Off on a Comet - Jules Verne (classic english novels .TXT) 📗
- Author: Jules Verne
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“I confess you seem to have the best of the argument,
and if Gallia had become a satellite of the moon,
it would not have taken three months to catch sight of her.
I suppose you are right.”
While this discussion had been going on, the satellite,
or whatever it might be, had been rising steadily above the horizon,
and had reached a position favorable for observation.
Telescopes were brought, and it was very soon ascertained,
beyond a question, that the new luminary was not the well-known Phoebe
of terrestrial nights; it had no feature in common with the moon.
Although it was apparently much nearer to Gallia than the moon
to the earth, its superficies was hardly one-tenth as large,
and so feebly did it reflect the light of the remote sun,
that it scarcely emitted radiance enough to extinguish
the dim luster of stars of the eighth magnitude.
Like the sun, it had risen in the west, and was now at its full.
To mistake its identity with the moon was absolutely impossible;
not even Servadac could discover a trace of the seas,
chasms, craters, and mountains which have been so minutely
delineated in lunar charts, and it could not be denied that any
transient hope that had been excited as to their once again
being about to enjoy the peaceful smiles of “the queen of night”
must all be resigned.
Count Timascheff finally suggested, though somewhat doubtfully,
the question of the probability that Gallia, in her course across
the zone of the minor planets, had carried off one of them;
but whether it was one of the 169 asteroids already included
in the astronomical catalogues, or one previously unknown, he did
not presume to determine. The idea to a certain extent was plausible,
inasmuch as it has been ascertained that several of the telescopic
planets are of such small dimensions that a good walker might make
a circuit of them in four and twenty hours; consequently Gallia,
being of superior volume, might be supposed capable of exercising
a power of attraction upon any of these miniature microcosms.
The first night in Nina’s Hive passed without special incident;
and next morning a regular scheme of life was definitely laid down.
“My lord governor,” as Ben Zoof until he was peremptorily forbidden
delighted to call Servadac, had a wholesome dread of idleness
and its consequences, and insisted upon each member of the party
undertaking some special duty to fulfill. There was plenty to do.
The domestic animals required a great deal of attention; a supply
of food had to be secured and preserved; fishing had to be carried
on while the condition of the sea would allow it; and in several
places the galleries had to be further excavated to render them
more available for use. Occupation, then, need never be wanting,
and the daily round of labor could go on in orderly routine.
A perfect concord ruled the little colony. The Russians and Spaniards
amalgamated well, and both did their best to pick up various scraps
of French, which was considered the official language of the place.
Servadac himself undertook the tuition of Pablo and Nina, Ben Zoof being
their companion in play-hours, when he entertained them with enchanting
stories in the best Parisian French, about “a lovely city at the foot
of a mountain,” where he always promised one day to take them.
The end of March came, but the cold was not intense to such a degree
as to confine any of the party to the interior of their resort;
several excursions were made along the shore, and for a radius
of three or four miles the adjacent district was carefully explored.
Investigation, however, always ended in the same result; turn their course
in whatever direction they would, they found that the country retained
everywhere its desert character, rocky, barren, and without a trace
of vegetation. Here and there a slight layer of snow, or a thin coating
of ice arising from atmospheric condensation indicated the existence
of superficial moisture, but it would require a period indefinitely long,
exceeding human reckoning, before that moisture could collect
into a stream and roll downwards over the stony strata to the sea.
It seemed at present out of their power to determine whether the land
upon which they were so happily settled was an island or a continent,
and till the cold was abated they feared to undertake any lengthened
expedition to ascertain the actual extent of the strange concrete
of metallic crystallization.
By ascending one day to the summit of the volcano, Captain Servadac and
the count succeeded in getting a general idea of the aspect of the country.
The mountain itself was an enormous block rising symmetrically to a height of
nearly 3,000 feet above the level of the sea, in the form of a truncated cone,
of which the topmost section was crowned by a wreath of smoke issuing
continuously from the mouth of a narrow crater.
Under the old condition of terrestrial things, the ascent of this
steep acclivity would have been attended with much fatigue,
but as the effect of the altered condition of the law of gravity,
the travelers performed perpetual prodigies in the way of agility,
and in little over an hour reached the edge of the crater,
without more sense of exertion than if they had traversed
a couple of miles on level ground. Gallia had its drawbacks,
but it had some compensating advantages.
Telescopes in hand, the explorers from the summit scanned the
surrounding view. Their anticipations had already realized what they saw.
Just as they expected, on the north, east, and west lay the Gallian Sea,
smooth and motionless as a sheet of glass, the cold having, as it were,
congealed the atmosphere so that there was not a breath of wind.
Towards the south there seemed no limit to the land, and the volcano formed
the apex of a triangle, of which the base was beyond the reach of vision.
