Off on a Comet (27 page)

"But now, gentlemen," added the professor, "I must tell you something
more. Important changes have resulted from the collision; the cardinal
points have been displaced; gravity has been diminished: not that I ever
supposed for a minute, as you did, that I was still upon the earth. No!
the earth, attended by her moon, continued to rotate along her proper
orbit. But we, gentlemen, have nothing to complain of; our destiny might
have been far worse; we might all have been crushed to death, or the
comet might have remained in adhesion to the earth; and in neither of
these cases should we have had the satisfaction of making this marvelous
excursion through untraversed solar regions. No, gentlemen, I repeat it,
we have nothing to regret."

And as the professor spoke, he seemed to kindle with the emotion of such
supreme contentment that no one had the heart to gainsay his assertion.
Ben Zoof alone ventured an unlucky remark to the effect that if the
comet had happened to strike against Montmartre, instead of a bit of
Africa, it would have met with some resistance.

"Pshaw!" said Rosette, disdainfully. "A mole-hill like Montmartre would
have been ground to powder in a moment."

"Mole-hill!" exclaimed Ben Zoof, stung to the quick. "I can tell you it
would have caught up your bit of a comet and worn it like a feather in a
cap."

The professor looked angry, and Servadac having imposed silence upon
his orderly, explained the worthy soldier's sensitiveness on all that
concerned Montmartre. Always obedient to his master, Ben Zoof held his
tongue; but he felt that he could never forgive the slight that had been
cast upon his beloved home.

It was now all-important to learn whether the astronomer had been able
to continue his observations, and whether he had learned sufficient of
Gallia's path through space to make him competent to determine, at least
approximately, the period of its revolution round the sun. With as much
tact and caution as he could, Lieutenant Procope endeavored to intimate
the general desire for some information on this point.

"Before the shock, sir," answered the professor, "I had conclusively
demonstrated the path of the comet; but, in consequence of the
modifications which that shock has entailed upon my comet's orbit, I
have been compelled entirely to recommence my calculations."

The lieutenant looked disappointed.

"Although the orbit of the earth was unaltered," continued the
professor, "the result of the collision was the projection of the comet
into a new orbit altogether."

"And may I ask," said Procope, deferentially, "whether you have got the
elements of the fresh orbit?"

"Yes."

"Then perhaps you know—"

"I know this, sir, that at 47 minutes 35.6 seconds after two o'clock on
the morning of the 1st of January last, Gallia, in passing its ascending
node, came in contact with the earth; that on the 10th of January it
crossed the orbit of Venus; that it reached its perihelion on the 15th;
that it re-crossed the orbit of Venus; that on the 1st of February
it passed its descending node; on the 13th crossed the orbit of Mars;
entered the zone of the telescopic planets on the 10th of March, and,
attracting Nerina, carried it off as a satellite."

Servadac interposed:

"We are already acquainted with well-nigh all these extraordinary facts;
many of them, moreover, we have learned from documents which we have
picked up, and which, although unsigned, we cannot entertain a doubt
have originated with you."

Professor Rosette drew himself up proudly and said: "Of course, they
originated with me. I sent them off by hundreds. From whom else could
they come?"

"From no one but yourself, certainly," rejoined the count, with grave
politeness.

Hitherto the conversation had thrown no light upon the future movements
of Gallia, and Rosette was disposed apparently to evade, or at least to
postpone, the subject. When, therefore, Lieutenant Procope was about to
press his inquiries in a more categorical form, Servadac, thinking
it advisable not prematurely to press the little
savant
too far,
interrupted him by asking the professor how he accounted for the earth
having suffered so little from such a formidable concussion.

"I account for it in this way," answered Rosette: "the earth was
traveling at the rate of 28,000 leagues an hour, and Gallia at the rate
of 57,000 leagues an hour, therefore the result was the same as though
a train rushing along at a speed of about 86,000 leagues an hour had
suddenly encountered some obstacle. The nucleus of the comet, being
excessively hard, has done exactly what a ball would do fired with that
velocity close to a pane of glass. It has crossed the earth without
cracking it."

"It is possible you may be right," said Servadac, thoughtfully.

"Right! of course I am right!" replied the snappish professor. Soon,
however, recovering his equanimity, he continued: "It is fortunate
that the earth was only touched obliquely; if the comet had impinged
perpendicularly, it must have plowed its way deep below the surface, and
the disasters it might have caused are beyond reckoning. Perhaps,"
he added, with a smile, "even Montmartre might not have survived the
calamity."

"Sir!" shouted Ben Zoof, quite unable to bear the unprovoked attack.

"Quiet, Ben Zoof!" said Servadac sternly.

Fortunately for the sake of peace, Isaac Hakkabut, who at length was
beginning to realize something of the true condition of things, came
forward at this moment, and in a voice trembling with eagerness,
implored the professor to tell him when they would all be back again
upon the earth.

"Are you in a great hurry?" asked the professor coolly.

The Jew was about to speak again, when Captain Servadac interposed:
"Allow me to say that, in somewhat more scientific terms, I was about to
ask you the same question. Did I not understand you to say that, as the
consequence of the collision, the character of the comet's orbit has
been changed?"

"You did, sir."

"Did you imply that the orbit has ceased to be a parabola?"

"Just so."

"Is it then an hyperbola? and are we to be carried on far and away into
remote distance, and never, never to return?"

"I did not say an hyperbola."

"And is it not?"

"It is not."

"Then it must be an ellipse?"

"Yes."

"And does its plane coincide with the plane of the earth?"

"Yes."

"Then it must be a periodic comet?"

"It is."

Servadac involuntarily raised a ringing shout of joy that echoed again
along the gallery.

"Yes," continued the professor, "Gallia is a periodic comet, and
allowing for the perturbations to which it is liable from the attraction
of Mars and Jupiter and Saturn, it will return to the earth again in two
years precisely."

