"Gentlemen," replied Barbicane, "I know no more than you do."
"We must know," roared the impatient voices.
"Time will show," calmly replied the president.
"Time has no business to keep a whole country in suspense,"
replied the orator. "Have you altered the plans of the projectile according to the request of the telegram?"
"Not yet, gentlemen; but you are right! we must have better information to go by. The telegraph must complete its information."
"To the telegraph!" roared the crowd.
Barbicane descended; and heading the immense a.s.semblage, led the way to the telegraph office. A few minutes later a telegram was dispatched to the secretary of the underwriters at Liverpool, requesting answers to the following queries:
"About the ship Atlanta-- when did she leave Europe? Had she on board a Frenchman named Michel Ardan?"
Two hours afterward Barbicane received information too exact to leave room for the smallest remaining doubt.
"The steamer Atlanta from Liverpool put to sea on the 2nd of October, bound for Tampa Town, having on board a Frenchman borne on the list of pa.s.sengers by the name of Michel Ardan."
That very evening he wrote to the house of Breadwill and Co., requesting them to suspend the casting of the projectile until the receipt of further orders. On the 10th of October, at nine A.M., the semaph.o.r.es of the Bahama Ca.n.a.l signaled a thick smoke on the horizon. Two hours later a large steamer exchanged signals with them. the name of the Atlanta flew at once over Tampa Town. At four o"clock the English vessel entered the Bay of Espiritu Santo. At five it crossed the pa.s.sage of Hillisborough Bay at full steam. At six she cast anchor at Port Tampa. The anchor had scarcely caught the sandy bottom when five hundred boats surrounded the Atlanta, and the steamer was taken by a.s.sault. Barbicane was the first to set foot on deck, and in a voice of which he vainly tried to conceal the emotion, called "Michel Ardan."
"Here!" replied an individual perched on the p.o.o.p.
Barbicane, with arms crossed, looked fixedly at the pa.s.senger of the Atlanta.
He was a man of about forty-two years of age, of large build, but slightly round-shouldered. His ma.s.sive head momentarily shook a shock of reddish hair, which resembled a lion"s mane.
His face was short with a broad forehead, and furnished with a moustache as bristly as a cat"s, and little patches of yellowish whiskers upon full cheeks. Round, wildish eyes, slightly near-sighted, completed a physiognomy essentially feline.
His nose was firmly shaped, his mouth particularly sweet in expression, high forehead, intelligent and furrowed with wrinkles like a newly-plowed field. The body was powerfully developed and firmly fixed upon long legs. Muscular arms, and a general air of decision gave him the appearance of a hardy, jolly, companion. He was dressed in a suit of ample dimensions, loose neckerchief, open shirtcollar, disclosing a robust neck; his cuffs were invariably unb.u.t.toned, through which appeared a pair of red hands.
On the bridge of the steamer, in the midst of the crowd, he bustled to and fro, never still for a moment, "dragging his anchors," as the sailors say, gesticulating, making free with everybody, biting his nails with nervous avidity. He was one of those originals which nature sometimes invents in the freak of a moment, and of which she then breaks the mould.
Among other peculiarities, this curiosity gave himself out for a sublime ignoramus, "like Shakespeare," and professed supreme contempt for all scientific men. Those "fellows," as he called them, "are only fit to mark the points, while we play the game."
He was, in fact, a thorough Bohemian, adventurous, but not an adventurer; a hare-brained fellow, a kind of Icarus, only possessing relays of wings. For the rest, he was ever in sc.r.a.pes, ending invariably by falling on his feet, like those little figures which they sell for children"s toys. In a few words, his motto was "I have my opinions," and the love of the impossible const.i.tuted his ruling pa.s.sion.
Such was the pa.s.senger of the Atlanta, always excitable, as if boiling under the action of some internal fire by the character of his physical organization. If ever two individuals offered a striking contrast to each other, these were certainly Michel Ardan and the Yankee Barbicane; both, moreover, being equally enterprising and daring, each in his own way.
The scrutiny which the president of the Gun Club had inst.i.tuted regarding this new rival was quickly interrupted by the shouts and hurrahs of the crowd. The cries became at last so uproarious, and the popular enthusiasm a.s.sumed so personal a form, that Michel Ardan, after having shaken hands some thousands of times, at the imminent risk of leaving his fingers behind him, was fain at last to make a bolt for his cabin.
Barbicane followed him without uttering a word.
"You are Barbicane, I suppose?" said Michel Ardan, in a tone of voice in which he would have addressed a friend of twenty years" standing.
"Yes," replied the president of the Gun Club.
"All right! how d"ye do, Barbicane? how are you getting on-- pretty well? that"s right."
"So," said Barbicane without further preliminary, "you are quite determined to go."
"Quite decided."
"Nothing will stop you?"
