And so the Washington Government knew where Barbicane & Co. had commenced business. There could be no doubt as to the authenticity¹ of the telegram. The Consul² of Zanzibar was too cautious a man for his information to be doubted, and it was confirmed by subsequent telegrams. The gigantic works of the North Polar Practical Association were in full swing in the centre of the Kilimanjaro region, about three hundred miles from the East Coast of Africa, a little below the equinoctial line.  
How had they come to be installed so secretly in this lost country, at the foot of the famous mountain discovered in 1848 by Krapf and Rebmann? How had Barbicane & Co. been able to build their foundries and collect their staff? By what means had they managed to enter into peaceful relations with the savage³ tribes of the district, and their cruel and grasping chiefs? Nobody knew. And as there were only a few days to run before the 22nd, it was not unlikely that nobody would know.
 
When J. T. Maston learnt from Evangelina that the 108mystery of Kilimanjaro had been cleared up by a telegram from Zanzibar,—
 
“Pshaw!” he said, making a wonderful zigzag⁴ in the air with his iron hook. “They do not travel yet by telegraph or telephone; and in six days—patarapatanboomboom—all will be ready!”
 
And any one who heard the secretary of the Gun Club deliver the sonorous⁵ onomatope, like a roar from a Columbiad, would have wondered at the amount of vital energy remaining in the old artilleryman.
 
But there was no doubt that he was right. There was no time to send messengers to the Wamasai to arrest Impey Barbicane. Even if the messengers started from Egypt, or Aden, or Massowah, or Zanzibar, however quickly they might travel, they would have to contend with the difficulties of the country, with the obstacles unavoidable on a road through a mountainous region, and probably with followers⁷ acting⁸ under the orders of a sultan as despotic as he was black.
 
All hope would have to be given up of stopping the operation or arresting the operator.
 
But, if that was impossible, nothing was easier now than to know the worst that could happen. The firing-point had been revealed, and it was a simple matter of calculation—a complicated calculation evidently, but not beyond the capacities of algebraists in particular and mathematicians⁹ in general.
 
At first the Government kept the despatch¹⁰ secret, their object being to be able to indicate when they published it what would be the results of the displacement¹¹ of the axis¹² with regard to the alteration¹³ in the level of the waters. The inhabitants of the world would then know the fate 109that was in store for them, according to the segment of the spheroid on which they resided.
 
On the 14th of September the telegram was sent to the Longitudes¹⁴ Office at Washington, with instructions to work out the final consequences, ballistic and geographical¹⁵. The next day but one the information was ready. It was cabled at once to all the Governments of the new and old worlds, and having been printed in thousands of newspapers, it was cried in all the great cities by all the newsboys of the globe, as—
 
“What is going to happen?”
 
Which was the question being asked in every language just then.
 
And this is the reply as given by the Longitudes Office.
 
“Important Notice.
“The experiment to be attempted by Barbicane & Co. is as follows:—
 
“To produce a recoil¹⁶ on the 22nd of September at midnight, local time, by means of a monster cannon¹⁷ throwing a projectile¹⁸ of one hundred and eighty thousand tons.
 
“If this discharge is effected just below the Equator, near the thirty-eighth meridian¹⁹, at the base of the Kilimanjaro chain, and if it is directed towards the south, the mechanical effect on the terrestrial spheroid will be as follows:—
 
“At once, owing to the shock being combined with the diurnal²⁰ movement, a new axis will be formed, the old axis being 23° 28′, and the new one being perpendicular²¹ to the plane of the ecliptic.
 
“In the north the extremity²² of the new axis will be situated²³ between Greenland and Grinnell Land, on that 110part of Baffin Sea cut by the Arctic Circle. In the south it will be on the Antarctic Circle to the east of Adelaide Land.
 
“As an example of the new meridians²⁴, we may mention that passing through Dublin in Ireland, Paris in France, Palermo in Sicily, Obeid in Darfur, Kilimanjaro, Kerguelen Island, the new Antarctic Pole, the Society Islands in the Pacific, Vancouver Island, and Melville Peninsula.
 
“The new Equator will pass through the Kilimanjaro country, the Indian Ocean, Goa, a little below Calcutta, Mangala in Siam, Hong Kong, the Marshall and Walker Islands in the Pacific, Rio Janeiro, Saint Helena, and by St. Paul de Loanda across Africa to Kilimanjaro.
 
“The new Equator having been formed by the ne............