channel
that ships follow when entering a harbor. But as the vessel slowly
approached it, a small flag, flapping in the dying wind--a strange
feature in a buoy--was seen to surmount its cone, which a nearer
approach showed to be emerging four or five feet from the water. And for
a buoy too it was exceedingly bright and shiny, reflecting the red rays
of the setting sun as strongly as if its surface was crystal or polished
metal!

"Call Mr. Marston on deck at once!" cried the Captain, his voice
betraying unwonted excitement as he put the glass again to his eye.

Marston, thoroughly worn out by his incessant anxiety during the day,
had been just carried below by his friends, and they were now trying to
make him take a little refreshment and repose. But the Captain's order
brought them all on deck like a flash.

They found the whole crew gazing in one direction, and, though speaking
in little more than whispers, evidently in a state of extraordinary
excitement.

What could all this mean? Was there any ground for hope? The thought
sent a pang of delight through Marston's wildly beating heart that
almost choked him.

The Captain beckoned to the Club men to take a place on the bridge
beside himself. They instantly obeyed, all quietly yielding them a
passage.

The vessel was now only about a quarter of a mile distant from the
object and therefore near enough to allow it to be distinguished without
the aid of a glass.

What! The flag bore the well known Stars and Stripes!

An electric shudder of glad surprise shot through the assembled crowd.
They still spoke, however, in whispers, hardly daring to utter their
thoughts aloud.

The silence was suddenly startled by a howl of mingled ecstasy and rage
from Marston.

He would have fallen off the bridge, had not the others held him firmly.
Then he burst into a laugh loud and long, and quite as formidable as his
howl.

Then he tore away from his friends, and began beating himself over the
head.

"Oh!" he cried in accents between a yell and a groan, "what chuckleheads
we are! What numskulls! What jackasses! What double-treble-barrelled
gibbering idiots!" Then he fell to beating himself over the head again.

"What's the matter, Marston, for heaven's sake!" cried his friends,
vainly trying to hold him.

"Speak for yourself!" cried others, Belfast among the number.

"No exception, Belfast! You're as bad as the rest of us! We're all a set
of unmitigated, demoralized, dog-goned old lunatics! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

"Speak plainly, Marston! Tell us what you mean!"

"I mean," roared the terrible Secretary, "that we are no better than a
lot of cabbage heads, dead beats, and frauds, calling ourselves
scientists! O Barbican, how you must blush for us! If we were
schoolboys, we should all be skinned alive for our ignorance! Do you
forget, you herd of ignoramuses, that the Projectile weighs only ten
tons?"

"We don't forget it! We know it well! What of it?"

"This of it: it can't sink in water without displacing its own volume
in water; its own volume in water weighs thirty tons! Consequently, it
can't sink; more consequently, it hasn't sunk; and, most consequently,
there it is before us, bobbing up and down all the time under our very
noses! O Barbican, how can we ever venture to look at you straight in
the face again!"

Marston's extravagant manner of showing it did not prevent him from
being perfectly right. With all their knowledge of physics, not a single
one of those scientific gentlemen had remembered the great fundamental
law that governs sinking or floating bodies. Thanks to its slight
specific gravity, the Projectile, after reaching unknown depths of ocean
through the terrific momentum of its fall, had been at last arrested in
its course and even obliged to return to the surface.

By this time, all the passengers of the _Susquehanna_ could easily
recognize the object of such weary longings and desperate searches,
floating quietly a short distance before them in the last rays of the
declining day!

The boats were out in an instant. Marston and his friends took the
Captain's gig. The rowers pulled with a will towards the rapidly nearing
Projectile. What did it contain? The living or the dead? The living
certainly! as Marston whispered to those around him; otherwise how could
they have ever run up that flag?

The boats approached in perfect silence, all hearts throbbing with the
intensity of newly awakened hope, all eyes eagerly watching for some
sign to confirm it. No part of the windows appeared over the water, but
the trap hole had been thrown open, and through it came the pole that
bore the American flag. Marston made for the trap hole and, as it was
only a few feet above the surface, he had no difficulty in looking in.

