The Moon-Voyage | Page 5

a 32-inch mortar; it
was pointed at an angle of 90 degs., and hung upon trunnions so that
the president could use it as a rocking-chair, very agreeable in great
heat. Upon the desk, a huge iron plate, supported upon six carronades,
stood a very tasteful inkstand, made of a beautifully-chased Spanish
piece, and a report-bell, which, when required, went off like a revolver.
During the vehement discussions this new sort of bell scarcely sufficed
to cover the voices of this legion of excited artillerymen.
In front of the desk, benches, arranged in zigzags, like the
circumvallations of intrenchment, formed a succession of bastions and
curtains where the members of the Gun Club took their seats; and that
evening, it may be said, there were plenty on the ramparts. The
president was sufficiently known for all to be assured that he would not
have called together his colleagues without a very great motive.

Impey Barbicane was a man of forty, calm, cold, austere, of a
singularly serious and concentrated mind, as exact as a chronometer, of
an imperturbable temperament and immovable character; not very
chivalrous, yet adventurous, and always bringing practical ideas to bear
on the wildest enterprises; an essential New-Englander, a Northern
colonist, the descendant of those Roundheads so fatal to the Stuarts,
and the implacable enemy of the Southern gentlemen, the ancient
cavaliers of the mother country--in a word, a Yankee cast in a single
mould.
Barbicane had made a great fortune as a timber-merchant; named
director of artillery during the war, he showed himself fertile in
inventions; enterprising in his ideas, he contributed powerfully to the
progress of ballistics, gave an immense impetus to experimental
researches.
He was a person of average height, having, by a rare exception in the
Gun Club, all his limbs intact. His strongly-marked features seemed to
be drawn by square and rule, and if it be true that in order to guess the
instincts of a man one must look at his profile, Barbicane seen thus
offered the most certain indications of energy, audacity, and
_sang-froid_.
At that moment he remained motionless in his chair, mute, absorbed,
with an inward look sheltered under his tall hat, a cylinder of black silk,
which seems screwed down upon the skull of American men.
His colleagues talked noisily around him without disturbing him; they
questioned one another, launched into the field of suppositions,
examined their president, and tried, but in vain, to make out the x of his
imperturbable physiognomy.
Just as eight o'clock struck from the fulminating clock of the large hall,
Barbicane, as if moved by a spring, jumped up; a general silence
ensued, and the orator, in a slightly emphatic tone, spoke as follows:--
"Brave colleagues,--It is some time since an unfruitful peace plunged
the members of the Gun Club into deplorable inactivity. After a period
of some years, so full of incidents, we have been obliged to abandon
our works and stop short on the road of progress. I do not fear to
proclaim aloud that any war which would put arms in our hands again
would be welcome--"
"Yes, war!" cried impetuous J.T. Maston.

"Hear, hear!" was heard on every side.
"But war," said Barbicane, "war is impossible under actual
circumstances, and, whatever my honourable interrupter may hope,
long years will elapse before our cannons thunder on a field of battle.
We must, therefore, make up our minds to it, and seek in another order
of ideas food for the activity by which we are devoured."
The assembly felt that its president was coming to the delicate point; it
redoubled its attention.
"A few months ago, my brave colleagues," continued Barbicane, "I
asked myself if, whilst still remaining in our speciality, we could not
undertake some grand experiment worthy of the nineteenth century,
and if the progress of ballistics would not allow us to execute it with
success. I have therefore sought, worked, calculated, and the conviction
has resulted from my studies that we must succeed in an enterprise that
would seem impracticable in any other country. This project, elaborated
at length, will form the subject of my communication; it is worthy of
you, worthy of the Gun Club's past history, and cannot fail to make a
noise in the world!"
"Much noise?" cried a passionate artilleryman.
"Much noise in the true sense of the word," answered Barbicane.
"Don't interrupt!" repeated several voices.
"I therefore beg of you, my brave colleagues," resumed the president,
"to grant me all your attention."
A shudder ran through the assembly. Barbicane, having with a rapid
gesture firmly fixed his hat on his head, continued his speech in a calm
tone:--
"There is not one of you, brave colleagues, who has not seen the moon,
or, at least, heard of It. Do not be astonished if I