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Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space

by Jules Verne · English · Gutenberg #1353 · 611,787 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space

Author: Jules Verne


        
Release date: June 1, 1998 [eBook #1353]
                Most recently updated: October 6, 2026

Language: English

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Credits: Produced by Judy Boss, and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OFF ON A COMET! A JOURNEY THROUGH PLANETARY SPACE ***




OFF ON A COMET or HECTOR SERVADAC

WORKS of JULES VERNE

Edited By Charles F. Horne, Ph.D.

Professor of English, College of the City of New York; Author of “The
Technique of the Novel,” etc.

[colophon omitted]

F. Tyler Daniels Company, Inc.

New York :::: London


Copyright, 1911 By Vincent Parke And Company




INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME NINE

_Among so many effective and artistic tales, it is difficult to give a
preference to one over all the rest. Yet, certainly, even amid Verne’s
remarkable works, his “Off on a Comet” must be given high rank. Perhaps
this story will be remembered when even “Round the World in Eighty Days”
 and “Michael Strogoff” have been obliterated by centuries of time. At
least, of the many books since written upon the same theme as Verne’s,
no one has yet succeeded in equaling or even approaching it.

In one way “Off on a Comet” shows a marked contrast to Verne’s earlier
books. Not only does it invade a region more remote than even the
“Trip to the Moon,” but the author here abandons his usual scrupulously
scientific attitude. In order that he may escort us through the depths
of immeasurable space, show us what astronomy really knows of conditions
there and upon the other planets, Verne asks us to accept a situation
frankly impossible. The earth and a comet are brought twice into
collision without mankind in general, or even our astronomers, becoming
conscious of the fact. Moreover several people from widely scattered
places are carried off by the comet and returned uninjured. Yet further,
the comet snatches for the convenience of its travelers, both air and
water. Little, useful tracts of earth are picked up and, as it were,
turned over and clapped down right side up again upon the comet’s
surface. Even ships pass uninjured through this remarkable somersault.
These events all belong frankly to the realm of fairyland.

If the situation were reproduced in actuality, if ever a comet should
come into collision with the earth, we can conceive two scientifically
possible results. If the comet were of such attenuation, such almost
infinitesimal mass as some of these celestial wanderers seem to be, we
can imagine our earth self-protective and possibly unharmed. If, on the
other hand, the comet had even a hundredth part of the size and solidity
and weight which Verne confers upon his monster so as to give his
travelers a home--in that case the collision would be unspeakably
disastrous--especially to the unlucky individuals who occupied the exact
point of contact.

But once granted the initial and the closing extravagance, the departure
and return of his characters, the alpha and omega of his tale, how
closely the author clings to facts between! How closely he follows, and
imparts to his readers, the scientific probabilities of the universe
beyond our earth, the actual knowledge so hard won by our astronomers!
Other authors who, since Verne, have told of trips through the planetary
and stellar universe have given free rein to fancy, to dreams of what
might be found. Verne has endeavored to impart only what is known to
exist.

In the same year with “Off on a Comet,” 1877, was published also
the tale variously named and translated as “The Black Indies,” “The
Underground City,” and “The Child of the Cavern.” This story, like
“Round the World in Eighty Days” was first issued in “feuilleton” by the
noted Paris newspaper “Le Temps.” Its success did not equal that of its
predecessor in this style. Some critics indeed have pointed to this work
as marking the beginning of a decline in the author’s power of awaking
interest. Many of his best works were, however, still to follow. And, as
regards imagination and the elements of mystery and awe, surely in the
“Underground City” with its cavern world, its secret, undiscoverable,
unrelenting foe, the “Harfang,” bird of evil omen, and the “fire
maidens” of the ruined castle, surely with all these “imagination” is
anything but lacking.

From the realistic side, the work is painstaking and exact as all the
author’s works. The sketches of mines and miners, their courage and
their dangers, their lives and their hopes, are carefully studied. So
also is the emotional aspect of the deeps under ground, the blackness,
the endless wandering passages, the silence, and the awe._





OFF ON A COMET OR HECTOR SERVADAC




BOOK I.



CHAPTER I. A CHALLENGE


“Nothing, sir, can induce me to surrender my claim.”

“I am sorry, count, but in such a matter your views cannot modify mine.”

“But allow me to point out that my seniority unquestionably gives me a
prior right.”

“Mere seniority, I assert, in an affair of this kind, cannot possibly
entitle you to any prior claim whatever.”

“Then, captain, no alternative is left but for me to compel you to yield
at the sword’s point.”

“As you please, count; but neither sword nor pistol can force me to
forego my pretensions. Here is my card.”

“And mine.”

This rapid altercation was thus brought to an end by the formal
interchange of the names of the disputants. On one of the cards was
inscribed:

          _Captain Hector Servadac,
                    Staff Officer, Mostaganem._

On the other was the title:

               _Count Wassili Timascheff,
                    On board the Schooner “Dobryna.”_

It did not take long to arrange that seconds should be appointed, who
would meet in Mostaganem at two o’clock that day; and the captain and
the count were on the point of parting from each other, with a salute of
punctilious courtesy, when Timascheff, as if struck by a sudden thought,
said abruptly: “Perhaps it would be better, captain, not to allow the
real cause of this to transpire?”

“Far better,” replied Servadac; “it is undesirable in every way for any
names to be mentioned.”