Viewed even from this height, whence distance would do much to soften
the general asperity, the surface nevertheless seemed to be bristling
with its myriads of hexagonal lamellae, and to present difficulties which,
to an ordinary pedestrian, would be insurmountable.
“Oh for some wings, or else a balloon!” cried Servadac,
as he gazed around him; and then, looking down to the rock
upon which they were standing, he added, “We seem to have been
transplanted to a soil strange enough in its chemical character
to bewilder the savants at a museum.”
“And do you observe, captain,” asked the count, “how the convexity
of our little world curtails our view? See, how circumscribed
is the horizon!”
Servadac replied that he had noticed the same circumstance from the top
of the cliffs of Gourbi Island.
“Yes,” said the count; “it becomes more and more obvious that ours
is a very tiny world, and that Gourbi Island is the sole productive
spot upon its surface. We have had a short summer, and who knows
whether we are not entering upon a winter that may last for years,
perhaps for centuries?”
“But we must not mind, count,” said Servadac, smiling. “We have agreed,
you know, that, come what may, we are to be philosophers.”
“Ay, true, my friend,” rejoined the count; “we must be philosophers
and something more; we must be grateful to the good Protector who has
hitherto befriended us, and we must trust His mercy to the end.”
For a few moments they both stood in silence, and contemplated
land and sea; then, having given a last glance over
the dreary panorama, they prepared to wend their way down
the mountain. Before, however, they commenced their descent,
they resolved to make a closer examination of the crater.
They were particularly struck by what seemed to them almost
the mysterious calmness with which the eruption was effected.
There was none of the wild disorder and deafening tumult
that usually accompany the discharge of volcanic matter,
but the heated lava, rising with a uniform gentleness,
quietly overran the limits of the crater, like the flow of water
from the bosom of a peaceful lake. Instead of a boiler exposed
to the action of an angry fire, the crater rather resembled
a brimming basin, of which the contents were noiselessly escaping.
Nor were there any igneous stones or red-hot cinders mingled
with the smoke that crowned the summit; a circumstance that quite
accorded with the absence of the pumice-stones, obsidians,
and other minerals of volcanic origin with which the base
of a burning mountain is generally strewn.
Captain Servadac was of opinion that this peculiarity augured
favorably for the continuance of the eruption. Extreme violence
in physical, as well as in moral nature, is never of long duration.
The most terrible storms, like the most violent fits of passion,
are not lasting; but here the calm flow of the liquid fire appeared
to be supplied from a source that was inexhaustible, in the same way
as the waters of Niagara, gliding on steadily to their final plunge,
would defy all effort to arrest their course.
Before the evening of this day closed in, a most important change
was effected in the condition of the Gallian Sea by the intervention
of human agency. Notwithstanding the increasing cold, the sea,
unruffled as it was by a breath of wind, still retained its liquid state.
It is an established fact that water, under this condition of absolute
stillness, will remain uncongealed at a temperature several degrees
below zero, whilst experiment, at the same time, shows that a very
slight shock will often be sufficient to convert it into solid ice.
It had occurred to Servadac that if some communication could be opened
with Gourbi Island, there would be a fine scope for hunting expeditions.
Having this ultimate object in view, he assembled his little
colony upon a projecting rock at the extremity of the promontory,
and having called Nina and Pablo out to him in front, he said:
“Now, Nina, do you think you could throw something into the sea?”
“I think I could,” replied the child, “but I am sure that Pablo
would throw it a great deal further than I can.”
“Never mind, you shall try first.”
Putting a fragment of ice into Nina’s hand, he addressed himself to Pablo:
“Look out, Pablo; you shall see what a nice little fairy Nina is!
Throw, Nina, throw, as hard as you can.”
Nina balanced the piece of ice two or three times in her hand,
and threw it forward with all her strength.
A sudden thrill seemed to vibrate across the motionless waters
to the distant horizon, and the Gallian Sea had become a solid
sheet of ice!
A CARRIER-PIGEON
When, three hours after sunset, on the 23d of March, the Gallian
moon rose upon the western horizon, it was observed that she
had entered upon her last quarter. She had taken only four days
to pass from syzygy to quadrature, and it was consequently evident
that she would be visible for little more than a week at a time,
and that her lunation would be accomplished within sixteen days.
The lunar months, like the solar days, had been diminished by
one-half. Three days later the moon was in conjunction with the sun,
and was consequently lost to view; Ben Zoof, as the first observer
of the satellite, was extremely interested in its movements,
and wondered whether it would ever reappear.
On the 26th, under an atmosphere perfectly clear and dry,
the thermometer fell to 12 degrees F. below zero.
Of the present distance of Gallia from the sun, and the number
of leagues she had traversed since the receipt of the last
mysterious document, there were no means of judging;
the
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