FIRE!
The 1st of December came, the fatal day, for if the projectile did not
start that very evening at 10h. 46m. and 40s. p.m., more than eighteen
years would elapse before the moon would present the same simultaneous
conditions of zenith and perigee.
The weather was magnificent; notwithstanding the approach of winter the
sun shone brightly and bathed in its radiance that earth which three of
its inhabitants were about to leave for a new world.
How many people slept badly during the night that preceded the
ardently-longed-for day! How many breasts were oppressed with the heavy
burden of waiting! All hearts beat with anxiety except only the heart of
Michel Ardan. This impassible person went and came in his usual
business-like way, but nothing in him denoted any unusual preoccupation.
His sleep had been peaceful--it was the sleep of Turenne upon a
gun-carriage the night before the battle.
From early dawn an innumerable crowd covered the prairie, which extended
as far as the eye could reach round Stony Hill. Every quarter of an hour
the railroad of Tampa brought fresh sightseers. According to the _Tampa
Town Observer_, five millions of spectators were that day upon Floridian
soil.
The greater part of this crowd had been living in tents round the
inclosure, and laid the foundations of a town which has since been
called "Ardan's Town." The ground bristled with huts, cabins, and tents,
and these ephemeral habitations sheltered a population numerous enough
to rival the largest cities of Europe.
Every nation upon earth was represented; every language was spoken at
the same time. It was like the confusion of tongues at the Tower of
Babel. There the different classes of American society mixed in absolute
equality. Bankers, cultivators, sailors, agents, merchants,
cotton-planters, and magistrates elbowed each other with primitive ease.
The creoles of Louisiana fraternised with the farmers of Indiana; the
gentlemen of Kentucky and Tennessee, the elegant and haughty Virginians,
joked with the half-savage trappers of the Lakes and the butchers of
Cincinnati. They appeared in broad-brimmed white beavers and Panamas,
blue cotton trousers, from the Opelousa manufactories, draped in elegant
blouses of écru cloth, in boots of brilliant colours, and extravagant
shirt-frills; upon shirt-fronts, cuffs, cravats, on their ten fingers,
even in their ears, an assortment of rings, pins, diamonds, chains,
buckles, and trinkets, the cost of which equalled the bad taste. Wife,
children, servants, in no less rich dress, accompanied, followed,
preceded, and surrounded their husbands, fathers, and masters, who
resembled the patriarchs amidst their innumerable families.
At meal-times it was a sight to see all these people devour the dishes
peculiar to the Southern States, and eat, with an appetite menacing to
the provisioning of Florida, the food that would be repugnant to a
European stomach, such as fricasseed frogs, monkey-flesh, fish-chowder,
underdone opossum, and raccoon steaks.
The liquors that accompanied this indigestible food were numerous.
Shouts and vociferations to buy resounded through the bar-rooms or
taverns, decorated with glasses, tankards, decanters, and bottles of
marvellous shapes, mortars for pounding sugar, and bundles of straws.
"Mint-julep!" roars out one of the salesmen.
"Claret sangaree!" shouts another through his nose.
"Gin-sling!" shouts one.
"Cocktail! Brandy-smash!" cries another.
"Who'll buy real mint-julep in the latest style?" shouted these skilful
salesmen, rapidly passing from one glass to another the sugar, lemon,
green mint, crushed ice, water, cognac, and fresh pine-apple which
compose this refreshing drink.
Generally these sounds, addressed to throats made thirsty by the spices
they consumed, mingled into one deafening roar. But on this 1st of
December these cries were rare. No one thought of eating and drinking,
and at 4 p.m. there were many spectators in the crowd who had not taken
their customary lunch! A much more significant fact, even the national
passion for gaming was allayed by the general emotion. Thimbles,
skittles, and cards were left in their wrappings, and testified that the
great event of the day absorbed all attention.
Until nightfall a dull, noiseless agitation like that which precedes
great catastrophes ran through the anxious crowd. An indescribable
uneasiness oppressed all minds, and stopped the beating of all hearts.
