velocity!"

"Well?" asked M'Nicholl.

"Well, such a velocity will never do!"

"How??" }
"How!!" } cried the Captain and Ardan in one voice.

"We can never reach the neutral point!"

"Thunder and lightning"

"Fire and Fury!"

"We can't get even halfway!"

"Heaven and Earth!"

"_Mille noms d'un boulet!_" cried Ardan, wildly gesticulating.

"And we shall fall back to the Earth!"

"Oh!"

"Ah!"

They could say no more. This fearful revelation took them like a stroke
of apoplexy.