At that moment, a joyful shout of triumph rose from the interior, and
the whole boat's crew heard a dry drawling voice with a nasal twang
exclaiming:

"Queen! How is that for high?"

It was instantly answered by another voice, shriller, louder, quicker,
more joyous and triumphant in tone, but slightly tinged with a foreign
accent:

"King! My brave Mac! How is that for high?"

The deep, clear, calm voice that spoke next thrilled the listeners
outside with an emotion that we shall not attempt to portray. Except
that their ears could detect in it the faintest possible emotion of
triumph, it was in all respects as cool, resolute, and self-possessed as
ever:

"Ace! Dear friends, how is that for high?"

They were quietly enjoying a little game of High-Low-Jack!

[Illustration: HOW IS THAT FOR HIGH?]

How they must have been startled by the wild cheers that suddenly rang
around their ocean-prison! How madly were these cheers re-echoed from
the decks of the _Susquehanna_! Who can describe the welcome that
greeted these long lost, long beloved, long despaired of Sons of Earth,
now so suddenly and unexpectedly rescued from destruction, and
restored once more to the wonderstricken eyes of admiring humanity? Who
can describe the scenes of joy and exuberant happiness, and deep felt
gratitude, and roaring rollicking merriment, that were witnessed on
board the steamer that night and during the next three days!

As for Marston, it need hardly be said that he was simply ecstatic, but
it may interest both the psychologist and the philologist to learn that
the expression _How is that for high?_ struck him at once as with a kind
of frenzy. It became immediately such a favorite tongue morsel of his
that ever since he has been employing it on all occasions, appropriate
or otherwise. Thanks to his exertions in its behalf all over the
country, the phrase is now the most popular of the day, well known and
relished in every part of the Union. If we can judge from its present
hold on the popular ear it will continue to live and flourish for many a
long day to come; it may even be accepted as the popular expression of
triumph in those dim, distant, future years when the memory not only of
the wonderful occasion of its formation but also of the illustrious men
themselves who originated it, has been consigned forever to the dark
tomb of oblivion!

CHAPTER XXIV.

FAREWELL TO THE BALTIMORE GUN CLUB.

The intense interest of our extraordinary but most veracious history
having reached its culmination at the end of the last chapter, our
absorbing chronicle might with every propriety have been then and there
concluded; but we can't part from our gracious and most indulgent reader
before giving him a few more details which may be instructive perhaps,
if not amusing.

No doubt he kindly remembers the world-wide sympathy with which our
three famous travellers had started on their memorable trip to the Moon.
If so, he may be able to form some idea of the enthusiasm universally
excited by the news of their safe return. Would not the millions of
spectators that had thronged Florida to witness their departure, now
rush to the other extremity of the Union to welcome them back? Could
those innumerable Europeans, Africans and Asiatics, who had visited the
United States simply to have a look at M'Nicholl, Ardan and Barbican,
ever think of quitting the country without having seen those wonderful
men again? Certainly not! Nay, more--the reception and the welcome that
those heroes would everywhere be greeted with, should be on a scale
fully commensurate with the grandeur of their own gigantic enterprise.
The Sons of Earth who had fearlessly quitted this terrestrial globe and
who had succeeded in returning after accomplishing a journey
inconceivably wonderful, well deserved to be received with every
extremity of pride, pomp and glorious circumstance that the world is
capable of displaying.

To catch a glimpse of these demi-gods, to hear the sound of their
voices, perhaps even to touch their hands--these were the only emotions
with which the great heart of the country at large was now throbbing.

To gratify this natural yearning of humanity, to afford not only to
every foreigner but to every native in the land an opportunity of
beholding the three heroes who had reflected such indelible glory on the
American name, and to do it all in a manner eminently worthy of the
great American Nation, instantly became the desire of the American
People.

To desire a thing, and to have it, are synonymous terms with the great
people of the American Republic.

A little thinking simplified the matter considerably: as all the people
could not go to the heroes, the heroes should go to all the people.