Every one wished it over.
However, about seven o'clock this heavy silence was suddenly broken. The
moon rose above the horizon. Several millions of hurrahs saluted her
apparition. She was punctual to the appointment. Shouts of welcome broke
from all parts, whilst the blonde Phoebe shone peacefully in a clear
sky, and caressed the enraptured crowd with her most affectionate rays.
At that moment the three intrepid travellers appeared. When they
appeared the cries redoubled in intensity. Unanimously, instantaneously,
the national song of the United States escaped from all the spectators,
and "Yankee Doodle," sung by 5,000,000 of hearty throats, rose like a
roaring tempest to the farthest limits of the atmosphere.
Then, after this irresistible outburst, the hymn was ended, the last
harmonies died away by degrees, and a silent murmur floated over the
profoundly-excited crowd.
In the meantime the Frenchman and the two Americans had stepped into the
inclosure round which the crowd was pressing. They were accompanied by
the members of the Gun Club, and deputations sent by the European
observatories. Barbicane was coolly and calmly giving his last orders.
Nicholl, with compressed lips and hands crossed behind his back, walked
with a firm and measured step. Michel Ardan, always at his ease, clothed
in a perfect travelling suit, with leather gaiters on his legs, pouch at
his side, in vast garment of maroon velvet, a cigar in his mouth,
distributed shakes of the hand with princely prodigality. He was full of
inexhaustible gaiety, laughing, joking, playing pranks upon the worthy
J.T. Maston, and was, in a word, "French," and, what is worse,
"Parisian," till the last second.
Ten o'clock struck. The moment had come to take their places in the
projectile; the necessary mechanism for the descent the door-plate to
screw down, the removal of the cranes and scaffolding hung over the
mouth of the Columbiad, took some time.
Barbicane had set his chronometer to the tenth of a second by that of
the engineer Murchison, who was entrusted with setting fire to the
powder by means of the electric spark; the travellers shut up in the
projectile could thus watch the impassive needle which was going to mark
the precise instant of their departure.
The moment for saying farewell had come. The scene was touching; in
spite of his gaiety Michel Ardan felt touched. J.T. Maston had found
under his dry eyelids an ancient tear that he had, doubtless, kept for
the occasion. He shed it upon the forehead of his dear president.
"Suppose I go too?" said he. "There is still time!"
"Impossible, old fellow," answered Barbicane.
A few moments later the three travelling companions were installed in
the projectile, and had screwed down the door-plate, and the mouth of
the Columbiad, entirely liberated, rose freely towards the sky.
Nicholl, Barbicane, and Michel Ardan were definitively walled up in
their metal vehicle.
Who could predict the universal emotion then at its paroxysm?
The moon was rising in a firmament of limpid purity, outshining on her
passage the twinkling fire of the stars; she passed over the
constellation of the Twins, and was now nearly halfway between the
horizon and the zenith.
A frightful silence hung over all that scene. There was not a breath of
wind on the earth! Not a sound of breathing from the crowd! Hearts dared
not beat. Every eye was fixed on the gaping mouth of the Columbiad.
Murchison watched the needle of his chronometer. Hardly forty seconds
had to elapse before the moment of departure struck, and each one lasted
a century!
At the twentieth there was a universal shudder, and the thought occurred
to all the crowd that the audacious travellers shut up in the vehicle
were likewise counting these terrible seconds! Some isolated cries were
heard.
"Thirty-five!--thirty-six!--thirty-seven!--thirty--eight!--thirty-nine!
--forty! Fire!!!"
Murchison immediately pressed his finger upon the electric knob and
hurled the electric spark into the depths of the Columbiad.
A fearful, unheard-of, superhuman report, of which nothing could give
an idea, not even thunder or the eruption of volcanoes, was immediately
produced. An immense spout of fire sprang up from the bowels of the
earth as if from a crater. The soil heaved and very few persons caught a
glimpse of the projectile victoriously cleaving the air amidst the
flaming smoke.