“In that case, however,” continued the count, “it will be necessary to
assign an ostensible pretext of some kind. Shall we allege a musical
dispute? a contention in which I feel bound to defend Wagner, while you
are the zealous champion of Rossini?”

“I am quite content,” answered Servadac, with a smile; and with another
low bow they parted.

The scene, as here depicted, took place upon the extremity of a little
cape on the Algerian coast, between Mostaganem and Tenes, about two
miles from the mouth of the Shelif. The headland rose more than sixty
feet above the sea-level, and the azure waters of the Mediterranean, as
they softly kissed the strand, were tinged with the reddish hue of the
ferriferous rocks that formed its base. It was the 31st of December. The
noontide sun, which usually illuminated the various projections of the
coast with a dazzling brightness, was hidden by a dense mass of cloud,
and the fog, which for some unaccountable cause, had hung for the
last two months over nearly every region in the world, causing serious
interruption to traffic between continent and continent, spread its
dreary veil across land and sea.

After taking leave of the staff-officer, Count Wassili Timascheff wended
his way down to a small creek, and took his seat in the stern of a light
four-oar that had been awaiting his return; this was immediately pushed
off from shore, and was soon alongside a pleasure-yacht, that was lying
to, not many cable lengths away.

At a sign from Servadac, an orderly, who had been standing at a
respectful distance, led forward a magnificent Arabian horse; the
captain vaulted into the saddle, and followed by his attendant, well
mounted as himself, started off towards Mostaganem. It was half-past
twelve when the two riders crossed the bridge that had been recently
erected over the Shelif, and a quarter of an hour later their steeds,
flecked with foam, dashed through the Mascara Gate, which was one of
five entrances opened in the embattled wall that encircled the town.

At that date, Mostaganem contained about fifteen thousand inhabitants,
three thousand of whom were French. Besides being one of the principal
district towns of the province of Oran, it was also a military station.
Mostaganem rejoiced in a well-sheltered harbor, which enabled her to
utilize all the rich products of the Mina and the Lower Shelif. It was
the existence of so good a harbor amidst the exposed cliffs of this
coast that had induced the owner of the _Dobryna_ to winter in these
parts, and for two months the Russian standard had been seen floating
from her yard, whilst on her mast-head was hoisted the pennant of
the French Yacht Club, with the distinctive letters M. C. W. T., the
initials of Count Timascheff.

Having entered the town, Captain Servadac made his way towards Matmore,
the military quarter, and was not long in finding two friends on whom
he might rely--a major of the 2nd Fusileers, and a captain of the
8th Artillery. The two officers listened gravely enough to Servadac’s
request that they would act as his seconds in an affair of honor, but
could not resist a smile on hearing that the dispute between him and the
count had originated in a musical discussion. Surely, they suggested,
the matter might be easily arranged; a few slight concessions on either
side, and all might be amicably adjusted. But no representations on
their part were of any avail. Hector Servadac was inflexible.

“No concession is possible,” he replied, resolutely. “Rossini has been
deeply injured, and I cannot suffer the injury to be unavenged. Wagner
is a fool. I shall keep my word. I am quite firm.”

“Be it so, then,” replied one of the officers; “and after all, you know,
a sword-cut need not be a very serious affair.”

“Certainly not,” rejoined Servadac; “and especially in my case, when I
have not the slightest intention of being wounded at all.”

Incredulous as they naturally were as to the assigned cause of the
quarrel, Servadac’s friends had no alternative but to accept his
explanation, and without farther parley they started for the staff
office, where, at two o’clock precisely, they were to meet the seconds
of Count Timascheff. Two hours later they had returned. All the
preliminaries had been arranged; the count, who like many Russians
abroad was an aide-de-camp of the Czar, had of course proposed swords
as the most appropriate weapons, and the duel was to take place on the
following morning, the first of January, at nine o’clock, upon the cliff
at a spot about a mile and a half from the mouth of the Shelif. With
the assurance that they would not fail to keep their appointment with
military punctuality, the two officers cordially wrung their friend’s
hand and retired to the Zulma Cafe for a game at piquet. Captain
Servadac at once retraced his steps and left the town.

For the last fortnight Servadac had not been occupying his proper
lodgings in the military quarters; having been appointed to make a local
levy, he had been living in a gourbi, or native hut, on the Mostaganem
coast, between four and five miles from the Shelif. His orderly was his
sole companion, and by any other man than the captain the enforced exile
would have been esteemed little short of a severe penance.

On his way to the gourbi, his mental occupation was a very laborious
effort to put together what he was pleased to call a rondo, upon a model
of versification all but obsolete. This rondo, it is unnecessary to
conceal, was to be an ode addressed to a young widow by whom he had been
captivated, and whom he was anxious to marry, and the tenor of his muse
was intended to prove that when once a man has found an object in
all respects worthy of his affections, he should love her “in all
simplicity.” Whether the aphorism were universally true was not very
material to the gallant captain, whose sole ambition at present was to
construct a roundelay of which this should be the prevailing sentiment.
He indulged the fancy that he might succeed in producing a composition
which would have a fine effect here in Algeria, where poetry in that
form was all but unknown.

“I know well enough,” he said repeatedly to himself, “what I want to
say. I want to tell her that I love her sincerely, and wish to marry
her; but, confound it! the words won’t rhyme. Plague on it! Does nothing
rhyme with ‘simplicity’? Ah! I have it now:

          ‘Lovers should, whoe’er they be,
           Love in all simplicity.’

