Off on a Comet (29 page)

Indulged and loved by all, it was little wonder that young Pablo had no
longing for the scorching plains of Andalusia, or that little Nina
had lost all wish to return with her pet goat to the barren rocks of
Sardinia. They had now a home in which they had nothing to desire.

"Have you no father nor mother?" asked Pablo, one day.

"No," she answered.

"No more have I," said the boy, "I used to run along by the side of the
diligences when I was in Spain."

"I used to look after goats at Madalena," said Nina; "but it is much
nicer here—I am so happy here. I have you for a brother, and everybody
is so kind. I am afraid they will spoil us, Pablo," she added, smiling.

"Oh, no, Nina; you are too good to be spoiled, and when I am with you,
you make me good too," said Pablo, gravely.

July had now arrived. During the month Gallia's advance along its orbit
would be reduced to 22,000,000 leagues, the distance from the sun at the
end being 172,000,000 leagues, about four and a half times as great as
the average distance of the earth from the sun. It was traveling now
at about the same speed as the earth, which traverses the ecliptic at a
rate of 21,000,000 leagues a month, or 28,800 leagues an hour.

In due time the 62d April, according to the revised Gallian calendar,
dawned; and in punctual fulfillment of the professor's appointment, a
note was delivered to Servadac to say that he was ready, and hoped that
day to commence operations for calculating the mass and density of his
comet, as well as the force of gravity at its surface.

A point of far greater interest to Captain Servadac and his friends
would have been to ascertain the nature of the substance of which the
comet was composed, but they felt pledged to render the professor
any aid they could in the researches upon which he had set his heart.
Without delay, therefore, they assembled in the central hall, where they
were soon joined by Rosette, who seemed to be in fairly good temper.

"Gentlemen," he began, "I propose to-day to endeavor to complete our
observations of the elements of my comet. Three matters of investigation
are before us. First, the measure of gravity at its surface; this
attractive force we know, by the increase of our own muscular force,
must of course be considerably less than that at the surface of the
earth. Secondly, its mass, that is, the quality of its matter. And
thirdly, its density or quantity of matter in a unit of its volume. We
will proceed, gentlemen, if you please, to weigh Gallia."

Ben Zoof, who had just entered the hall, caught the professor's last
sentence, and without saying a word, went out again and was absent for
some minutes. When he returned, he said, "If you want to weigh this
comet of yours, I suppose you want a pair of scales; but I have been
to look, and I cannot find a pair anywhere. And what's more," he added
mischievously, "you won't get them anywhere."

A frown came over the professor's countenance. Servadac saw it, and gave
his orderly a sign that he should desist entirely from his bantering.

"I require, gentlemen," resumed Rosette, "first of all to know by how
much the weight of a kilogramme here differs from its weight upon the
earth; the attraction, as we have said, being less, the weight will
proportionately be less also."

"Then an ordinary pair of scales, being under the influence of
attraction, I suppose, would not answer your purpose," submitted the
lieutenant.

"And the very kilogramme weight you used would have become lighter," put
in the count, deferentially.

"Pray, gentlemen, do not interrupt me," said the professor,
authoritatively, as if
ex cathedra
. "I need no instruction on these
points."

Procope and Timascheff demurely bowed their heads.

The professor resumed. "Upon a steelyard, or spring-balance, dependent
upon mere tension or flexibility, the attraction will have no influence.
If I suspend a weight equivalent to the weight of a kilogramme, the
index will register the proper weight on the surface of Gallia. Thus
I shall arrive at the difference I want: the difference between the
earth's attraction and the comet's. Will you, therefore, have
the goodness to provide me at once with a steelyard and a tested
kilogramme?"

The audience looked at one another, and then at Ben Zoof, who was
thoroughly acquainted with all their resources. "We have neither one nor
the other," said the orderly.

The professor stamped with vexation.

"I believe old Hakkabut has a steelyard on board his tartan," said Ben
Zoof, presently.

"Then why didn't you say so before, you idiot?" roared the excitable
little man.

