Chapter 18 - Page 2

"Gentlemen," replied Barbicane, "I know no more than you do."

"We must know," roared the impatient voices.

"Time will show," calmly replied the president.

"Time has no business to keep a whole country in suspense,"
replied the orator. "Have you altered the plans of the
projectile according to the request of the telegram?"

"Not yet, gentlemen; but you are right! we must have better
information to go by. The telegraph must complete its information."

"To the telegraph!" roared the crowd.

Barbicane descended; and heading the immense assemblage, led the
way to the telegraph office. A few minutes later a telegram was
dispatched to the secretary of the underwriters at Liverpool,
requesting answers to the following queries:

"About the ship Atlanta-- when did she leave Europe? Had she on
board a Frenchman named Michel Ardan?"

Two hours afterward Barbicane received information too exact to
leave room for the smallest remaining doubt.

"The steamer Atlanta from Liverpool put to sea on the 2nd of
October, bound for Tampa Town, having on board a Frenchman borne
on the list of passengers by the name of Michel Ardan."

That very evening he wrote to the house of Breadwill and Co.,
requesting them to suspend the casting of the projectile until
the receipt of further orders. On the 10th of October, at nine
A.M., the semaphores of the Bahama Canal signaled a thick smoke
on the horizon. Two hours later a large steamer exchanged
signals with them. the name of the Atlanta flew at once over
Tampa Town. At four o'clock the English vessel entered the Bay
of Espiritu Santo. At five it crossed the passage of
Hillisborough Bay at full steam. At six she cast anchor at
Port Tampa. The anchor had scarcely caught the sandy bottom when
five hundred boats surrounded the Atlanta, and the steamer was
taken by assault. Barbicane was the first to set foot on deck,
and in a voice of which he vainly tried to conceal the emotion,
called "Michel Ardan."

"Here!" replied an individual perched on the poop.

Barbicane, with arms crossed, looked fixedly at the passenger of
the Atlanta.

He was a man of about forty-two years of age, of large build,
but slightly round-shouldered. His massive head momentarily
shook a shock of reddish hair, which resembled a lion's mane.
His face was short with a broad forehead, and furnished with a
moustache as bristly as a cat's, and little patches of yellowish
whiskers upon full cheeks. Round, wildish eyes, slightly
near-sighted, completed a physiognomy essentially feline.
His nose was firmly shaped, his mouth particularly sweet in
expression, high forehead, intelligent and furrowed with
wrinkles like a newly-plowed field. The