grave judicial tone.

"Mac, my boy," said Ardan seriously, "don't it strike you as a little
out of order to ask how you are to return when you have not got there
yet?"

"I don't ask the question with any idea of backing out," observed the
Captain quietly; "as a matter of purely scientific inquiry, I repeat my
question: how are we to return?"

"I don't know," replied Barbican promptly.

"For my part," said Ardan; "if I had known how to get back, I should
have never come at all!"

"Well! of all the answers!" said the Captain, lifting his hands and
shaking his head.

"The best under the circumstances;" observed Barbican; "and I shall
further observe that such a question as yours at present is both useless
and uncalled for. On some future occasion, when we shall consider it
advisable to return, the question will be in order, and we shall discuss
it with all the attention it deserves. Though the Columbiad is at Stony
Hill, the Projectile will still be in the Moon."

"Much we shall gain by that! A bullet without a gun!"

"The gun we can make and the powder too!" replied Barbican confidently.
"Metal and sulphur and charcoal and saltpetre are likely enough to be
present in sufficient quantities beneath the Moon's surface. Besides, to