Off on a Comet - Jules Verne (classic english novels .TXT) 📗
- Author: Jules Verne
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depths of the crater, not with the design of making any further
examination as to the nature of the rock—for although it
might be true enough that it contained thirty per cent.
of gold, it was as valueless to them as granite—but with
the intention of ascertaining whether the subterranean fire
still retained its activity. Satisfied upon this point,
they came to the conclusion that the eruption which had so suddenly
ceased in one spot had certainly broken out in another.
February, March, April, May, passed wearily by; but day
succeeded to day with such gloomy sameness that it was little
wonder that no notice was taken of the lapse of time.
The people seemed rather to vegetate than to live,
and their want of vigor became at times almost alarming.
The readings around the long table ceased to be attractive,
and the debates, sustained by few, became utterly wanting
in animation. The Spaniards could hardly be roused to quit
their beds, and seemed to have scarcely energy enough to eat.
The Russians, constitutionally of more enduring temperament,
did not give way to the same extent, but the long and
drear confinement was beginning to tell upon them all.
Servadac, the count, and the lieutenant all knew well enough
that it was the want of air and exercise that was the cause
of much of this mental depression; but what could they do?
The most serious remonstrances on their part were entirely in vain.
In fact, they themselves occasionally fell a prey to the same
lassitude both of body and mind. Long fits of drowsiness,
combined with an utter aversion to food, would come over them.
It almost seemed as if their entire nature had become degenerate,
and that, like tortoises, they could sleep and fast till
the return of summer.
Strange to say, little Nina bore her hardships more bravely than
any of them. Flitting about, coaxing one to eat, another to drink,
rousing Pablo as often as he seemed yielding to the common languor,
the child became the life of the party. Her merry prattle enlivened
the gloom of the grim cavern like the sweet notes of a bird;
her gay Italian songs broke the monotony of the depressing silence;
and almost unconscious as the half-dormant population of Gallia
were of her influence, they still would have missed her bright
presence sorely. The months still glided on; how, it seemed
impossible for the inhabitants of the living tomb to say.
There was a dead level of dullness.
At the beginning of June the general torpor appeared slightly to relax
its hold upon its victims. This partial revival was probably due
to the somewhat increased influence of the sun, still far, far away.
During the first half of the Gallian year, Lieutenant Procope had
taken careful note of Rosette’s monthly announcements of the comet’s
progress, and he was able now, without reference to the professor,
to calculate the rate of advance on its way back towards the sun.
He found that Gallia had re-crossed the orbit of Jupiter, but was
still at the enormous distance of 197,000,000 leagues from the sun,
and he reckoned that in about four months it would have entered
the zone of the telescopic planets.
Gradually, but uninterruptedly, life and spirits continued to revive,
and by the end of the month Servadac and his little colony had
regained most of their ordinary physical and mental energies.
Ben Zoof, in particular, roused himself with redoubled vigor,
like a giant refreshed from his slumbers. The visits, consequently,
to the long-neglected galleries of Nina’s Hive became more
and more frequent.
One day an excursion was made to the shore. It was still bitterly cold,
but the atmosphere had lost nothing of its former stillness, and not a cloud
was visible from horizon to zenith. The old footmarks were all as distinct
as on the day in which they had been imprinted, and the only portion
of the shore where any change was apparent was in the little creek.
Here the elevation of the ice had gone on increasing, until the schooner
and the tartan had been uplifted to a height of 150 feet, not only rendering
them quite inaccessible, but exposing them to all but certain destruction
in the event of a thaw.
Isaac Hakkabut, immovable from the personal oversight of his property
in the cavern, had not accompanied the party, and consequently
was in blissful ignorance of the fate that threatened his vessel.
“A good thing the old fellow wasn’t there to see,” observed Ben Zoof;
“he would have screamed like a peacock. What a misfortune it is,”
he added, speaking to himself, “to have a peacock’s voice,
without its plumage!”
During the months of July and August, Gallia advanced 164,000,000
leagues along her orbit. At night the cold was still intense,
but in the daytime the sun, here full upon the equator,
caused an appreciable difference of 20 degrees in the temperature.
Like birds, the population spent whole days exposed to its
grateful warmth, rarely returning till nightfall to the shade
of their gloomy home.
This spring-time, if such it may be called, had a most enlivening
influence upon all. Hope and courage revived as day by day
the sun’s disc expanded in the heavens, and every evening
the earth assumed a greater magnitude amongst the fixed stars.
It was distant yet, but the goal was cheeringly in view.
“I can’t believe that yonder little speck of light contains my mountain
of Montmartre,” said Ben Zoof, one night, after he had been gazing long
and steadily at the far-off world.
“You will, I hope, some day find out that it does,” answered his master.
