His silence, of course, did not last long.
"Ha! ha! ha!" he laughed bitterly.

"Precious scientific men! Villainous old hombogues! The whole set not worth a straw! I hope to gracious, since we must fall, that we shall drop down plumb on Cambridge Observatory, and not leave a single one of the miserable old women, called professors, alive in the premises!" A certain expression in Ardan's angry exclamation had struck the Captain like a shot, and set his temples throbbing violently.
"_Must_ fall!" he exclaimed, starting up suddenly.

"Let us see about that! It is now seven o'clock in the morning.

We must have, therefore, been at least thirty-two hours on the road, and more than half of our passage is already made.

If we are going to fall at all, we must be falling now! I'm certain we're not, but, Barbican, you have to find it out!" Barbican caught the idea like lightning, and, seizing a compass, he began through the floor window to measure the visual angle of the distant Earth.