by Jules Verne
CHAPTER XVII.
A TELEGRAPHIC DESPATCH.
The great works undertaken by the Gun Club had now virtually come to anend; and two months still remained before the day for the discharge ofthe shot to the moon. To the general impatience these two months appearedas long as years! Hitherto the smallest details of the operation had beendaily chronicled by the journals, which the public devoured with eagereyes.
Just at this moment a circumstance, the most unexpected, the mostextraordinary and incredible, occurred to rouse afresh their pantingspirits, and to throw every mind into a state of the most violentexcitement.
One day, the 30th September, at 3.47 p.m., a telegram, transmitted bycable from Valentia (Ireland) to Newfoundland and the American mainland,arrived at the address of President Barbicane.
The President tore open the envelope, read the despatch, and, despitehis remarkable powers of self-control, his lips turned pale and his eyesgrew dim, on reading the twenty words of this telegram.
Here is the text of the despatch, which figures now in the archives ofthe Gun Club:--
"France, Paris,
"30 _September_, 4 _a.m._
"Barbicane, Tampa Town, Florida, United States.
"Substitute for your spherical shell a cylindro-conical projectile. I shall go inside. Shall arrive by steamer 'Atlanta.'
"Michel Ardan."