"Yes," replied Michel, with amiable conceit, "I have a few ideas of that kind."
"But that idea does not originate with Michel," answered Nicholl.
"Without doubt," answered Nicholl. "According to the testimony of the ancients, the Arcadians pretended that their ancestors inhabited the earth before the moon became her satellite. Starting from this fact, certain _savants_ think the moon was a comet which its orbit one day brought near enough to the earth to be retained by terrestrial attraction."
"And what truth is there in that hypothesis?" asked Michel.
"None," answered Barbicane, "and the proof is that the moon has not kept a trace of the gaseous envelope that always accompanies comets."
"But," said Nicholl, "might not the moon, before becoming the earth's satellite, have passed near enough to the sun to leave all her gaseous substances by evaporation?"
"It might, friend Nicholl, but it is not probable."
"Ah, what hundreds of volumes we might fill with what we don't know!" exclaimed Michel. "But I say," he continued, "what time is it?"
"How the time goes," said Michel, "in the conversation of _savants_ like us! Decidedly I feel myself getting too learned! I feel that I am becoming a well of knowledge!"
So saying, Michel climbed to the roof of the projectile, "in order better to observe the moon," he pretended. In the meanwhile his companions watched the vault of space through the lower port-light. There was nothing fresh to signalise.
When Michel Ardan came down again he approached the lateral port-light, and suddenly uttered an exclamation of surprise.
"What is the matter now?" asked Barbicane.
The president approached the glass and saw a sort of flattened sack floating outside at some yards' distance from the projectile. This object seemed motionless like the bullet, and was consequently animated with the same ascensional movement.
"Whatever can that machine be?" said Michel Ardan. "Is it one of the corpuscles of space which our projectile holds in its radius of attraction, and which will accompany it as far as the moon?"
"What I am astonished at," answered Nicholl, "is that the specific weight of this body, which is certainly superior to that of the bullet, allows it to maintain itself so rigorously on its level."