Their own Projectile was carrying them headlong into a bottomless abyss of fire! Still, even in this moment of horror, their presence of mind, or at least their consciousness, never abandoned them.

Barbican had grasped each of his friends by the hand, and all three tried as well as they could to watch through half-closed eyelids the white-hot asteroid's rapid approach.

They could utter no word, they could breathe no prayer.
They gave themselves up for lost--in the agony of terror that partially interrupted the ordinary functions of their brains, this was absolutely all they could do! Hardly three minutes had elapsed since Ardan had caught the first glimpse of it--three ages of agony! Now it was on them! In a second--in less than a second, the terrible fireball had burst like a shell! Thousands of glittering fragments were flying around them in all directions--but with no more noise than is made by so many light flakes of thistle-down floating about some warm afternoon in summer.

The blinding, blasting steely white glare of the explosion almost bereft the travellers of the use of their eyesight forever, but no more report reached their ears than if it had taken place at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

In an atmosphere like ours, such a crash would have burst the ear-membranes of ten thousand elephants! In the middle of the commotion another loud cry was suddenly heard.