midnight
`` Oh ! I am sure of that , if you tell me so , my young friend , '' said Lieutenant Bronsfield , smiling . `` But , '' continued another officer , `` their arrival can not be doubted . The projectile was to reach the moon when full on the 5th at midnight . We are now at the 11th of December , which makes six days . And in six times twenty-four hours , without darkness , one would have time to settle comfortably . I fancy I see my brave countrymen encamped at the bottom of some valley , on the borders of a Selenite stream , near a projectile half-buried by its fall amid volcanic rubbish , Captain Nicholl beginning his leveling operations , President Barbicane writing out his notes , and Michel Ardan embalming the lunar solitudes with the perfume of his -- '' `` Yes !