_Legères hirondelles,
Oiseaux bénis de Dieu,
Ouvrez-ouvrez vos ailes,
Envolez-vous! adieu!_

{Farewell, happy Swallows, farewell!}
{With summer for ever to dwell}
{Ye leave our northern strand}
{For the genial southern land}
{Balmy with breezes bland.}
{Return? Ah, who can tell?}
{Farewell, happy Swallows, farewell!}

Barbican was much gratified to find that his rockets and other fireworks
had not received the least injury. He relied upon them for the
performance of a very important service as soon as the Projectile,
having passed the point of neutral attraction between the Earth and the
Moon, would begin to fall with accelerated velocity towards the Lunar
surface. This descent, though--thanks to the respective volumes of the
attracting bodies--six times less rapid than it would have been on the
surface of the Earth, would still be violent enough to dash the
Projectile into a thousand pieces. But Barbican confidently expected by
means of his powerful rockets to offer very considerable obstruction to
the violence of this fall, if not to counteract its terrible effects
altogether.

The inspection having thus given general satisfaction, the travellers
once more set themselves to watching external space through the lights
in the sides and the floor of the Projectile.