Anxious to pacify him, Servadac assured him that every exertion should
be made to procure the instrument, and directed Ben Zoof to go to the
Jew and borrow it.

"No, stop a moment," he said, as Ben Zoof was moving away on his,
errand; "perhaps I had better go with you myself; the old Jew may make a
difficulty about lending us any of his property."

"Why should we not all go?" asked the count; "we should see what kind of
a life the misanthrope leads on board the
Hansa
."

The proposal met with general approbation. Before they started,
Professor Rosette requested that one of the men might be ordered to cut
him a cubic decimeter out of the solid substance of Gallia. "My engineer
is the man for that," said the count; "he will do it well for you if you
will give him the precise measurement."

"What! you don't mean," exclaimed the professor, again going off into a
passion, "that you haven't a proper measure of length?"

Ben Zoof was sent off to ransack the stores for the article in question,
but no measure was forthcoming. "Most likely we shall find one on the
tartan," said the orderly.

"Then let us lose no time in trying," answered the professor, as he
hustled with hasty strides into the gallery.

The rest of the party followed, and were soon in the open air upon the
rocks that overhung the shore. They descended to the level of the frozen
water and made their way towards the little creek where the
Dobryna
and the
Hansa
lay firmly imprisoned in their icy bonds.

The temperature was low beyond previous experience; but well muffled up
in fur, they all endured it without much actual suffering. Their breath
issued in vapor, which was at once congealed into little crystals upon
their whiskers, beards, eyebrows, and eyelashes, until their faces,
covered with countless snow-white prickles, were truly ludicrous. The
little professor, most comical of all, resembled nothing so much as the
cub of an Arctic bear.

It was eight o'clock in the morning. The sun was rapidly approaching the
zenith; but its disc, from the extreme remoteness, was proportionately
dwarfed; its beams being all but destitute of their proper warmth and
radiance. The volcano to its very summit and the surrounding rocks were
still covered with the unsullied mantle of snow that had fallen while
the atmosphere was still to some extent charged with vapor; but on the
north side the snow had given place to the cascade of fiery lava, which,
making its way down the sloping rocks as far as the vaulted opening of
the central cavern, fell thence perpendicularly into the sea. Above
the cavern, 130 feet up the mountain, was a dark hole, above which
the stream of lava made a bifurcation in its course. From this hole
projected the case of an astronomer's telescope; it was the opening of
Palmyrin Rosette's observatory.

Sea and land seemed blended into one dreary whiteness, to which the pale
blue sky offered scarcely any contrast. The shore was indented with the
marks of many footsteps left by the colonists either on their way to
collect ice for drinking purposes, or as the result of their skating
expeditions; the edges of the skates had cut out a labyrinth of curves
complicated as the figures traced by aquatic insects upon the surface of
a pool.

Across the quarter of a mile of level ground that lay between the
mountain and the creek, a series of footprints, frozen hard into the
snow, marked the course taken by Isaac Hakkabut on his last return from
Nina's Hive.

On approaching the creek, Lieutenant Procope drew his companions'
attention to the elevation of the
Dobryna's
and
Hansa's
waterline,
both vessels being now some fifteen feet above the level of the sea.

"What a strange phenomenon!" exclaimed the captain.

"It makes me very uneasy," rejoined the lieutenant; "in shallow places
like this, as the crust of ice thickens, it forces everything upwards
with irresistible force."

"But surely this process of congelation must have a limit!" said the
count.

"But who can say what that limit will be? Remember that we have not yet
reached our maximum of cold," replied Procope.

"Indeed, I hope not!" exclaimed the professor; "where would be the use
of our traveling 200,000,000 leagues from the sun, if we are only to
experience the same temperature as we should find at the poles of the
earth?"

"Fortunately for us, however, professor," said the lieutenant, with a
smile, "the temperature of the remotest space never descends beyond 70
degrees below zero."

"And as long as there is no wind," added Servadac, "we may pass
comfortably through the winter, without a single attack of catarrh."