So decided, so done.

It was nearly two months before Barbican and his friends could get back
to Baltimore. The winter travelling over the Rocky Mountains had been
very difficult on account of the heavy snows, and, even when they found
themselves in the level country, though they tried to travel as
privately as possible, and for the present positively declined all
public receptions, they were compelled to spend some time in the houses
of the warm friends near whom they passed in the course of their long
journey.

The rough notes of their Moon adventures--the only ones that they could
furnish just then--circulating like wild fire and devoured with
universal avidity, only imparted a keener whet to the public desire to
feast their eyes on such men. These notes were telegraphed free to every
newspaper in the country, but the longest and best account of the
"_Journey to the Moon_" appeared in the columns of the _New York
Herald_, owing to the fact that Watkins the reporter had had the
adventurers all to himself during the whole of the three days' trip of
the _Susquehanna_ back to San Francisco. In a week after their return,
every man, woman, and child in the United States knew by heart some of
the main facts and incidents in the famous journey; but, of course, it
is needless to say that they knew nothing at all about the finer points
and the highly interesting minor details of the astounding story. These
are now all laid before the highly favored reader for the first time. I
presume it is unnecessary to add that they are worthy of his most
implicit confidence, having been industriously and conscientiously
compiled from the daily journals of the three travellers, revised,
corrected, and digested very carefully by Barbican himself.

It was, of course, too early at this period for the critics to pass a
decided opinion on the nature of the information furnished by our
travellers. Besides, the Moon is an exceedingly difficult subject. Very
few newspaper men in the country are capable of offering a single
opinion regarding her that is worth reading. This is probably also the
reason why half-scientists talk so much dogmatic nonsense about her.

Enough, however, had appeared in the notes to warrant the general
opinion that Barbican's explorations had set at rest forever several pet
theories lately started regarding the nature of our satellite. He and
his friends had seen her with their own eyes, and under such favorable
circumstances as to be altogether exceptional. Regarding her formation,
her origin, her inhabitability, they could easily tell what system
_should_ be rejected and what _might_ be admitted. Her past, her
present, and her future, had been alike laid bare before their eyes. How
can you object to the positive assertion of a conscientious man who has
passed within a few hundred miles of _Tycho_, the culminating point in
the strangest of all the strange systems of lunar oreography? What reply
can you make to a man who has sounded the dark abysses of the _Plato_
crater? How can you dare to contradict those men whom the vicissitudes
of their daring journey had swept over the dark, Invisible Face of the
Moon, never before revealed to human eye? It was now confessedly the
privilege and the right of these men to set limits to that selenographic
science which had till now been making itself so very busy in
reconstructing the lunar world. They could now say, authoritatively,
like Cuvier lecturing over a fossil skeleton: "Once the Moon was this, a
habitable world, and inhabitable long before our Earth! And now the Moon
is that, an uninhabitable world, and uninhabitable ages and ages ago!"

We must not even dream of undertaking a description of the grand _fete_
by which the return of the illustrious members of the Gun Club was to be
adequately celebrated, and the natural curiosity of their countrymen to
see them was to be reasonably gratified. It was one worthy in every way
of its recipients, worthy of the Gun Club, worthy of the Great Republic,
and, best of all, every man, woman, and child in the United States could
take part in it. It required at least three months to prepare it: but
this was not to be regretted as its leading idea could not be properly
carried out during the severe colds of winter.

All the great railroads of the Union had been closely united by
temporary rails, a uniform gauge had been everywhere adopted, and every
other necessary arrangement had been made to enable a splendid palace
car, expressly manufactured for the occasion by Pullman himself, to
visit every chief point in the United States without ever breaking
connection. Through the principal street in each city, or streets if one
was not large enough, rails had been laid so as to admit the passage of
the triumphal car. In many cities, as a precaution against unfavorable
weather, these streets had been arched over with glass, thus becoming
grand arcades, many of which have been allowed to remain so to the
present day. The houses lining these streets, hung with tapestry,
decorated with flowers, waving with banners, were all to be illuminated
at night time in a style at once both the most brilliant and the most
tasteful. On the sidewalks, tables had been laid, often miles and miles
long, at the public expense; these were to be covered with every kind of
eatables, exquisitely cooked, in the greatest profusion, and free to
everyone for twelve hours before the arrival of the illustrious guests
and also for twelve hours after their departure. The idea mainly aimed
at was that, at the grand national banquet about to take place, every
inhabitant of the United States, without exception, could consider
Barbican and his companions as his own particular guests for the time
being, thus giving them a welcome the heartiest and most unanimous that
the world has ever yet witnessed.