“I hope so,” said the orderly, without moving his eye from
the distant sphere. After meditating a while, he spoke again.
“I suppose Professor Rosette couldn’t make his comet go
straight back, could he?”
“Hush!” cried Servadac.
Ben Zoof understood the correction.
“No,” continued the captain; “it is not for man to disturb the order
of the universe. That belongs to a Higher Power than ours!”
THE PROFESSOR PERPLEXED
Another month passed away, and it was now September, but it was
still impossible to leave the warmth of the subterranean retreat
for the more airy and commodious quarters of the Hive, where “the bees”
would certainly have been frozen to death in their cells.
It was altogether quite as much a matter of congratulation as of
regret that the volcano showed no symptoms of resuming its activity;
for although a return of the eruption might have rendered their
former resort again habitable, any sudden outbreak would have been
disastrous to them where they were, the crater being the sole outlet
by which the burning lava could escape.
“A wretched time we have had for the last seven months,”
said the orderly one day to his master; “but what a comfort
little Nina has been to us all!”
“Yes, indeed,” replied Servadac; “she is a charming little creature.
I hardly know how we should have got on without her.”
“What is to become of her when we arrive back at the earth?”
“Not much fear, Ben Zoof, but that she will be well taken care of.
Perhaps you and I had better adopt her.”
“Ay, yes,” assented the orderly. “You can be her father,
and I can be her mother.”
Servadac laughed. “Then you and I shall be man and wife.”
“We have been as good as that for a long time,” observed Ben Zoof, gravely.
By the beginning of October, the temperature had so far moderated that it
could scarcely be said to be intolerable. The comet’s distance was
scarcely three times as great from the sun as the earth from the sun,
so that the thermometer rarely sunk beyond 35 degrees below zero.
The whole party began to make almost daily visits to the Hive, and frequently
proceeded to the shore, where they resumed their skating exercise,
rejoicing in their recovered freedom like prisoners liberated from a dungeon.
Whilst the rest were enjoying their recreation, Servadac and the count
would hold long conversations with Lieutenant Procope about their present
position and future prospects, discussing all manner of speculations
as to the results of the anticipated collision with the earth,
and wondering whether any measures could be devised for mitigating
the violence of a shock which might be terrible in its consequences,
even if it did not entail a total annihilation of themselves.
There was no visitor to the Hive more regular than Rosette. He had already
directed his telescope to be moved back to his former observatory, where,
as much as the cold would permit him, he persisted in making his all-absorbing
studies of the heavens.
The result of these studies no one ventured to inquire;
but it became generally noticed that something was very seriously
disturbing the professor’s equanimity. Not only would he be seen
toiling more frequently up the arduous way that lay between his nook
below and his telescope above, but he would be heard muttering
in an angry tone that indicated considerable agitation.
One day, as he was hurrying down to his study, he met Ben Zoof, who,
secretly entertaining a feeling of delight at the professor’s manifest
discomfiture, made some casual remark about things not being very straight.
The way in which his advance was received the good orderly never divulged,
but henceforward he maintained the firm conviction that there was something
very much amiss up in the sky.
To Servadac and his friends this continual disquietude and ill-humor
on the part of the professor occasioned no little anxiety.
From what, they asked, could his dissatisfaction arise?
They could only conjecture that he had discovered some flaw
in his reckonings; and if this were so, might there not be reason
to apprehend that their anticipations of coming into contact
with the earth, at the settled time, might all be falsified?
Day followed day, and still there was no cessation of the
professor’s discomposure. He was the most miserable of mortals. If really
his calculations and his observations were at variance, this, in a man
of his irritable temperament, would account for his perpetual perturbation.
But he entered into no explanation; he only climbed up to his telescope,
looking haggard and distressed, and when compelled by the frost to retire,
he would make his way back to his study more furious than ever.
At times he was heard giving vent to his vexation. “Confound it!
what does it mean? what is she doing? All behind! Is Newton a fool?
Is the law of universal gravitation the law of universal nonsense?”
And the little man would seize his head in both his hands, and tear
away at the scanty locks which he could ill afford to lose.
Enough was overheard to confirm the suspicion that there was some
irreconcilable discrepancy between the results of his computation
and what he had actually observed; and yet, if he had been called
upon to say, he would have sooner insisted that there was derangement
in the laws of celestial mechanism, than have owned there was
the least probability of error in any of his own calculations.
Assuredly, if the poor professor had had any flesh to lose he would
have withered away to a shadow.
But this state of things was before long to come to an end.
On the 12th, Ben Zoof, who was hanging about outside the great
hall of the cavern, heard the professor inside utter a loud cry.
Hurrying in to ascertain the cause, he found Rosette in a state
of perfect frenzy, in which ecstasy and rage seemed to be struggling
for the predominance.
“Eureka! Eureka!” yelled the excited
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