Lieutenant Procope proceeded to impart to the count his anxiety
about the situation of his yacht. He pointed out that by the constant
superposition of new deposits of ice, the vessel would be elevated to
a great height, and consequently in the event of a thaw, it must
be exposed to a calamity similar to those which in polar seas cause
destruction to so many whalers.

There was no time now for concerting measures offhand to prevent the
disaster, for the other members of the party had already reached the
spot where the
Hansa
lay bound in her icy trammels. A flight of steps,
recently hewn by Hakkabut himself, gave access for the present to the
gangway, but it was evident that some different contrivance would
have to be resorted to when the tartan should be elevated perhaps to a
hundred feet.

A thin curl of blue smoke issued from the copper funnel that projected
above the mass of snow which had accumulated upon the deck of the
Hansa
. The owner was sparing of his fuel, and it was only the
non-conducting layer of ice enveloping the tartan that rendered the
internal temperature endurable.

"Hi! old Nebuchadnezzar, where are you?" shouted Ben Zoof, at the full
strength of his lungs.

At the sound of his voice, the cabin door opened, and the Jew's head and
shoulders protruded onto the deck.

"Who's there? I have nothing here for anyone. Go away!" Such was the
inhospitable greeting with which Isaac Hakkabut received his visitors.

"Hakkabut! do you take us for thieves?" asked Servadac, in tones of
stern displeasure.

"Oh, your Excellency, my lord, I did not know that it was you," whined
the Jew, but without emerging any farther from his cabin.

"Now, old Hakkabut, come out of your shell! Come and show the governor
proper respect, when he gives you the honor of his company," cried Ben
Zoof, who by this time had clambered onto the deck.

After considerable hesitation, but still keeping his hold upon the
cabin-door, the Jew made up his mind to step outside. "What do you
want?" he inquired, timorously.

"I want a word with you," said Servadac, "but I do not want to stand
talking out here in the cold."

Followed by the rest of the party, he proceeded to mount the steps. The
Jew trembled from head to foot. "But I cannot let you into my cabin. I
am a poor man; I have nothing to give you," he moaned piteously.

"Here he is!" laughed Ben Zoof, contemptuously; "he is beginning his
chapter of lamentations over again. But standing out here will never do.
Out of the way, old Hakkabut, I say! out of the way!" and, without more
ado, he thrust the astonished Jew on one side and opened the door of the
cabin.

Servadac, however, declined to enter until he had taken the pains to
explain to the owner of the tartan that he had no intention of laying
violent hands upon his property, and that if the time should ever come
that his cargo was in requisition for the common use, he should receive
a proper price for his goods, the same as he would in Europe.

"Europe, indeed!" muttered the Jew maliciously between his teeth.
"European prices will not do for me. I must have Gallian prices—and of
my own fixing, too!"

So large a portion of the vessel had been appropriated to the cargo that
the space reserved for the cabin was of most meager dimensions. In one
corner of the compartment stood a small iron stove, in which smoldered a
bare handful of coals; in another was a trestle-board which served as a
bed; two or three stools and a rickety deal table, together with a few
cooking utensils, completed a stock of furniture which was worthy of its
proprietor.

On entering the cabin, Ben Zoof's first proceeding was to throw on the
fire a liberal supply of coals, utterly regardless of the groans of poor
Isaac, who would almost as soon have parted with his own bones as submit
to such reckless expenditure of his fuel. The perishing temperature
of the cabin, however, was sufficient justification for the orderly's
conduct, and by a little skillful manipulation he soon succeeded in
getting up a tolerable fire.

The visitors having taken what seats they could, Hakkabut closed the
door, and, like a prisoner awaiting his sentence, stood with folded
hands, expecting the captain to speak.

"Listen," said Servadac; "we have come to ask a favor."

Imagining that at least half his property was to be confiscated, the
Jew began to break out into his usual formula about being a poor man and
having nothing to spare; but Servadac, without heeding his complainings,
went on: "We are not going to ruin you, you know."