Evergreens were to deck the lamp-posts; triumphal arches to span the
streets; fountains, squirting _eau de cologne_, to perfume and cool the
air; bands, stationed at proper intervals, to play the most inspiring
music; and boys and girls from public and private schools, dressed in
picturesque attire, to sing songs of joy and glory. The people, seated
at the banquetting tables, were to rise and cheer and toast the heroes
as they passed; the military companies, in splendid uniforms, were to
salute them with presented arms; while the bells pealed from the church
towers, the great guns roared from the armories, _feux de joie_
resounded from the ships in the harbor, until the day's wildest whirl of
excitement was continued far into the night by a general illumination
and a surpassing display of fireworks. Right in the very heart of the
city, the slowly moving triumphal car was always to halt long enough to
allow the Club men to join the cheering citizens at their meal, which
was to be breakfast, dinner or supper according to that part of the day
at which the halt was made.

The number of champagne bottles drunk on these occasions, or of the
speeches made, or of the jokes told, or of the toasts offered, or of the
hands shaken, of course, I cannot now weary my kind reader by detailing,
though I have the whole account lying before me in black and white,
written out day by day in Barbican's own bold hand. Yet I should like to
give a few extracts from this wonderful journal. It is a perfect model
of accuracy and system. Whether detailing his own doings or those of the
innumerable people he met, Caesar himself never wrote anything more
lucid or more pointed. But nothing sets the extraordinary nature of this
great man in a better light than the firm, commanding, masterly
character of the handwriting in which these records are made. The
elegant penmanship all through might easily pass for copper plate
engraving--except on one page, dated "_Boston, after dinner_," where,
candor compels me to acknowledge, the "Solid Men" appear to have
succeeded in rendering his iron nerves the least bit wabbly.

The palace car had been so constructed that, by turning a few cranks and
pulling out a few bolts, it was transformed at once into a highly
decorated and extremely comfortable open barouche. Marston took the seat
usually occupied by the driver: Ardan and M'Nicholl sat immediately
under him, face to face with Barbican, who, in order that everyone might
be able to distinguish him, was to keep all the back seat for himself,
the post of honor.

On Monday morning, the fifth of May, a month generally the pleasantest
in the United States, the grand national banquet commenced in Baltimore,
and lasted twenty-four hours. The Gun Club insisted on paying all the
expenses of the day, and the city compromised by being allowed to
celebrate in whatever way it pleased the reception of the Club men on
their return.

They started on their trip that same day in the midst of one of the
grandest ovations possible to conceive. They stopped for a little while
at Wilmington, but they took dinner in Philadelphia, where the splendor
of Broad Street (at present the finest boulevard in the world, being 113
feet wide and five miles long) can be more easily alluded to than even
partially described.

The house fronts glittered with flowers, flags, pictures, tapestries,
and other decorations; the chimneys and roofs swarmed with men and boys
cheerfully risking their necks every moment to get one glance at the
"Moon men"; every window was a brilliant bouquet of beautiful ladies
waving their scented handkerchiefs and showering their sweetest smiles;
the elevated tables on the sidewalks, groaning with an abundance of
excellent and varied food, were lined with men, women, and children,
who, however occupied in eating and drinking, never forgot to salute the
heroes, cheering them lustily as they slowly moved along; the spacious
street itself, just paved from end to end with smooth Belgian blocks,
was a living moving panorama of soldiers, temperance men, free masons,
and other societies, radiant in gorgeous uniforms, brilliant in flashing
banners, and simply perfect in the rhythmic cadence of their tread,
wings of delicious music seeming to bear them onward in their proud and
stately march.