But what next? how am I to go on? I say, Ben Zoof,” he called aloud to
his orderly, who was trotting silently close in his rear, “did you ever
compose any poetry?”

“No, captain,” answered the man promptly: “I have never made any verses,
but I have seen them made fast enough at a booth during the fete of
Montmartre.”

“Can you remember them?”

“Remember them! to be sure I can. This is the way they began:

     ‘Come in! come in! you’ll not repent
     The entrance money you have spent;
     The wondrous mirror in this place
     Reveals your future sweetheart’s face.’”

“Bosh!” cried Servadac in disgust; “your verses are detestable trash.”

“As good as any others, captain, squeaked through a reed pipe.”

“Hold your tongue, man,” said Servadac peremptorily; “I have made
another couplet.

          ‘Lovers should, whoe’er they be,
           Love in all simplicity;
           Lover, loving honestly,
           Offer I myself to thee.’”

Beyond this, however, the captain’s poetical genius was impotent to
carry him; his farther efforts were unavailing, and when at six o’clock
he reached the gourbi, the four lines still remained the limit of his
composition.



CHAPTER II. CAPTAIN SERVADAC AND HIS ORDERLY


At the time of which I write, there might be seen in the registers of
the Minister of War the following entry:

SERVADAC (_Hector_), born at St. Trelody in the district of Lesparre,
department of the Gironde, July 19th, 18--.

_Property:_ 1200 francs in rentes.

_Length of service:_ Fourteen years, three months, and five days.

_Service:_ Two years at school at St. Cyr; two years at L’Ecole
d’Application; two years in the 8th Regiment of the Line; two years in
the 3rd Light Cavalry; seven years in Algeria.

_Campaigns:_ Soudan and Japan.

_Rank:_ Captain on the staff at Mostaganem.

_Decorations:_ Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, March 13th, 18--.

Hector Servadac was thirty years of age, an orphan without lineage and
almost without means. Thirsting for glory rather than for gold, slightly
scatter-brained, but warm-hearted, generous, and brave, he was eminently
formed to be the protege of the god of battles.

For the first year and a half of his existence he had been the
foster-child of the sturdy wife of a vine-dresser of Medoc--a lineal
descendant of the heroes of ancient prowess; in a word, he was one of
those individuals whom nature seems to have predestined for remarkable
things, and around whose cradle have hovered the fairy godmothers of
adventure and good luck.

In appearance Hector Servadac was quite the type of an officer; he was
rather more than five feet six inches high, slim and graceful, with dark
curling hair and mustaches, well-formed hands and feet, and a clear blue
eye. He seemed born to please without being conscious of the power he
possessed. It must be owned, and no one was more ready to confess it
than himself, that his literary attainments were by no means of a high
order. “We don’t spin tops” is a favorite saying amongst artillery
officers, indicating that they do not shirk their duty by frivolous
pursuits; but it must be confessed that Servadac, being naturally idle,
was very much given to “spinning tops.” His good abilities, however,
and his ready intelligence had carried him successfully through the
curriculum of his early career. He was a good draughtsman, an excellent
rider--having thoroughly mastered the successor to the famous “Uncle
Tom” at the riding-school of St. Cyr--and in the records of his military
service his name had several times been included in the order of the
day.

The following episode may suffice, in a certain degree, to illustrate
his character. Once, in action, he was leading a detachment of infantry
through an intrenchment. They came to a place where the side-work of the
trench had been so riddled by shell that a portion of it had actually
fallen in, leaving an aperture quite unsheltered from the grape-shot
that was pouring in thick and fast. The men hesitated. In an instant
Servadac mounted the side-work, laid himself down in the gap, and thus
filling up the breach by his own body, shouted, “March on!”

And through a storm of shot, not one of which touched the prostrate
officer, the troop passed in safety.

Since leaving the military college, Servadac, with the exception of
his two campaigns in the Soudan and Japan, had been always stationed in
Algeria. He had now a staff appointment at Mostaganem, and had lately
been entrusted with some topographical work on the coast between Tenes
and the Shelif. It was a matter of little consequence to him that the
gourbi, in which of necessity he was quartered, was uncomfortable and
ill-contrived; he loved the open air, and the independence of his life
suited him well. Sometimes he would wander on foot upon the sandy shore,
and sometimes he would enjoy a ride along the summit of the cliff;
altogether being in no hurry at all to bring his task to an end. His
occupation, moreover, was not so engrossing but that he could find
leisure for taking a short railway journey once or twice a week; so
that he was ever and again putting in an appearance at the general’s
receptions at Oran, and at the fetes given by the governor at Algiers.

It was on one of these occasions that he had first met Madame de L----,
the lady to whom he was desirous of dedicating the rondo, the first four
lines of which had just seen the light. She was a colonel’s widow,
young and handsome, very reserved, not to say haughty in her manner, and
either indifferent or impervious to the admiration which she inspired.
Captain Servadac had not yet ventured to declare his attachment; of
rivals he was well aware he had not a few, and amongst these not the
least formidable was the Russian Count Timascheff. And although the
young widow was all unconscious of the share she had in the matter, it
was she, and she alone, who was the cause of the challenge just given
and accepted by her two ardent admirers.

