The Argosy, Vol. XXIV, No. 1 — page 108: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

108 A MONTH IN THE MOON. ‘You have forgotten a very important point, my dear Mauny,’’ he said. ‘We ought to have established a pigeon post to bring up the latest news. If we only had that, I should not much mind the siege so far.’? ‘The siege will soon be raised,’’ replied Norbert, smiling. ‘‘TI have made up my mind to act, if it were only to terrify those wretches,”? Sir Bucephalus looked at him speechless with surprise and curiosity. Norbert simply walked to the right wall, took hold of the ivory knob of the Moter A and slowly lowered it. An electric tinkle was at once heard. ‘‘ Contact is made and the experiment commences,’ said Norbert, with more emotion than he cared to show. ‘‘ It is now,’’ he continued, looking at his timepiece, ‘‘ exactly thirty eight minutes and fourteen seconds past three o’clock.’’ CHAPTER XXIV.—THE DESCENT OF THE MOON. THE baronet waited a little while before speaking. ‘Then, finding that the little electric twinkle had ceased without any apparent result, he walked to the window, stifling a laugh. At that moment the moon, in her first quarter, appeared in the horizon, plainly discernible, although it was still broad daylight. ‘‘ It seems to me that the Queen of the Night wants a good deal of press- ing, and does not trouble about us much !’’ said he, turning to Norbert. ‘“‘ You are making a slight mistake,’’ continued Norbert. ‘‘ Matters can- not go quite so fast. Have you forgotten the distance that separates us from that moon? It will take her‘not less than six days, eight hours, twenty one minutes, and forty six seconds to come down to us, if I have calculated rightly. “You see we have plenty of time to prepare to receive her,”’ The baronet said nothing, but was evidently far from being convinced. Norbert did not insist. ‘“Hxcuse.me,’’ he said, a moment later; ‘‘I am going to take a measure- ment with the telescope.’’ Going into the Hall of Telescopes, he seated himself at his place of obser- vation in order to make a note of the micrometrical measure of the disk as it appeared then. No further allusion was made in the course of the day to the progress of the experiment. - : Night came. The condensers had naturally ceased to work when no longer supplied by the sun. But the accumulators, set in motion by the simple turning of a lever, had automatically supplied the place of these machines, and so the magnet of Tehbali was constantly fully charged, as shown by the magnetonieter. . Kvery one retired to rest at midnight, as usual, with the exception of the doctor, who was on guard on the espjamade to keep a lookout on the move- ments of the enemy, and Norbert, who chose to keep him company. The moon set at nineteen minutes after two in the morning. Just before she reached the western edge of the horizon, Norbert left the doctor, and went to the observatory to take a fresh measurement. le discovered that the moon's diameter was tnercased by the thirtieth of a degree. =) a <S) (E(0) O Gomicboo