Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space by Jules Verne (free ebook reader for android TXT) 📗
- Author: Jules Verne
Book online «Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space by Jules Verne (free ebook reader for android TXT) 📗». Author Jules Verne
Still, not a single resort for refuge did the inaccessible shore present. Again and again the lieutenant asked himself what would become of him and his comrades, even if they should survive the peril of shipwreck, and gain a footing upon the cliff. What resources could they expect to find upon that scene of desolation? What hope could they entertain that any portion of the old continent still existed beyond that dreary barrier?
It was a trying time, but throughout it all the crew behaved with the greatest courage and composure; confident in the skill of their commander, and in the stability of their ship, they performed their duties with steadiness and unquestioning obedience.
But neither skill, nor courage, nor obedience could avail; all was in vain. Despite the strain put upon her engine, the schooner, bare of canvas (for not even the smallest stay-sail could have withstood the violence of the storm), was drifting with terrific speed towards the menacing precipices, which were only a. few short miles to leeward. Fully alive to the hopelessness of their situation, the crew were all on deck.
“All over with us, sir!” said Procope to the count. “I have done everything that man could do; but our case is desperate. Nothing short of a miracle can save us now. Within an hour we must go to pieces upon yonder rocks.”
“Let us, then, commend ourselves to the providence of Him to Whom nothing is impossible,” replied the count, in a calm, clear voice that could be distinctly heard by all; and as he spoke, he reverently uncovered, an example in which he was followed by all the rest.
The destruction of the vessel seeming thus inevitable, Lieutenant Procope took the best measures he could to insure a few days’ supply of food for any who might escape ashore. He ordered several cases of provisions and kegs of water to be brought on deck, and saw that they were securely lashed to some empty barrels, to make them float after the ship had gone down.
Less and less grew the distance from the shore, but no creek, no inlet, could be discerned in the towering wall of cliff, which seemed about to topple over and involve them in annihilation. Except a change of wind or, as Procope observed, a supernatural rifting of the rock, nothing could bring deliverance now. But the wind did not veer, and in a few minutes more the schooner was hardly three cables’ distance from the fatal land. All were aware that their last moment had arrived. Servadac and the count grasped each other’s hands for a long farewell; and, tossed by the tremendous waves, the schooner was on the very point of being hurled upon the cliff, when a ringing shout was heard. “Quick, boys, quick! Hoist the jib, and right the tiller!”
Sudden and startling as the unexpected orders were, they were executed as if by magic.
The lieutenant, who had shouted from the bow, rushed astern and took the helm, and before anyone had time to speculate upon the object of his maneuvers, he shouted again, “Look out! sharp! watch the sheets!”
An involuntary cry broke forth from all on board. But it was no cry of terror. Right ahead was a narrow opening in the solid rock; it was hardly forty feet wide. Whether it was a passage or no, it mattered little; it was at least a refuge; and, driven by wind and wave, the Dobryna, under the dexterous guidance of the lieutenant, dashed in between its perpendicular walls.
Had she not immured herself in a perpetual prison?
CHAPTER XIII. A ROYAL SALUTE
“Then I take your bishop, major,” said Colonel Murphy, as he made a move that he had taken since the previous evening to consider.
“I was afraid you would,” replied Major Oliphant, looking intently at the chess-board.
Such was the way in which a long silence was broken on the morning of the 17th of February by the old calendar.
Another day elapsed before another move was made. It was a protracted game; it had, in fact, already lasted some months—the players being so deliberate, and so fearful of taking a step without the most mature consideration, that even now they were only making the twentieth move.
Both of them, moreover, were rigid disciples of the renowned Philidor, who pronounces that to play the pawns well is “the soul of chess”; and, accordingly, not one pawn had been sacrificed without a most vigorous defense.
The men who were thus beguiling their leisure were two officers in the British army—Colonel Heneage Finch Murphy and Major Sir John Temple Oliphant. Remarkably similar in personal appearance, they were hardly less so in personal character. Both of them were about forty years of age; both of them were tall and fair, with bushy whiskers and mustaches; both of them were phlegmatic in temperament, and both much addicted to the wearing of their uniforms. They were proud of their nationality, and exhibited a manifest dislike, verging upon contempt, of everything foreign. Probably they would have felt no surprise if they had been told that Anglo-Saxons were fashioned out of some specific clay, the properties of which surpassed the investigation of chemical analysis. Without any intentional disparagement they might, in a certain way, be compared to two scarecrows which, though perfectly harmless in themselves, inspire some measure of respect, and are excellently adapted to protect the territory intrusted to their guardianship.
English-like, the two officers had made themselves thoroughly at home in the station abroad in which it had been their lot to be quartered. The faculty of colonization seems to be indigenous to the native character; once let an Englishman plant his national standard on the surface of the moon, and it would not be long before a colony was established round it.
The officers had a servant, named Kirke, and a company of ten soldiers of the line. This party of thirteen men were apparently the sole survivors of an overwhelming catastrophe, which on the 1st of January had transformed an enormous rock, garrisoned with well-nigh two thousand troops, into an insignificant island far out to sea. But although the transformation had been so marvelous, it cannot be said that either Colonel Murphy or Major Oliphant had made much demonstration of astonishment.
“This is all very peculiar, Sir John,” observed the colonel.
“Yes, colonel; very peculiar,” replied the major.
“England will be sure to send for us,” said one officer.
“No doubt she will,” answered the other.
Accordingly, they came to the mutual resolution that they would “stick to their post.”
To say the truth, it would have been a difficult matter for the gallant officers to do otherwise; they had but one small boat; therefore, it was well that they made a virtue of necessity, and resigned themselves to patient expectation of the British ship which, in due time, would bring relief.
They had no fear of starvation. Their island was mined with subterranean stores, more than ample for thirteen men—nay,
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