During his residence in the gourbi, Hector Servadac’s sole companion
was his orderly, Ben Zoof. Ben Zoof was devoted, body and soul, to his
superior officer. His own personal ambition was so entirely absorbed in
his master’s welfare, that it is certain no offer of promotion--even had
it been that of aide-de-camp to the Governor-General of Algiers--would
have induced him to quit that master’s service. His name might seem
to imply that he was a native of Algeria; but such was by no means the
case. His true name was Laurent; he was a native of Montmartre in Paris,
and how or why he had obtained his patronymic was one of those anomalies
which the most sagacious of etymologists would find it hard to explain.

Born on the hill of Montmartre, between the Solferino tower and the
mill of La Galette, Ben Zoof had ever possessed the most unreserved
admiration for his birthplace; and to his eyes the heights and district
of Montmartre represented an epitome of all the wonders of the world.
In all his travels, and these had been not a few, he had never
beheld scenery which could compete with that of his native home.
No cathedral--not even Burgos itself--could vie with the church at
Montmartre. Its race-course could well hold its own against that at
Pentelique; its reservoir would throw the Mediterranean into the shade;
its forests had flourished long before the invasion of the Celts; and
its very mill produced no ordinary flour, but provided material
for cakes of world-wide renown. To crown all, Montmartre boasted a
mountain--a veritable mountain; envious tongues indeed might pronounce
it little more than a hill; but Ben Zoof would have allowed himself
to be hewn in pieces rather than admit that it was anything less than
fifteen thousand feet in height.

Ben Zoof’s most ambitious desire was to induce the captain to go with
him and end his days in his much-loved home, and so incessantly were
Servadac’s ears besieged with descriptions of the unparalleled beauties
and advantages of this eighteenth arrondissement of Paris, that he
could scarcely hear the name of Montmartre without a conscious thrill
of aversion. Ben Zoof, however, did not despair of ultimately converting
the captain, and meanwhile had resolved never to leave him. When a
private in the 8th Cavalry, he had been on the point of quitting
the army at twenty-eight years of age, but unexpectedly he had been
appointed orderly to Captain Servadac. Side by side they fought in two
campaigns. Servadac had saved Ben Zoof’s life in Japan; Ben Zoof had
rendered his master a like service in the Soudan. The bond of union thus
effected could never be severed; and although Ben Zoof’s achievements
had fairly earned him the right of retirement, he firmly declined all
honors or any pension that might part him from his superior officer. Two
stout arms, an iron constitution, a powerful frame, and an indomitable
courage were all loyally devoted to his master’s service, and fairly
entitled him to his _soi-disant_ designation of “The Rampart of
Montmartre.” Unlike his master, he made no pretension to any gift
of poetic power, but his inexhaustible memory made him a living
encyclopaedia; and for his stock of anecdotes and trooper’s tales he was
matchless.

Thoroughly appreciating his servant’s good qualities, Captain Servadac
endured with imperturbable good humor those idiosyncrasies, which in
a less faithful follower would have been intolerable, and from time
to time he would drop a word of sympathy that served to deepen his
subordinate’s devotion.

On one occasion, when Ben Zoof had mounted his hobby-horse, and
was indulging in high-flown praises about his beloved eighteenth
arrondissement, the captain had remarked gravely, “Do you know, Ben
Zoof, that Montmartre only requires a matter of some thirteen thousand
feet to make it as high as Mont Blanc?”

Ben Zoof’s eyes glistened with delight; and from that moment Hector
Servadac and Montmartre held equal places in his affection.



CHAPTER III. INTERRUPTED EFFUSIONS


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. It 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. 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 31st of December, the 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, he had other thoughts to occupy his mind. The
prospects 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
bed-room, 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 endeavored 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 colored 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 in that of 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-colored
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 meter? It
is as hard to find rhymes as to rally fugitive 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 fought--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


Whence came it that at that very moment the horizon underwent so strange
and sudden a modification, that the eye of the most practiced 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
splendor 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
effect 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


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 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 aspect of the entire scene appeared 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 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, he pushed aside the broken thatch, so that his head appeared
above the _debris_. “The gourbi leveled to the ground!” he exclaimed,
“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.

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

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

“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.

“It must be eight o’clock, at least,” said Ben Zoof, 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 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.

Captain Servadac 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 honor of running him through the body,”
 added Ben Zoof.

If Servadac and his orderly had been less preoccupied, they would have
noticed that a variety of other physical changes besides the apparent
alteration in the movement of the sun had been evolved during the
atmospheric disturbances of that New Year’s night. As they descended
the steep footpath leading from the cliff towards the Shelif, they were
unconscious that their respiration became forced and rapid, like that of
a mountaineer when he has reached an altitude where the air has become
less charged with oxygen. They were also unconscious that their voices
were thin and feeble; either they must themselves have become rather
deaf, or it was evident that the air had become less capable of
transmitting sound.

The weather, which on the previous evening had been very foggy, had
entirely changed. The sky had assumed a singular tint, and was soon
covered with lowering clouds that completely hid the sun. There were,
indeed, all the signs of a coming storm, but the vapor, on account of
the insufficient condensation, failed to fall.

The sea appeared quite deserted, a most unusual circumstance along this
coast, and not a sail nor a trail of smoke broke the gray monotony
of water and sky. The limits of the horizon, too, had become much
circumscribed. On land, as well as on sea, the remote distance had
completely disappeared, and it seemed as though the globe had assumed a
more decided convexity.

