Off on a Comet (6 page)

Once again Hector Servadac, though capable of tracing consequences, felt
himself totally at a loss to comprehend their cause; hence his agitation
and bewilderment!

After their prolonged immersion in the boiling water, the eggs were
found to be only just sufficiently cooked; the couscous was very much in
the same condition; and Ben Zoof came to the conclusion that in future
he must be careful to commence his culinary operations an hour earlier.
He was rejoiced at last to help his master, who, in spite of his
perplexed preoccupation, seemed to have a very fair appetite for
breakfast.

"Well, captain?" said Ben Zoof presently, such being his ordinary way of
opening conversation.

"Well, Ben Zoof?" was the captain's invariable response to his servant's
formula.

"What are we to do now, sir?"

"We can only for the present wait patiently where we are. We are
encamped upon an island, and therefore we can only be rescued by sea."

"But do you suppose that any of our friends are still alive?" asked Ben
Zoof.

"Oh, I think we must indulge the hope that this catastrophe has not
extended far. We must trust that it has limited its mischief to some
small portion of the Algerian coast, and that our friends are all alive
and well. No doubt the governor general will be anxious to investigate
the full extent of the damage, and will send a vessel from Algiers to
explore. It is not likely that we shall be forgotten. What, then, you
have to do, Ben Zoof, is to keep a sharp lookout, and to be ready, in
case a vessel should appear, to make signals at once."

"But if no vessel should appear!" sighed the orderly.

"Then we must build a boat, and go in search of those who do not come in
search of us."

"Very good. But what sort of a sailor are you?"

"Everyone can be a sailor when he must," said Servadac calmly.

Ben Zoof said no more. For several succeeding days he scanned the
horizon unintermittently with his telescope. His watching was in vain.
No ship appeared upon the desert sea. "By the name of a Kabyle!" he
broke out impatiently, "his Excellency is grossly negligent!"

Although the days and nights had become reduced from twenty-four hours
to twelve, Captain Servadac would not accept the new condition of
things, but resolved to adhere to the computations of the old calendar.
Notwithstanding, therefore, that the sun had risen and set twelve times
since the commencement of the new year, he persisted in calling the
following day the 6th of January. His watch enabled him to keep an
accurate account of the passing hours.

In the course of his life, Ben Zoof had read a few books. After
pondering one day, he said: "It seems to me, captain, that you have
turned into Robinson Crusoe, and that I am your man Friday. I hope I
have not become a negro."

"No," replied the captain. "Your complexion isn't the fairest in the
world, but you are not black yet."

"Well, I had much sooner be a white Friday than a black one," rejoined
Ben Zoof.

Still no ship appeared; and Captain Servadac, after the example of all
previous Crusoes, began to consider it advisable to investigate the
resources of his domain. The new territory of which he had become the
monarch he named Gourbi Island. It had a superficial area of about
nine hundred square miles. Bullocks, cows, goats, and sheep existed in
considerable numbers; and as there seemed already to be an abundance
of game, it was hardly likely that a future supply would fail them. The
condition of the cereals was such as to promise a fine ingathering of
wheat, maize, and rice; so that for the governor and his population,
with their two horses, not only was there ample provision, but even if
other human inhabitants besides themselves should yet be discovered,
there was not the remotest prospect of any of them perishing by
starvation.

From the 6th to the 13th of January the rain came down in torrents; and,
what was quite an unusual occurrence at this season of the year, several
heavy storms broke over the island. In spite, however, of the continual
downfall, the heavens still remained veiled in cloud. Servadac,
moreover, did not fail to observe that for the season the temperature
was unusually high; and, as a matter still more surprising, that it kept
steadily increasing, as though the earth were gradually and continuously
approximating to the sun. In proportion to the rise of temperature, the
light also assumed greater intensity; and if it had not been for
the screen of vapor interposed between the sky and the island, the
irradiation which would have illumined all terrestrial objects would
have been vivid beyond all precedent.

But neither sun, moon, nor star ever appeared; and Servadac's irritation
and annoyance at being unable to identify any one point of the firmament
may be more readily imagined than described. On one occasion Ben Zoof
endeavored to mitigate his master's impatience by exhorting him to
assume the resignation, even if he did not feel the indifference, which
he himself experienced; but his advice was received with so angry a
rebuff that he retired in all haste, abashed, to résumé his watchman's
duty, which he performed with exemplary perseverance. Day and night,
with the shortest possible intervals of rest, despite wind, rain, and
storm, he mounted guard upon the cliff—but all in vain. Not a speck
appeared upon the desolate horizon. To say the truth, no vessel could
have stood against the weather. The hurricane raged with tremendous
fury, and the waves rose to a height that seemed to defy calculation.
Never, even in the second era of creation, when, under the influence of
internal heat, the waters rose in vapor to descend in deluge back upon
the world, could meteorological phenomena have been developed with more
impressive intensity.

But by the night of the 13th the tempest appeared to have spent its
fury; the wind dropped; the rain ceased as if by a spell; and Servadac,
who for the last six days had confined himself to the shelter of his
roof, hastened to join Ben Zoof at his post upon the cliff. Now, he
thought, there might be a chance of solving his perplexity; perhaps now
the huge disc, of which he had had an imperfect glimpse on the night of
the 31st of December, might again reveal itself; at any rate, he hoped
for an opportunity of observing the constellations in a clear firmament
above.

The night was magnificent. Not a cloud dimmed the luster of the stars,
which spangled the heavens in surpassing brilliancy, and several nebulae
which hitherto no astronomer had been able to discern without the aid of
a telescope were clearly visible to the naked eye.

By a natural impulse, Servadac's first thought was to observe the
position of the pole-star. It was in sight, but so near to the horizon
as to suggest the utter impossibility of its being any longer the
central pivot of the sidereal system; it occupied a position through
which it was out of the question that the axis of the earth indefinitely
prolonged could ever pass. In his impression he was more thoroughly
confirmed when, an hour later, he noticed that the star had approached
still nearer the horizon, as though it had belonged to one of the
zodiacal constellations.

The pole-star being manifestly thus displaced, it remained to be
discovered whether any other of the celestial bodies had become a
fixed center around which the constellations made their apparent daily
revolutions. To the solution of this problem Servadac applied himself
with the most thoughtful diligence. After patient observation, he
satisfied himself that the required conditions were answered by a
certain star that was stationary not far from the horizon. This
was Vega, in the constellation Lyra, a star which, according to the
precession of the equinoxes, will take the place of our pole-star 12,000
years hence. The most daring imagination could not suppose that a period
of 12,000 years had been crowded into the space of a fortnight; and
therefore the captain came, as to an easier conclusion, to the opinion
that the earth's axis had been suddenly and immensely shifted; and
from the fact that the axis, if produced, would pass through a point
so little removed above the horizon, he deduced the inference that the
Mediterranean must have been transported to the equator.

Lost in bewildering maze of thought, he gazed long and intently upon the
heavens. His eyes wandered from where the tail of the Great Bear, now a
zodiacal constellation, was scarcely visible above the waters, to where
the stars of the southern hemisphere were just breaking on his view. A
cry from Ben Zoof recalled him to himself.

"The moon!" shouted the orderly, as though overjoyed at once again
beholding what the poet has called:

"The kind companion of terrestrial night;"

and he pointed to a disc that was rising at a spot precisely opposite
the place where they would have expected to see the sun. "The moon!"
again he cried.

But Captain Servadac could not altogether enter into his servant's
enthusiasm. If this were actually the moon, her distance from the
earth must have been increased by some millions of miles. He was rather
disposed to suspect that it was not the earth's satellite at all,
but some planet with its apparent magnitude greatly enlarged by its
approximation to the earth. Taking up the powerful field-glass which
he was accustomed to use in his surveying operations, he proceeded to
investigate more carefully the luminous orb. But he failed to trace
any of the lineaments, supposed to resemble a human face, that mark the
lunar surface; he failed to decipher any indications of hill and plain;
nor could he make out the aureole of light which emanates from what
astronomers have designated Mount Tycho. "It is not the moon," he said
slowly.