"Nothing. Have you modified your projectile according to my telegram."
"I waited for your arrival. But," asked Barbicane again, "have you carefully reflected?"
"Reflected? have I any time to spare? I find an opportunity of making a tour in the moon, and I mean to profit by it. There is the whole gist of the matter."
Barbicane looked hard at this man who spoke so lightly of his project with such complete absence of anxiety. "But, at least,"
said he, "you have some plans, some means of carrying your project into execution?"
"Excellent, my dear Barbicane; only permit me to offer one remark: My wish is to tell my story once for all, to everybody, and then have done with it; then there will be no need for recapitulation.
So, if you have no objection, a.s.semble your friends, colleagues, the whole town, all Florida, all America if you like, and to-morrow I shall be ready to explain my plans and answer any objections whatever that may be advanced. You may rest a.s.sured I shall wait without stirring. Will that suit you?"
"All right," replied Barbicane.
So saying, the president left the cabin and informed the crowd of the proposal of Michel Ardan. His words were received with clappings of hands and shouts of joy. They had removed all difficulties.
To-morrow every one would contemplate at his ease this European hero.
However, some of the spectators, more infatuated than the rest, would not leave the deck of the Atlanta. They pa.s.sed the night on board. Among others J. T. Maston got his hook fixed in the combing of the p.o.o.p, and it pretty nearly required the capstan to get it out again.
"He is a hero! a hero!" he cried, a theme of which he was never tired of ringing the changes; "and we are only like weak, silly women, compared with this European!"
As to the president, after having suggested to the visitors it was time to retire, he re-entered the pa.s.senger"s cabin, and remained there till the bell of the steamer made it midnight.
But then the two rivals in popularity shook hands heartily and parted on terms of intimate friendship.
CHAPTER XIX
A MONSTER MEETING
On the following day Barbicane, fearing that indiscreet questions might be put to Michel Ardan, was desirous of reducing the number of the audience to a few of the initiated, his own colleagues for instance. He might as well have tried to check the Falls of Niagara! he was compelled, therefore, to give up the idea, and let his new friend run the chances of a public conference. The place chosen for this monster meeting was a vast plain situated in the rear of the town. In a few hours, thanks to the help of the shipping in port, an immense roofing of canvas was stretched over the parched prairie, and protected it from the burning rays of the sun. There three hundred thousand people braved for many hours the stifling heat while awaiting the arrival of the Frenchman. Of this crowd of spectators a first set could both see and hear; a second set saw badly and heard nothing at all; and as for the third, it could neither see nor hear anything at all. At three o"clock Michel Ardan made his appearance, accompanied by the princ.i.p.al members of the Gun Club. He was supported on his right by President Barbicane, and on his left by J. T. Maston, more radiant than the midday sun, and nearly as ruddy. Ardan mounted a platform, from the top of which his view extended over a sea of black hats.
He exhibited not the slightest embarra.s.sment; he was just as gay, familiar, and pleasant as if he were at home. To the hurrahs which greeted him he replied by a graceful bow; then, waving his hands to request silence, he spoke in perfectly correct English as follows:
"Gentlemen, despite the very hot weather I request your patience for a short time while I offer some explanations regarding the projects which seem to have so interested you. I am neither an orator nor a man of science, and I had no idea of addressing you in public; but my friend Barbicane has told me that you would like to hear me, and I am quite at your service. Listen to me, therefore, with your six hundred thousand ears, and please excuse the faults of the speaker. Now pray do not forget that you see before you a perfect ignoramus whose ignorance goes so far that he cannot even understand the difficulties! It seemed to him that it was a matter quite simple, natural, and easy to take one"s place in a projectile and start for the moon!
That journey must be undertaken sooner or later; and, as for the mode of locomotion adopted, it follows simply the law of progress.
Man began by walking on all-fours; then, one fine day, on two feet; then in a carriage; then in a stage-coach; and lastly by railway. Well, the projectile is the vehicle of the future, and the planets themselves are nothing else! Now some of you, gentlemen, may imagine that the velocity we propose to impart to it is extravagant. It is nothing of the kind. All the stars exceed it in rapidity, and the earth herself is at this moment carrying us round the sun at three times as rapid a rate, and yet she is a mere lounger on the way compared with many others of the planets! And her velocity is constantly decreasing.
Is it not evident, then, I ask you, that there will some day appear velocities far greater than these, of which light or electricity will probably be the mechanical agent?
"Yes, gentlemen," continued the orator, "in spite of the opinions of certain narrow-minded people, who would shut up the human race upon this globe, as within some magic circle which it must never outstep, we shall one day travel to the moon, the planets, and the stars, with the same facility, rapidity, and certainty as we now make the voyage from Liverpool to New York!
Distance is but a relative expression, and must end by being reduced to zero."