"You mean that in two years after the first shock, Gallia will meet the
earth at the same point as they met before?" said Lieutenant Procope.

"I am afraid so," said Rosette.

"Why afraid?"

"Because we are doing exceedingly well as we are." The professor stamped
his foot upon the ground, by way of emphasis, and added, "If I had my
will, Gallia should never return to the earth again!"

All previous hypotheses, then, were now forgotten in the presence of the
one great fact that Gallia was a comet and gravitating through remote
solar regions. Captain Servadac became aware that the huge disc that
had been looming through the clouds after the shock was the form of the
retreating earth, to the proximity of which the one high tide they had
experienced was also to be attributed.

As to the fulfillment of the professor's prediction of an ultimate
return to the terrestrial sphere, that was a point on which it must
be owned that the captain, after the first flush of his excitement was
over, was not without many misgivings.

The next day or two were spent in providing for the accommodation of the
new comer. Fortunately his desires were very moderate; he seemed to live
among the stars, and as long as he was well provided with coffee, he
cared little for luxuries, and paid little or no regard to the ingenuity
with which all the internal arrangements of Nina's Hive had been
devised. Anxious to show all proper respect to his former tutor,
Servadac proposed to leave the most comfortable apartment of the place
at his disposal; but the professor resolutely declined to occupy it,
saying that what he required was a small chamber, no matter how small,
provided that it was elevated and secluded, which he could use as
an observatory and where he might prosecute his studies without
disturbance. A general search was instituted, and before long they were
lucky enough to find, about a hundred feet above the central grotto, a
small recess or reduct hollowed, as it were, in the mountain side, which
would exactly answer their purpose. It contained room enough for a bed,
a table, an arm-chair, a chest of drawers, and, what was of still more
consequence, for the indispensable telescope. One small stream of
lava, an off-shoot of the great torrent, sufficed to warm the apartment
enough.

In these retired quarters the astronomer took up his abode. It was on
all hands acknowledged to be advisable to let him go on entirely in his
own way. His meals were taken to him at stated intervals; he slept but
little; carried on his calculations by day, his observations by night,
and very rarely made his appearance amongst the rest of the little
community.

The cold now became very intense, the thermometer registering 30 degrees
F. below zero. The mercury, however, never exhibited any of those
fluctuations that are ever and again to be observed in variable
climates, but continued slowly and steadily to fall, and in all
probability would continue to do so until it reached the normal
temperature of the regions of outlying space.

This steady sinking of the mercury was accompanied by a complete
stillness of the atmosphere; the very air seemed to be congealed; no
particle of it stirred; from zenith to horizon there was never a cloud;
neither were there any of the damp mists or dry fogs which so often
extend over the polar regions of the earth; the sky was always clear;
the sun shone by day and the stars by night without causing any
perceptible difference in the temperature.

These peculiar conditions rendered the cold endurable even in the open
air. The cause of so many of the diseases that prove fatal to Arctic
explorers resides in the cutting winds, unwholesome fogs, or terrible
snow drifts, which, by drying up, relaxing, or otherwise affecting the
lungs, make them incapable of fulfilling their proper functions. But
during periods of calm weather, when the air has been absolutely still,
many polar navigators, well-clothed and properly fed, have been known
to withstand a temperature when the thermometer has fallen to 60 degrees
below zero. It was the experience of Parry upon Melville Island, of
Kane beyond latitude 81 degrees north, and of Hall and the crew of the
Polaris
, that, however intense the cold, in the absence of the wind
they could always brave its rigor.

Notwithstanding, then, the extreme lowness of the temperature, the
little population found that they were able to move about in the open
air with perfect immunity. The governor general made it his special care
to see that his people were all well fed and warmly clad. Food was
both wholesome and abundant, and besides the furs brought from the
Dobryna's
stores, fresh skins could very easily be procured and
made up into wearing apparel. A daily course of out-door exercise was
enforced upon everyone; not even Pablo and Nina were exempted from the
general rule; the two children, muffled up in furs, looking like little
Esquimeaux, skated along together, Pablo ever at his companion's
side, ready to give her a helping hand whenever she was weary with her
exertions.

After his interview with the newly arrived astronomer, Isaac Hakkabut
slunk back again to his tartan. A change had come over his ideas; he
could no longer resist the conviction that he was indeed millions and
millions of miles away from the earth, where he had carried on so varied
and remunerative a traffic. It might be imagined that this realization
of his true position would have led him to a better mind, and that,
in some degree at least, he would have been induced to regard the few
fellow-creatures with whom his lot had been so strangely cast, otherwise
than as mere instruments to be turned to his own personal and pecuniary
advantage; but no—the desire of gain was too thoroughly ingrained into
his hard nature ever to be eradicated, and secure in his knowledge that
he was under the protection of a French officer, who, except under the
most urgent necessity, would not permit him to be molested in retaining
his property, he determined to wait for some emergency to arise which
should enable him to use his present situation for his own profit.

On the one hand, the Jew took it into account that although the chances
of returning to the earth might be remote, yet from what he had heard
from the professor he could not believe that they were improbable; on
the other, he knew that a considerable sum of money, in English and
Russian coinage, was in the possession of various members of the little
colony, and this, although valueless now, would be worth as much as ever
if the proper condition of things should be restored; accordingly, he
set his heart on getting all the monetary wealth of Gallia into his
possession, and to do this he must sell his goods. But he would not
sell them yet; there might come a time when for many articles the supply
would not be equal to the demand; that would be the time for him;
by waiting he reckoned he should be able to transact some lucrative
business.

Such in his solitude were old Isaac's cogitations, whilst the universal
population of Nina's Hive were congratulating themselves upon being rid
of his odious presence.