A vast awning, spanning the street from ridge to ridge, had been so
prepared and arranged that, in case of rain or too strong a glare from
the summer sun, it could be opened out wholly or partially in the space
of a very few minutes. There was not, however, the slightest occasion
for using it, the weather being exceedingly fine, almost paradisiacal,
as Marston loved to phrase it.

[Illustration: THEIR ARRIVAL WAS WELCOMED WITH EQUAL _FURORE_.]

The "Moon men" supped and spent the night in New York, where they were
received with even greater enthusiasm than at Philadelphia. But no
detailed description can be given of their majestic progress from city
to city through all portions of the mighty Republic. It is enough to say
that they visited every important town from Portland to San Francisco,
from Salt Lake City to New Orleans, from Mobile to Charleston, and from
Saint Louis to Baltimore; that, in every section of the great country,
preparations for their reception were equally as enthusiastic, their
arrival was welcomed with equal _furore_, and their departure
accompanied with an equal amount of affectionate and touching sympathy.

The _New York Herald_ reporter, Mr. Watkins, followed them closely
everywhere in a palace car of his own, and kept the public fully
enlightened regarding every incident worth regarding along the route,
almost as soon as it happened. He was enabled to do this by means of a
portable telegraphic machine of new and most ingenious construction.
Though its motive power was electricity, it could dispense with the
ordinary instruments and even with wires altogether, yet it managed to
transmit messages to most parts of the world with an accuracy that,
considering how seldom it failed, is almost miraculous. The principle
actuating it, though guessed at by many shrewd scientists, is still a
profound secret and will probably remain so for some time longer, the
_Herald_ having purchased the right to its sole and exclusive use for
fifteen years, at an enormous cost.

Who shall say that the apotheosis of our three heroes was not worthy of
them, or that, had they lived in the old prehistoric times, they would
not have taken the loftiest places among the demi-gods?

As the tremendous whirl of excitement began slowly to die away, the
more thoughtful heads of the Great Republic began asking each other a
few questions:

Can this wonderful journey, unprecedented in the annals of wonderful
journeys, ever lead to any practical result?

Shall we ever live to see direct communication established with the
Moon?

Will any Air Line of space navigation ever undertake to start a system
of locomotion between the different members of the solar system?

Have we any reasonable grounds for ever expecting to see trains running
between planet and planet, as from Mars to Jupiter and, possibly
afterwards, from star to star, as from Polaris to Sirius?

Even to-day these are exceedingly puzzling questions, and, with all our
much vaunted scientific progress, such as "no fellow can make out." But
if we only reflect a moment on the audacious go-a-headiveness of the
Yankee branch of the Anglo Saxon race, we shall easily conclude that the
American people will never rest quietly until they have pushed to its
last result and to every logical consequence the astounding step so
daringly conceived and so wonderfully carried out by their great
countryman Barbican.

In fact, within a very few months after the return of the Club men from
the Continental Banquet, as it was called in the papers, the country was
flooded by a number of little books, like Insurance pamphlets, thrust
into every letter box and pushed under every door, announcing the
formation of a new company called _The Grand Interstellar Communication
Society_. The Capital was to be 100 million dollars, at a thousand
dollars a share: J.P. BARBICAN, ESQ., P.G.C. was to be President;
Colonel JOSHUA D. M'NICHOLL, Vice-President; Hon. J.T. MARSTON,
Secretary; Chevalier MICHAEL ARDAN, General Manager; JOHN MURPHY, ESQ.,
Chief Engineer; H. PHILLIPS COLEMAN, ESQ. (Philadelphia lawyer), Legal
Adviser; and the Astrological Adviser was to be Professor HENRY of
Washington. (Belfast's blunder had injured him so much in public
estimation, his former partisans having become his most merciless
revilers, that it was considered advisable to omit his name altogether
even in the list of the Directors.)

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