At the pace at which they were walking, it was very evident that the
captain and his attendant would not take long to accomplish the three
miles that lay between the gourbi and the place of rendezvous. They
did not exchange a word, but each was conscious of an unusual buoyancy,
which appeared to lift up their bodies and give as it were, wings to
their feet. If Ben Zoof had expressed his sensations in words, he would
have said that he felt “up to anything,” and he had even forgotten to
taste so much as a crust of bread, a lapse of memory of which the worthy
soldier was rarely guilty.

As these thoughts were crossing his mind, a harsh bark was heard to the
left of the footpath, and a jackal was seen emerging from a large grove
of lentisks. Regarding the two wayfarers with manifest uneasiness, the
beast took up its position at the foot of a rock, more than thirty feet
in height. It belonged to an African species distinguished by a
black spotted skin, and a black line down the front of the legs. At
night-time, when they scour the country in herds, the creatures are
somewhat formidable, but singly they are no more dangerous than a dog.
Though by no means afraid of them, Ben Zoof had a particular aversion
to jackals, perhaps because they had no place among the fauna of his
beloved Montmartre. He accordingly began to make threatening gestures,
when, to the unmitigated astonishment of himself and the captain, the
animal darted forward, and in one single bound gained the summit of the
rock.

“Good Heavens!” cried Ben Zoof, “that leap must have been thirty feet at
least.”

“True enough,” replied the captain; “I never saw such a jump.”

Meantime the jackal had seated itself upon its haunches, and was staring
at the two men with an air of impudent defiance. This was too much for
Ben Zoof’s forbearance, and stooping down he caught up a huge stone,
when to his surprise, he found that it was no heavier than a piece of
petrified sponge. “Confound the brute!” he exclaimed, “I might as well
throw a piece of bread at him. What accounts for its being as light as
this?”

Nothing daunted, however, he hurled the stone into the air. It missed
its aim; but the jackal, deeming it on the whole prudent to decamp,
disappeared across the trees and hedges with a series of bounds, which
could only be likened to those that might be made by an india-rubber
kangaroo. Ben Zoof was sure that his own powers of propelling must equal
those of a howitzer, for his stone, after a lengthened flight through
the air, fell to the ground full five hundred paces the other side of
the rock.

The orderly was now some yards ahead of his master, and had reached
a ditch full of water, and about ten feet wide. With the intention of
clearing it, he made a spring, when a loud cry burst from Servadac. “Ben
Zoof, you idiot! What are you about? You will break your back!”

And well might he be alarmed, for Ben Zoof had sprung to a height of
forty feet into the air. Fearful of the consequences that would attend
the descent of his servant to _terra firma_, Servadac bounded forwards,
to be on the other side of the ditch in time to break his fall. But the
muscular effort that he made carried him in his turn to an altitude of
thirty feet; in his ascent he passed Ben Zoof, who had already commenced
his downward course; and then, obedient to the laws of gravitation, he
descended with increasing rapidity, and alighted upon the earth without
experiencing a shock greater than if he had merely made a bound of four
or five feet high.

Ben Zoof burst into a roar of laughter. “Bravo!” he said, “we should
make a good pair of clowns.”

But the captain was inclined to take a more serious view of the matter.
For a few seconds he stood lost in thought, then said solemnly, “Ben
Zoof, I must be dreaming. Pinch me hard; I must be either asleep or
mad.”

“It is very certain that something has happened to us,” said Ben Zoof.
“I have occasionally dreamed that I was a swallow flying over the
Montmartre, but I never experienced anything of this kind before; it
must be peculiar to the coast of Algeria.”

Servadac was stupefied; he felt instinctively that he was not dreaming,
and yet was powerless to solve the mystery. He was not, however, the man
to puzzle himself for long over any insoluble problem. “Come what may,”
 he presently exclaimed, “we will make up our minds for the future to be
surprised at nothing.”

“Right, captain,” replied Ben Zoof; “and, first of all, let us settle
our little score with Count Timascheff.”

Beyond the ditch lay a small piece of meadow land, about an acre in
extent. A soft and delicious herbage carpeted the soil, whilst trees
formed a charming framework to the whole. No spot could have been chosen
more suitable for the meeting between the two adversaries.

Servadac cast a hasty glance round. No one was in sight. “We are the
first on the field,” he said.

“Not so sure of that, sir,” said Ben Zoof.

“What do you mean?” asked Servadac, looking at his watch, which he had
set as nearly as possible by the sun before leaving the gourbi; “it is
not nine o’clock yet.”

“Look up there, sir. I am much mistaken if that is not the sun;” and as
Ben Zoof spoke, he pointed directly overhead to where a faint white disc
was dimly visible through the haze of clouds.

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Servadac. “How can the sun be in the zenith, in
the month of January, in lat. 39 degrees N.?”

“Can’t say, sir. I only know the sun is there; and at the rate he has
been traveling, I would lay my cap to a dish of couscous that in less
than three hours he will have set.”

Hector Servadac, mute and motionless, stood with folded arms. Presently
he roused himself, and began to look about again. “What means all this?”
 he murmured. “Laws of gravity disturbed! Points of the compass reversed!
The length of day reduced one half! Surely this will indefinitely
postpone my meeting with the count. Something has happened; Ben Zoof and
I cannot both be mad!”

The orderly, meantime, surveyed his master with the greatest equanimity;
no phenomenon, however extraordinary, would have drawn from him a
single exclamation of surprise. “Do you see anyone, Ben Zoof?” asked the
captain, at last.

“No one, sir; the count has evidently been and gone.” “But supposing
that to be the case,” persisted the captain, “my seconds would have
waited, and not seeing me, would have come on towards the gourbi. I can
only conclude that they have been unable to get here; and as for Count
Timascheff--”

Without finishing his sentence. Captain Servadac, thinking it just
probable that the count, as on the previous evening, might come by
water, walked to the ridge of rock that overhung the shore, in order
to ascertain if the _Dobryna_ were anywhere in sight. But the sea was
deserted, and for the first time the captain noticed that, although
the wind was calm, the waters were unusually agitated, and seethed and
foamed as though they were boiling. It was very certain that the yacht
would have found a difficulty in holding her own in such a swell.
Another thing that now struck Servadac was the extraordinary contraction
of the horizon. Under ordinary circumstances, his elevated position
would have allowed him a radius of vision at least five and twenty miles
in length; but the terrestrial sphere seemed, in the course of the last
few hours, to have become considerably reduced in volume, and he could
now see for a distance of only six miles in every direction.

Meantime, with the agility of a monkey, Ben Zoof had clambered to the
top of a eucalyptus, and from his lofty perch was surveying the
country to the south, as well as towards both Tenes and Mostaganem. On
descending, be informed the captain that the plain was deserted.

“We will make our way to the river, and get over into Mostaganem,” said
the captain.

The Shelif was not more than a mile and a half from the meadow, but
no time was to be lost if the two men were to reach the town before
nightfall. Though still hidden by heavy clouds, the sun was evidently
declining fast; and what was equally inexplicable, it was not following
the oblique curve that in these latitudes and at this time of year might
be expected, but was sinking perpendicularly on to the horizon.

As he went along, Captain Servadac pondered deeply. Perchance some
unheard-of phenomenon had modified the rotary motion of the globe; or
perhaps the Algerian coast had been transported beyond the equator
into the southern hemisphere. Yet the earth, with the exception of the
alteration in its convexity, in this part of Africa at least, seemed to
have undergone no change of any very great importance. As far as the eye
could reach, the shore was, as it had ever been, a succession of
cliffs, beach, and arid rocks, tinged with a red ferruginous hue. To
the south--if south, in this inverted order of things, it might still
be called--the face of the country also appeared unaltered, and some
leagues away, the peaks of the Merdeyah mountains still retained their
accustomed outline.

Presently a rift in the clouds gave passage to an oblique ray of light
that clearly proved that the sun was setting in the east.

“Well, I am curious to know what they think of all this at Mostaganem,”
 said the captain. “I wonder, too, what the Minister of War will say when
he receives a telegram informing him that his African colony has become,
not morally, but physically disorganized; that the cardinal points
are at variance with ordinary rules, and that the sun in the month of
January is shining down vertically upon our heads.”

Ben Zoof, whose ideas of discipline were extremely rigid, at once
suggested that the colony should be put under the surveillance of the
police, that the cardinal points should be placed under restraint, and
that the sun should be shot for breach of discipline.

Meantime, they were both advancing with the utmost speed. The
decompression of the atmosphere made the specific gravity of their
bodies extraordinarily light, and they ran like hares and leaped like
chamois. Leaving the devious windings of the footpath, they went as
a crow would fly across the country. Hedges, trees, and streams were
cleared at a bound, and under these conditions Ben Zoof felt that he
could have overstepped Montmartre at a single stride. The earth seemed
as elastic as the springboard of an acrobat; they scarcely touched it
with their feet, and their only fear was lest the height to which they
were propelled would consume the time which they were saving by their
short cut across the fields.

It was not long before their wild career brought them to the right bank
of the Shelif. Here they were compelled to stop, for not only had the
bridge completely disappeared, but the river itself no longer existed.
Of the left bank there was not the slightest trace, and the right bank,
which on the previous evening had bounded the yellow stream, as it
murmured peacefully along the fertile plain, had now become the shore of
a tumultuous ocean, its azure waters extending westwards far as the eye
could reach, and annihilating the tract of country which had hitherto
formed the district of Mostaganem. The shore coincided exactly with what
had been the right bank of the Shelif, and in a slightly curved line
ran north and south, whilst the adjacent groves and meadows all retained
their previous positions. But the river-bank had become the shore of an
unknown sea.

Eager to throw some light upon the mystery, Servadac hurriedly made his
way through the oleander bushes that overhung the shore, took up some
water in the hollow of his hand, and carried it to his lips. “Salt
as brine!” he exclaimed, as soon as he had tasted it. “The sea has
undoubtedly swallowed up all the western part of Algeria.”

“It will not last long, sir,” said Ben Zoof. “It is, probably, only a
severe flood.”

The captain shook his head. “Worse than that, I fear, Ben Zoof,” he
replied with emotion. “It is a catastrophe that may have very
serious consequences. What can have become of all my friends and
fellow-officers?”

Ben Zoof was silent. Rarely had he seen his master so much agitated;
and though himself inclined to receive these phenomena with philosophic
indifference, his notions of military duty caused his countenance to
reflect the captain’s expression of amazement.

But there was little time for Servadac to examine the changes which a
few hours had wrought. The sun had already reached the eastern horizon,
and just as though it were crossing the ecliptic under the tropics,
it sank like a cannon ball into the sea. Without any warning, day gave
place to night, and earth, sea, and sky were immediately wrapped in
profound obscurity.



CHAPTER VI. THE CAPTAIN MAKES AN EXPLORATION


Hector Servadac was not the man to remain long unnerved by any untoward
event. It was part of his character to discover the why and the
wherefore of everything that came under his observation, and he would
have faced a cannon ball the more unflinchingly from understanding the
dynamic force by which it was propelled. Such being his temperament, it
may well be imagined that he was anxious not to remain long in ignorance
of the cause of the phenomena which had been so startling in their
consequences.

“We must inquire into this to-morrow,” he exclaimed, as darkness fell
suddenly upon him. Then, after a pause, he added: “That is to say, if
there is to be a to-morrow; for if I were to be put to the torture, I
could not tell what has become of the sun.”

“May I ask, sir, what we are to do now?” put in Ben Zoof.

“Stay where we are for the present; and when daylight appears--if it
ever does appear--we will explore the coast to the west and south, and
return to the gourbi. If we can find out nothing else, we must at least
discover where we are.”

“Meanwhile, sir, may we go to sleep?”

“Certainly, if you like, and if you can.”

Nothing loath to avail himself of his master’s permission, Ben Zoof
crouched down in an angle of the shore, threw his arms over his eyes,
and very soon slept the sleep of the ignorant, which is often sounder
than the sleep of the just. Overwhelmed by the questions that crowded
upon his brain, Captain Servadac could only wander up and down the
shore. Again and again he asked himself what the catastrophe could
portend. Had the towns of Algiers, Oran, and Mostaganem escaped the
inundation? Could he bring himself to believe that all the inhabitants,
his friends, and comrades had perished; or was it not more probable
that the Mediterranean had merely invaded the region of the mouth of
the Shelif? But this supposition did not in the least explain the other
physical disturbances. Another hypothesis that presented itself to his
mind was that the African coast might have been suddenly transported to
the equatorial zone. But although this might get over the difficulty
of the altered altitude of the sun and the absence of twilight, yet
it would neither account for the sun setting in the east, nor for the
length of the day being reduced to six hours.

“We must wait till to-morrow,” he repeated; adding, for he had become
distrustful of the future, “that is to say, if to-morrow ever comes.”

Although not very learned in astronomy, Servadac was acquainted with
the position of the principal constellations. It was therefore a
considerable disappointment to him that, in consequence of the heavy
clouds, not a star was visible in the firmament. To have ascertained
that the pole-star had become displaced would have been an undeniable
proof that the earth was revolving on a new axis; but not a rift
appeared in the lowering clouds, which seemed to threaten torrents of
rain.

It happened that the moon was new on that very day; naturally,
therefore, it would have set at the same time as the sun. What, then,
was the captain’s bewilderment when, after he had been walking for about
an hour and a half, he noticed on the western horizon a strong glare
that penetrated even the masses of the clouds.

“The moon in the west!” he cried aloud; but suddenly bethinking himself,
he added: “But no, that cannot be the moon; unless she had shifted very
much nearer the earth, she could never give a light as intense as this.”

As he spoke the screen of vapor was illuminated to such a degree that
the whole country was as it were bathed in twilight. “What can this be?”
 soliloquized the captain. “It cannot be the sun, for the sun set in the
east only an hour and a half ago. Would that those clouds would disclose
what enormous luminary lies behind them! What a fool I was not to have
learnt more astronomy! Perhaps, after all, I am racking my brain over
something that is quite in the ordinary course of nature.”

But, reason as he might, the mysteries of the heavens still remained
impenetrable. For about an hour some luminous body, its disc evidently
of gigantic dimensions, shed its rays upon the upper strata of the
clouds; then, marvelous to relate, instead of obeying the ordinary laws
of celestial mechanism, and descending upon the opposite horizon, it
seemed to retreat farther off, grew dimmer, and vanished.

The darkness that returned to the face of the earth was not more
profound than the gloom which fell upon the captain’s soul. Everything
was incomprehensible. The simplest mechanical rules seemed falsified;
the planets had defied the laws of gravitation; the motions of the
celestial spheres were erroneous as those of a watch with a defective
mainspring, and there was reason to fear that the sun would never again
shed his radiance upon the earth.

But these last fears were groundless. In three hours’ time, without any
intervening twilight, the morning sun made its appearance in the west,
and day once more had dawned. On consulting his watch, Servadac
found that night had lasted precisely six hours. Ben Zoof, who was
unaccustomed to so brief a period of repose, was still slumbering
soundly.

“Come, wake up!” said Servadac, shaking him by the shoulder; “it is time
to start.”

“Time to start?” exclaimed Ben Zoof, rubbing his eyes. “I feel as if I
had only just gone to sleep.”

“You have slept all night, at any rate,” replied the captain; “it has
only been for six hours, but you must make it enough.”

“Enough it shall be, sir,” was the submissive rejoinder.

“And now,” continued Servadac, “we will take the shortest way back to
the gourbi, and see what our horses think about it all.”

“They will think that they ought to be groomed,” said the orderly.

“Very good; you may groom them and saddle them as quickly as you like.
I want to know what has become of the rest of Algeria: if we cannot get
round by the south to Mostaganem, we must go eastwards to Tenes.” And
forthwith they started. Beginning to feel hungry, they had no hesitation
in gathering figs, dates, and oranges from the plantations that formed a
continuous rich and luxuriant orchard along their path. The district was
quite deserted, and they had no reason to fear any legal penalty.

In an hour and a half they reached the gourbi. Everything was just as
they had left it, and it was evident that no one had visited the place
during their absence. All was desolate as the shore they had quitted.

