Off on a Comet - Jules Verne (classic english novels .TXT) 📗
- Author: Jules Verne
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time for speculation.”
“The very thing, Hakkabut, that I am anxious to prevent.
Just stop now, and think a minute. You seem to forget my rights;
you are forgetting that, if I please, I can confiscate all your
cargo for the common use. You ought to think yourself lucky
in getting any price at all. Be contented with European prices;
you will get no more. I am not going to waste my breath on you.
I will come again to-morrow;” and, without allowing Hakkabut time
to renew his lamentations, Servadac went away.
All the rest of the day the Jew was muttering bitter curses against the
thieves of Gentiles in general, and the governor of Gallia in particular,
who were robbing him of his just profits, by binding him down to a maximum
price for his goods, just as if it were a time of revolution in the state.
But he would be even with them yet; he would have it all out of them:
he would make European prices pay, after all. He had a plan—he knew how;
and he chuckled to himself, and grinned maliciously.
True to his word, the captain next morning arrived at the tartan.
He was accompanied by Ben Zoof and two Russian sailors.
“Good-morning, old Eleazar; we have come to do our little bit
of friendly business with you, you know,” was Ben Zoof’s greeting.
“What do you want to-day?” asked the Jew.
“To-day we want coffee, and we want sugar, and we want tobacco.
We must have ten kilogrammes of each. Take care they are all good;
all first rate. I am commissariat officer, and I am responsible.”
“I thought you were the governor’s aide-de-camp,” said Hakkabut.
“So I am, on state occasions; but to-day, I tell you.
I am superintendent of the commissariat department.
Now, look sharp!”
Hakkabut hereupon descended into the hold of the tartan, and soon returned,
carrying ten packets of tobacco, each weighing one kilogramme, and securely
fastened by strips of paper, labeled with the French government stamp.
“Ten kilogrammes of tobacco at twelve francs a kilogramme:
a hundred and twenty francs,” said the Jew.
Ben Zoof was on the point of laying down the money, when Servadac stopped him.
“Let us just see whether the weight is correct.”
Hakkabut pointed out that the weight was duly registered on
every packet, and that the packets had never been unfastened.
The captain, however, had his own special object in view,
and would not be diverted. The Jew fetched his steelyard,
and a packet of the tobacco was suspended to it.
“Merciful heavens!” screamed Isaac.
The index registered only 133 grammes!
“You see, Hakkabut, I was right. I was perfectly justified in having
your goods put to the test,” said Servadac, quite seriously.
“But—but, your Excellency—” stammered out the bewildered man.
“You will, of course, make up the deficiency,” the captain continued,
not noticing the interruption.
“Oh, my lord, let me say—” began Isaac again.
“Come, come, old Caiaphas, do you hear? You are to make up the deficiency,”
exclaimed Ben Zoof.
“Ah, yes, yes; but—”
The unfortunate Israelite tried hard to speak, but his agitation
prevented him. He understood well enough the cause of the phenomenon,
but he was overpowered by the conviction that the “cursed Gentiles”
wanted to cheat him. He deeply regretted that he had not a pair
of common scales on board.
“Come, I say, old Jedediah, you are a long while making up what’s short,”
said Ben Zoof, while the Jew was still stammering on.
As soon as he recovered his power of articulation, Isaac began
to pour out a medley of lamentations and petitions for mercy.
The captain was inexorable. “Very sorry, you know, Hakkabut. It is
not my fault that the packet is short weight; but I cannot pay
for a kilogramme except I have a kilogramme.”
Hakkabut pleaded for some consideration.
“A bargain is a bargain,” said Servadac. “You must complete your contract.”
And, moaning and groaning, the miserable man was driven to make
up the full weight as registered by his own steelyard.
He had to repeat the process with the sugar and coffee:
for every kilogramme he had to weigh seven. Ben Zoof and
the Russians jeered him most unmercifully.
“I say, old Mordecai, wouldn’t you rather give your goods away,
than sell them at this rate? I would.”
“I say, old Pilate, a monopoly isn’t always a good thing, is it?”
“I say, old Sepharvaim, what a flourishing trade you’re driving!”
Meanwhile seventy kilogrammes of each of the articles required were weighed,
and the Jew for each seventy had to take the price of ten.
All along Captain Servadac had been acting only in jest. Aware that
old Isaac was an utter hypocrite, he had no compunction in turning
a business transaction with him into an occasion for a bit of fun.
But the joke at an end, he took care that the Jew was properly paid
all his legitimate due.
FAR INTO SPACE
A month passed away. Gallia continued its course, bearing its little
population onwards, so far removed from the ordinary influence of human
passions that it might almost be said that its sole ostensible vice
was represented by the greed and avarice of the miserable Jew.
After all, they were but making a voyage—a strange, yet a transient,
excursion through solar regions hitherto untraversed;
but if the professor’s calculations were correct—and why
should they be doubted?—their little vessel was destined,
after a two years’ absence, once more to return “to port.”
