"Ten, forty-six!" whispered the Captain, as he and Ardan quietly took
their places on the mattresses.

Only forty seconds more!

Barbican rapidly extinguishes the gas and lies down beside his
companions.

The deathlike silence now reigning in the Projectile is interrupted only
by the sharp ticking of the chronometer as it beats the seconds.

Suddenly, a dreadful shock is felt, and the Projectile, shot up by the
instantaneous development of 200,000 millions of cubic feet of gas, is
flying into space with inconceivable rapidity!




CHAPTER II.

THE FIRST HALF HOUR.


What had taken place within the Projectile? What effect had been
produced by the frightful concussion? Had Barbican's ingenuity been
attended with a fortunate result? Had the shock been sufficiently
deadened by the springs, the buffers, the water layers, and the
partitions so readily ruptured? Had their combined effect succeeded in
counteracting the tremendous violence of a velocity of 12,000 yards a