four o'clock in the morning
This was to be the last day of their journey , if all calculations were correct . That very night , at 12 o'clock , within nineteen hours at furthest , at the very moment of Full Moon , they were to reach her resplendent surface . At that hour was to be completed the most extraordinary journey ever undertaken by man in ancient or modern times . Naturally enough , therefore , they found themselves unable to sleep after four o'clock in the morning ; peering upwards through the windows now visibly glittering under the rays of the Moon , they spent some very exciting hours in gazing at her slowly enlarging disc , and shouting at her with confident and joyful hurrahs . The majestic Queen of the Stars had now risen so high in the spangled heavens that she could hardly rise higher . In a few degrees more she would reach the exact point of space where her junction with the Projectile was to be effected . According to his own observations , Barbican calculated that they should strike her in the northern hemisphere , where her plains , or _ seas _ as they are called , are immense , and her mountains are comparatively rare .