Off on a Comet (11 page)

"How if we are the sole survivors?" said the count, gravely.

Hector Servadac was silent; his own secret presentiment so thoroughly
coincided with the doubts expressed by the count, that he refrained from
saying another word.

The coast, without deviation, still tended towards the north. No
alternative, therefore, remained than to take a westerly course and to
attempt to reach the northern shores of the Mediterranean. On the 16th
the
Dobryna
essayed to start upon her altered way, but it seemed as if
the elements had conspired to obstruct her progress. A furious tempest
arose; the wind beat dead in the direction of the coast, and the danger
incurred by a vessel of a tonnage so light was necessarily very great.

Lieutenant Procope was extremely uneasy. He took in all sail, struck
his topmasts, and resolved to rely entirely on his engine. But the peril
seemed only to increase. Enormous waves caught the schooner and carried
her up to their crests, whence again she was plunged deep into the
abysses that they left. The screw failed to keep its hold upon the
water, but continually revolved with useless speed in the vacant air;
and thus, although the steam was forced on to the extremest limit
consistent with safety, the vessel held her way with the utmost
difficulty, and recoiled before the hurricane.

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?

"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, for thirteen
Englishmen—for the next five years at least. Preserved meat, ale,
brandy—all were in abundance; consequently, as the men expressed it,
they were in this respect "all right."

Of course, the physical changes that had taken place had attracted the
notice both of officers and men. But the reversed position of east and
west, the diminution of the force of gravity, the altered rotation of
the earth, and her projection upon a new orbit, were all things that
gave them little concern and no uneasiness; and when the colonel and the
major had replaced the pieces on the board which had been disturbed
by the convulsion, any surprise they might have felt at the chess-men
losing some portion of their weight was quite forgotten in the
satisfaction of seeing them retain their equilibrium.

One phenomenon, however, did not fail to make its due impression upon
the men; this was the diminution in the length of day and night. Three
days after the catastrophe, Corporal Pim, on behalf of himself and his
comrades, solicited a formal interview with the officers. The request
having been granted, Pim, with the nine soldiers, all punctiliously
wearing the regimental tunic of scarlet and trousers of invisible green,
presented themselves at the door of the colonel's room, where he and
his brother-officer were continuing their game. Raising his hand
respectfully to his cap, which he wore poised jauntily over his right
ear, and scarcely held on by the strap below his under lip, the corporal
waited permission to speak.

After a lingering survey of the chess-board, the colonel slowly lifted
his eyes, and said with official dignity, "Well, men, what is it?"

"First of all, sir," replied the corporal, "we want to speak to you
about our pay, and then we wish to have a word with the major about our
rations."

"Say on, then," said Colonel Murphy. "What is it about your pay?"

"Just this, sir; as the days are only half as long as they were, we
should like to know whether our pay is to be diminished in proportion."

The colonel was taken somewhat aback, and did not reply immediately,
though by some significant nods towards the major, he indicated that he
thought the question very reasonable. After a few moments' reflection,
he replied, "It must, I think, be allowed that your pay was calculated
from sunrise to sunrise; there was no specification of what the interval
should be. Your pay will continue as before. England can afford it."

A buzz of approval burst involuntarily from all the men, but military
discipline and the respect due to their officers kept them in check from
any boisterous demonstration of their satisfaction.

"And now, corporal, what is your business with me?" asked Major
Oliphant.

"We want to know whether, as the days are only six hours long, we are to
have but two meals instead of four?"

The officers looked at each other, and by their glances agreed that the
corporal was a man of sound common sense.

"Eccentricities of nature," said the major, "cannot interfere with
military regulations. It is true that there will be but an interval of
an hour and a half between them, but the rule stands good—four meals
a day. England is too rich to grudge her soldiers any of her soldiers'
due. Yes; four meals a day."

"Hurrah!" shouted the soldiers, unable this time to keep their delight
within the bounds of military decorum; and, turning to the right-about,
they marched away, leaving the officers to renew the all-absorbing game.

However confident everyone upon the island might profess to be that
succor would be sent them from their native land—for Britain never
abandons any of her sons—it could not be disguised that that succor
was somewhat tardy in making its appearance. Many and various were the
conjectures to account for the delay. Perhaps England was engrossed
with domestic matters, or perhaps she was absorbed in diplomatic
difficulties; or perchance, more likely than all, Northern Europe had
received no tidings of the convulsion that had shattered the south. The
whole party throve remarkably well upon the liberal provisions of the
commissariat department, and if the officers failed to show the same
tendency to
embonpoint
which was fast becoming characteristic of the
men, it was only because they deemed it due to their rank to curtail any
indulgences which might compromise the fit of their uniform.

On the whole, time passed indifferently well. An Englishman rarely
suffers from
ennui
, and then only in his own country, when required to
conform to what he calls "the humbug of society"; and the two officers,
with their similar tastes, ideas, and dispositions, got on together
admirably. It is not to be questioned that they were deeply affected by
a sense of regret for their lost comrades, and astounded beyond measure
at finding themselves the sole survivors of a garrison of 1,895 men,
but with true British pluck and self-control, they had done nothing
more than draw up a report that 1,882 names were missing from the
muster-roll.

The island itself, the sole surviving fragment of an enormous pile of
rock that had reared itself some 1,600 feet above the sea, was not,
strictly speaking, the only land that was visible; for about twelve
miles to the south there was another island, apparently the very
counterpart of what was now occupied by the Englishmen. It was
only natural that this should awaken some interest even in the most
imperturbable minds, and there was no doubt that the two officers,
during one of the rare intervals when they were not absorbed in their
game, had decided that it would be desirable at least to ascertain
whether the island was deserted, or whether it might not be occupied by
some others, like themselves, survivors from the general catastrophe.
Certain it is that one morning, when the weather was bright and calm,
they had embarked alone in the little boat, and been absent for seven or
eight hours. Not even to Corporal Pim did they communicate the object
of their excursion, nor say one syllable as to its result, and it could
only be inferred from their manner that they were quite satisfied with
what they had seen; and very shortly afterwards Major Oliphant was
observed to draw up a lengthy document, which was no sooner finished
than it was formally signed and sealed with the seal of the 33rd
Regiment. It was directed: