Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (53 page)

First published in 1877 as
Hector Servadac, voyages et aventures à travers le monde solaire.
Serialized in
Amazing Stories
, April–May 1926 as
Off on a Comet!

CHAPTER III.

INTERRUPTED EFFUSIONS.

Where it will be seen that Captain Servadac’s poetic inspiration is interrupted by an unfortunate shock.

Composed of mud and loose stones, and covered with a thatch of turf and straw, known to the natives by the name of “driss,” the gourbi, though a grade better than the tents of the nomad Arabs, was yet far inferior to any habitation built of brick or stone. Little more than a hovel, the gourbi would have been quite inadequate to the needs of its present inmates, if it had not adjoined an old stone hostelry, previously occupied by a detachment of engineers, and which now afforded shelter for Ben Zoof and the two horses. It still contained a considerable number of tools, such as mattocks, shovels, and pick-axes.

Uncomfortable as was their temporary abode, Servadac and his attendant made no complaints: neither of them was dainty in the matter either of board or lodging.

“Give a man a little philosophy and a good digestion, and he will thrive anywhere,” was a favourite speech of the captain’s. A true Gascon, he had his philosophy, like his pocket-money, always at hand; and as for his digestion, it may be doubted whether the weight of all the waters of the Garonne would have caused it any inconvenience. And in this respect Ben Zoof was quite a match for his matter; the power of his gastric juices was enormous, and to any believer in the theory of metempsychosis he would appear to have had an anterior existence under the form of an ostrich, digesting pebbles as easily as he would the tenderest slice from the breast of a chicken.

The gourbi was stocked with a month’s provisions, water in abundance could be obtained from an adjacent cistern, and a little foraging was sufficient to supply the requirements of the stable, whilst all other necessities could be satisfied by the marvellous fertility of the plain between Tenes and Mostaganem, which fairly rivalled the rich country of the Mitidja. Game was pretty plentiful, and on condition that he did not allow his sport to interfere with his proper duties, the captain, like other staff-officers, was permitted to use a fowling-piece.

On his return to the gourbi, Servadac dined with an appetite to which his long ride had given an extra sharpness. Ben Zoof’s culinary efforts were somewhat remarkable: no tasteless or insipid dishes were ever the result of his preparation; salt, pepper, vinegar, were all bestowed with a lavish hand, and it was well for both him and his master that their gastronomic powers were adequate to absorb the most pungent of condiments.

After dinner, leaving his orderly to stow away the remains of the repast in what he was pleased to term the “cupboard of his stomach,” Captain Servadac turned out into the open air to smoke his pipe upon the edge of the cliff. The shades of night were drawing on. An hour previously, veiled in heavy clouds, the sun had sunk below the horizon that bounded the plain beyond the Shelif. The sky presented a most singular appearance. Towards the north, although the darkness rendered it impossible to see beyond a quarter of a mile, the upper strata of the atmosphere were suffused with a rosy glare. No well-defined fringe of light, nor arch of luminous rays, betokened a display of aurora borealis, even had such a phenomenon been possible in these latitudes; and the most experienced meteorologist would have been puzzled to explain the cause of this striking illumination on this last evening of the passing year.

But Captain Servadac was no meteorologist, and it is to be doubted whether, since leaving school, he had ever opened his “Course of Cosmography.” Besides, as he strolled along, he had other thoughts to occupy his mind. The prospect of the morrow offered serious matter for consideration. The captain was actuated by no personal animosity against the count; though rivals, the two men regarded each other with sincere respect; they had simply reached a crisis in which one of them was de trop; which of them, fate must decide.

At eight o’clock, Captain Servadac re-entered the gourbi, the single apartment of which contained his bed, a small writing-table, and some trunks that served instead of cupboards. The orderly performed his culinary operations in the adjoining building, which he also used as a bedroom, and where, extended on what he called his “good oak mattress,” he would sleep soundly as a dormouse for twelve hours at a stretch. Ben Zoof had not yet received his orders to retire, and ensconcing himself in a corner of the gourbi, he endeavoured to doze—a task which the unusual agitation of his master rendered somewhat difficult. Captain Servadac was evidently in no hurry to betake himself to rest, but seating himself at his table, with a pair of compasses and a sheet of tracing-paper, he began to draw, with red and blue crayons, a variety of coloured lines, which could hardly be supposed to have much connection with a topographical survey. In truth, his character of staff-officer was now entirely absorbed into that of the Gascon poet. Whether he imagined that the compasses would bestow upon his verses the measure of a mathematical accuracy, or whether he fancied that the parti-coloured lines would lend variety to his rhythm, it is impossible to determine; be that as it may, he was devoting all his energies to the compilation of his rondo, and supremely difficult he found the task.

“Hang it!” he ejaculated, “whatever induced me to choose this metre? It is as hard to find rhymes as to rally fugitives in a battle. But, by all the powers! it shan’t be said that a French officer cannot cope with a piece of poetry. One battalion has shown fight—now for the rest!”

Perseverance had its reward. Presently two lines, one red, the other blue, appeared upon the paper, and the captain murmured—

“Words, mere words, cannot avail,

Telling true heart’s tender tale.”

“What on earth ails my master?” muttered Ben Zoof, “for the last hour he has been as fidgety as a bird returning after its winter migration.”

Servadac suddenly started from his seat, and as he paced the room with all the frenzy of poetic inspiration, read out—

“Empty words cannot convey

All a lover’s heart would say.”

“Well, to be sure, he is at his everlasting verses again!” said Ben Zoof to himself, as he roused himself in his corner. “Impossible to sleep in such a noise;” and he gave vent to a loud groan.

“How now, Ben Zoof?” said the captain, sharply. “What ails you?”

“Nothing, sir, only the nightmare.”

“Curse the fellow, he has quite interrupted me!” ejaculated the captain. “Ben Zoof!” he called aloud.

“Here, sir!” was the prompt reply; and in an instant the orderly was upon his feet, standing in a military attitude, one hand to his forehead, the other closely pressed to his trouser-seam.

“Stay where you are! don’t move an inch!” shouted Servadac; “I have just thought of the end of my rondo.”

And in a voice of inspiration, accompanying his words with dramatic gestures, Servadac began to declaim:

“Listen, lady, to my vows—

O, consent to be my spouse;

Constant ever I will be,

Constant…”

No closing lines were uttered. All at once, with unutterable violence, the captain and his orderly were dashed, face downwards, to the ground.

CHAPTER IV.

A CONVULSION OF NATURE.

Which allows the reader to generate an endless supply of questions and exclamations.

Whence came it that at that very moment the horizon underwent so strange and sudden a modification, that the eye of the most practised mariner could not distinguish between sea and sky?

Whence came it that the billows raged and rose to a height hitherto unregistered in the records of science?

Whence came it that the elements united in one deafening crash; that the earth groaned as though the whole framework of the globe were ruptured; that the waters roared from their innermost depths; that the air shrieked with all the fury of a cyclone?

Whence came it that a radiance, intenser than the effulgence of the Northern Lights, overspread the firmament, and momentarily dimmed the splendour of the brightest stars?

Whence came it that the Mediterranean, one instant emptied of its waters, was the next flooded with a foaming surge?

Whence came it that in the space of a few seconds the moon’s disc reached a magnitude as though it were but a tenth part of its ordinary distance from the earth?

Whence came it that a new blazing spheroid, hitherto unknown to astronomy, now appeared suddenly in the firmament, though it were but to lose itself immediately behind masses of accumulated cloud?

What phenomenon was this that had produced a cataclysm so tremendous in its effects upon earth, sky, and sea?

Was it possible that a single human being could have survived the convulsion? and if so, could he explain its mystery?

CHAPTER V.

A MYSTERIOUS SEA.

In which we speak of some modifications made to the physical order, without being able to indicate the cause.

Violent as the commotion had been, that portion of the Algerian coast which is bounded on the north by the Mediterranean, and on the west by the right bank of the Shelif, appeared to have suffered little change. It is true that slight indentations were perceptible in the fertile plain, and the surface of the sea was ruffled with an agitation that was quite unusual; but the rugged outline of the cliff was the same as heretofore, and the physical aspect of the entire scene appeared generally unaltered. The stone hostelry, with the exception of some deep clefts in its walls, had sustained little injury; but the gourbi, like a house of cards destroyed by an infant’s breath, had completely subsided, and its two inmates lay motionless, buried under the sunken thatch.

It was two hours after the catastrophe that Captain Servadac regained consciousness; he had some trouble to collect his thoughts, and it is not altogether surprising that the first sounds that escaped his lips were the concluding words of the rondo which had been so ruthlessly interrupted—

“Constant ever I will be,

Constant…”

His next thought was to wonder what had Happened; and in order to find an answer to the question, he pushed aside the broken thatch, so that his head appeared above the
débris
.

“The gourbi levelled to the ground!” he exclaimed, as he looked about him; “surely a waterspout has passed along the coast.”

He felt all over his body to perceive what injuries he had sustained, but not a sprain nor a scratch could he discover.

“Where are you, Ben Zoof?” he shouted next

“Here, sir!” and with military promptitude a second head protruded from the rubbish.

“Have you any notion what has happened, Ben Zoof?” asked Servadac.

“I’ve a notion, captain, that it’s all up with us.”

“Nonsense, Ben Zoof; it is nothing but a waterspout!”

“Very good, sir,” was the philosophical reply, immediately followed by the query, “Any bones broken, sir?”

“None whatever,” said the captain.

Both men were soon on their feet, and began to make a vigorous clearance of the ruins, beneath which they found that their arms, cooking utensils, and other property had sustained little injury.

“By-the-by, what o’clock is it?” asked the captain presently.

“It must be eight o’clock, at least,” said Ben Zoor, looking at the sun, which was a considerable height above the horizon. “It is almost time for us to start”

“To start! what for?”

“To keep your appointment with Count Timascheff.”

“By Jove! I had forgotten all about it!” exclaimed Servadac.

Then looking at his watch, he cried:—

“What are you thinking of, Ben Zoof? It is scarcely two o’clock.”

“Two in the morning, or two in the afternoon?” asked Ben Zoof, again regarding the sun.

Servadac raised his watch to his ear.

“It is going,” said he; “but, by all the wines of Medoc, I am puzzled. Don’t you see that the sun is in the west? It must be near setting.”

“Setting, captain! Why, it is rising finely, like a conscript at the sound of the reveille. It is considerably higher since we have been talking.”

Incredible as it might appear, the fact was undeniable that the sun was rising over the Shelif from that quarter of the horizon behind which it usually sank for the latter portion of its daily round. They were utterly bewildered. Some mysterious phenomenon must not only have altered the position of the sun in the sidereal system, but must even have brought about an important modification of the earth’s rotation on her axis. If Captain Servadac could now have laid hands upon a member of the Board of Longitudes, he would doubtless have sought all manner of information; but as it was, he consoled himself with the prospect of reading an explanation of the mystery in next week’s newspapers, and turned his attention to what was to him of more immediate importance.

“Come, let us be off,” said he to his orderly; “though heaven and earth be topsy-turvy, I must be at my post this morning.”

“To do Count Timascheff the honour of running him through the body,” added Ben Zoof.