The landing, indeed, might be a matter of difficulty;
but with the good prospect before them of once again standing
on terrestrial shores, they had nothing to do at present
except to make themselves as comfortable as they could in
their present quarters.
Thus confident in their anticipations, neither the captain,
the count, nor the lieutenant felt under any serious
obligation to make any extensive provisions for the future;
they saw no necessity for expending the strength of the people,
during the short summer that would intervene upon the long
severity of winter, in the cultivation or the preservation
of their agricultural resources. Nevertheless, they often found
themselves talking over the measures they would have been driven
to adopt, if they had found themselves permanently attached
to their present home.
Even after the turning-point in their career, they knew that at least nine
months would have to elapse before the sea would be open to navigation;
but at the very first arrival of summer they would be bound to arrange for
the Dobryna and the Hansa to retransport themselves and all their animals
to the shores of Gourbi Island, where they would have to commence their
agricultural labors to secure the crops that must form their winter store.
During four months or thereabouts, they would lead the lives of farmers and
of sportsmen; but no sooner would their haymaking and their corn harvest have
been accomplished, than they would be compelled again, like a swarm of bees,
to retire to their semi-troglodyte existence in the cells of Nina’s Hive.
Now and then the captain and his friends found themselves speculating whether,
in the event of their having to spend another winter upon Gallia,
some means could not be devised by which the dreariness of a second
residence in the recesses of the volcano might be escaped.
Would not another exploring expedition possibly result in the discovery
of a vein of coal or other combustible matter, which could be turned
to account in warming some erection which they might hope to put up?
A prolonged existence in their underground quarters was felt to be
monotonous and depressing, and although it might be all very well
for a man like Professor Rosette, absorbed in astronomical studies,
it was ill suited to the temperaments of any of themselves for any longer
period than was absolutely indispensable.
One contingency there was, almost too terrible to be taken into account.
Was it not to be expected that the time might come when the internal
fires of Gallia would lose their activity, and the stream of lava
would consequently cease to flow? Why should Gallia be exempt
from the destiny that seemed to await every other heavenly body?
Why should it not roll onwards, like the moon, a dark cold mass in space?
In the event of such a cessation of the volcanic eruption,
whilst the comet was still at so great a distance from the sun,
they would indeed be at a loss to find a substitute for what
alone had served to render life endurable at a temperature
of 60 degrees below zero. Happily, however, there was at
present no symptom of the subsidence of the lava’s stream;
the volcano continued its regular and unchanging discharge,
and Servadac, ever sanguine, declared that it was useless
to give themselves any anxiety upon the matter.
On the l5th of December, Gallia was 276,000,000 leagues from the sun,
and, as it was approximately to the extremity of its axis major,
would travel only some 11,000,000 or 12,000,000 leagues during the month.
Another world was now becoming a conspicuous object in the heavens,
and Palmyrin Rosette, after rejoicing in an approach nearer to
Jupiter than any other mortal man had ever attained, was now to be
privileged to enjoy a similar opportunity of contemplating the
planet Saturn. Not that the circumstances were altogether so favorable.
Scarcely 31,000,000 miles had separated Gallia from Jupiter;
the minimum distance of Saturn would not be less than 415,000,000 miles;
but even this distance, although too great to affect the comet’s
progress more than had been duly reckoned on, was considerably shorter
than what had ever separated Saturn from the earth.
To get any information about the planet from Rosette appeared
quite impossible. Although equally by night and by day he never
seemed to quit his telescope, he did not evince the slightest
inclination to impart the result of his observations.
It was only from the few astronomical works that happened
to be included in the Dobryna’s library that any details could
be gathered, but these were sufficient to give a large amount
of interesting information.
Ben Zoof, when he was made aware that the earth would be invisible
to the naked eye from the surface of Saturn, declared that he then,
for his part, did not care to learn any more about such a planet;
to him it was indispensable that the earth should remain in sight,
and it was his great consolation that hitherto his native sphere
had never vanished from his gaze.
At this date Saturn was revolving at a distance of 420,000,000
miles from Gallia, and consequently 874,440,000 miles
from the sun, receiving only a hundredth part of the light
and heat which that luminary bestows upon the earth.
On consulting their books of reference, the colonists found
that Saturn completes his revolution round the sun in a period
of 29 years and 167 days, traveling at the rate of more than
21,000 miles an hour along an orbit measuring 5,490 millions
of miles in length. His circumference is about 220,000 miles;
his superficies, 144,000 millions of square miles; his volume,
143,846 millions of cubic miles. Saturn is 735 times larger
than the earth, consequently he is smaller than Jupiter;
in mass he is only 90 times greater than the earth,
which gives him a density less than that of water.
He revolves on his axis in 10 hours 29 minutes, causing his own
year to consist of 86,630 days; and his seasons, on account
of the great inclination of his axis to
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