"Well, we _were_ smart!" cried Ardan suddenly.

"How so, friend Michael?" asked Barbican.

"Why not have packed the Projectile with ever so many useful objects,
books, instruments, tools, et cetera, and fling them out into space once
we were fairly started! They would have all followed us safely! Nothing
would have been lost! And--now I think on it--why not fling ourselves
out through the window? Shouldn't we be as safe out there as that
bolide? What fun it would be to feel ourselves sustained and upborne in
the ether, more highly favored even than the birds, who must keep on
flapping their wings continually to prevent themselves from falling!"

"Very true, my dear boy," observed Barbican; "but how could we breathe?"

"It's a fact," exclaimed the Frenchman. "Hang the air for spoiling our
fun! So we must remain shut up in our Projectile?"

"Not a doubt of it!"

--"Oh Thunder!" roared Ardan, suddenly striking his forehead.

"What ails you?" asked the Captain, somewhat surprised.

"Now I know what that bolide of ours is! Why didn't we think of it
before? It is no asteroid! It is no particle of meteoric matter! Nor is
it a piece of a shattered planet!"

"What is it then?" asked both of his companions in one voice.