"Not the moon?" cried Ben Zoof. "Why not?"

"It is not the moon," again affirmed the captain.

"Why not?" repeated Ben Zoof, unwilling to renounce his first
impression.

"Because there is a small satellite in attendance." And the captain drew
his servant's attention to a bright speck, apparently about the size of
one of Jupiter's satellites seen through a moderate telescope, that was
clearly visible just within the focus of his glass.

Here, then, was a fresh mystery. The orbit of this planet was assuredly
interior to the orbit of the earth, because it accompanied the sun
in its apparent motion; yet it was neither Mercury nor Venus, because
neither one nor the other of these has any satellite at all.

The captain stamped and stamped again with mingled vexation, agitation,
and bewilderment. "Confound it!" he cried, "if this is neither Venus nor
Mercury, it must be the moon; but if it is the moon, whence, in the name
of all the gods, has she picked up another moon for herself?"

The captain was in dire perplexity.

The light of the returning sun soon extinguished the glory of the stars,
and rendered it necessary for the captain to postpone his observations.
He had sought in vain for further trace of the huge disc that had so
excited his wonder on the 1st, and it seemed most probable that, in its
irregular orbit, it had been carried beyond the range of vision.

The weather was still superb. The wind, after veering to the west, had
sunk to a perfect calm. Pursuing its inverted course, the sun rose and
set with undeviating regularity; and the days and nights were still
divided into periods of precisely six hours each—a sure proof that the
sun remained close to the new equator which manifestly passed through
Gourbi Island.

Meanwhile the temperature was steadily increasing. The captain kept his
thermometer close at hand where he could repeatedly consult it, and on
the 15th he found that it registered 50 degrees centigrade in the shade.

No attempt had been made to rebuild the gourbi, but the captain and
Ben Zoof managed to make up quarters sufficiently comfortable in the
principal apartment of the adjoining structure, where the stone walls,
that at first afforded a refuge from the torrents of rain, now formed an
equally acceptable shelter from the burning sun. The heat was becoming
insufferable, surpassing the heat of Senegal and other equatorial
regions; not a cloud ever tempered the intensity of the solar rays;
and unless some modification ensued, it seemed inevitable that all
vegetation should become scorched and burnt off from the face of the
island.

In spite, however, of the profuse perspirations from which he suffered,
Ben Zoof, constant to his principles, expressed no surprise at the
unwonted heat. No remonstrances from his master could induce him to
abandon his watch from the cliff. To withstand the vertical beams of
that noontide sun would seem to require a skin of brass and a brain
of adamant; but yet, hour after hour, he would remain conscientiously
scanning the surface of the Mediterranean, which, calm and deserted, lay
outstretched before him. On one occasion, Servadac, in reference to his
orderly's indomitable perseverance, happened to remark that he thought
he must have been born in the heart of equatorial Africa; to which Ben
Zoof replied, with the utmost dignity, that he was born at Montmartre,
which was all the same. The worthy fellow was unwilling to own that,
even in the matter of heat, the tropics could in any way surpass his own
much-loved home.

This unprecedented temperature very soon began to take effect upon the
products of the soil. The sap rose rapidly in the trees, so that in the
course of a few days buds, leaves, flowers, and fruit had come to full
maturity. It was the same with the cereals; wheat and maize sprouted and
ripened as if by magic, and for a while a rank and luxuriant pasturage
clothed the meadows. Summer and autumn seemed blended into one. If
Captain Servadac had been more deeply versed in astronomy, he would
perhaps have been able to bring to bear his knowledge that if the axis
of the earth, as everything seemed to indicate, now formed a right angle
with the plane of the ecliptic, her various seasons, like those of the
planet Jupiter, would become limited to certain zones, in which they
would remain invariable. But even if he had understood the
rationale
of the change, the convulsion that had brought it about would have been
as much a mystery as ever.