The preparations for the expedition were brief and simple. Ben Zoof
saddled the horses and filled his pouch with biscuits and game; water,
he felt certain, could be obtained in abundance from the numerous
affluents of the Shelif, which, although they had now become tributaries
of the Mediterranean, still meandered through the plain. Captain
Servadac mounted his horse Zephyr, and Ben Zoof simultaneously got
astride his mare Galette, named after the mill of Montmartre. They
galloped off in the direction of the Shelif, and were not long in
discovering that the diminution in the pressure of the atmosphere
had precisely the same effect upon their horses as it had had upon
themselves. Their muscular strength seemed five times as great as
hitherto; their hoofs scarcely touched the ground, and they seemed
transformed from ordinary quadrupeds into veritable hippogriffs.
Happily, Servadac and his orderly were fearless riders; they made no
attempt to curb their steeds, but even urged them to still greater
exertions. Twenty minutes sufficed to carry them over the four or five
miles that intervened between the gourbi and the mouth of the Shelif;
then, slackening their speed, they proceeded at a more leisurely pace to
the southeast, along what had once been the right bank of the river, but
which, although it still retained its former characteristics, was now
the boundary of a sea, which extending farther than the limits of the
horizon, must have swallowed up at least a large portion of the province
of Oran. Captain Servadac knew the country well; he had at one time been
engaged upon a trigonometrical survey of the district, and consequently
had an accurate knowledge of its topography. His idea now was to draw up
a report of his investigations: to whom that report should be delivered
was a problem he had yet to solve.

During the four hours of daylight that still remained, the travelers
rode about twenty-one miles from the river mouth. To their vast
surprise, they did not meet a single human being. At nightfall they
again encamped in a slight bend of the shore, at a point which on the
previous evening had faced the mouth of the Mina, one of the left-hand
affluents of the Shelif, but now absorbed into the newly revealed
ocean. Ben Zoof made the sleeping accommodation as comfortable as the
circumstances would allow; the horses were clogged and turned out to
feed upon the rich pasture that clothed the shore, and the night passed
without special incident.

At sunrise on the following morning, the 2nd of January, or what,
according to the ordinary calendar, would have been the night of the
1st, the captain and his orderly remounted their horses, and during the
six-hours’ day accomplished a distance of forty-two miles. The right
bank of the river still continued to be the margin of the land, and only
in one spot had its integrity been impaired. This was about twelve miles
from the Mina, and on the site of the annex or suburb of Surkelmittoo.
Here a large portion of the bank had been swept away, and the hamlet,
with its eight hundred inhabitants, had no doubt been swallowed up by
the encroaching waters. It seemed, therefore, more than probable that a
similar fate had overtaken the larger towns beyond the Shelif.

In the evening the explorers encamped, as previously, in a nook of the
shore which here abruptly terminated their new domain, not far from
where they might have expected to find the important village of
Memounturroy; but of this, too, there was now no trace. “I had quite
reckoned upon a supper and a bed at Orleansville to-night,” said
Servadac, as, full of despondency, he surveyed the waste of water.

“Quite impossible,” replied Ben Zoof, “except you had gone by a boat.
But cheer up, sir, cheer up; we will soon devise some means for getting
across to Mostaganem.”

“If, as I hope,” rejoined the captain, “we are on a peninsula, we are
more likely to get to Tenes; there we shall hear the news.”

“Far more likely to carry the news ourselves,” answered Ben Zoof, as he
threw himself down for his night’s rest.

Six hours later, only waiting for sunrise, Captain Servadac set himself
in movement again to renew his investigations. At this spot the shore,
that hitherto had been running in a southeasterly direction, turned
abruptly to the north, being no longer formed by the natural bank of the
Shelif, but consisting of an absolutely new coast-line. No land was in
sight. Nothing could be seen of Orleansville, which ought to have been
about six miles to the southwest; and Ben Zoof, who had mounted the
highest point of view attainable, could distinguish sea, and nothing but
sea, to the farthest horizon.

Quitting their encampment and riding on, the bewildered explorers kept
close to the new shore. This, since it had ceased to be formed by the
original river bank, had considerably altered its aspect. Frequent
landslips occurred, and in many places deep chasms rifted the ground;
great gaps furrowed the fields, and trees, half uprooted, overhung the
water, remarkable by the fantastic distortions of their gnarled trunks,
looking as though they had been chopped by a hatchet.

The sinuosities of the coast line, alternately gully and headland,
had the effect of making a devious progress for the travelers, and at
sunset, although they had accomplished more than twenty miles, they had
only just arrived at the foot of the Merdeyah Mountains, which, before
the cataclysm, had formed the extremity of the chain of the Little
Atlas. The ridge, however, had been violently ruptured, and now rose
perpendicularly from the water.

On the following morning Servadac and Ben Zoof traversed one of the
mountain gorges; and next, in order to make a more thorough acquaintance
with the limits and condition of the section of Algerian territory of
which they seemed to be left as the sole occupants, they dismounted, and
proceeded on foot to the summit of one of the highest peaks. From this
elevation they ascertained that from the base of the Merdeyah to the
Mediterranean, a distance of about eighteen miles, a new coast line had
come into existence; no land was visible in any direction; no isthmus
existed to form a connecting link with the territory of Tenes, which had
entirely disappeared. The result was that Captain Servadac was driven
to the irresistible conclusion that the tract of land which he had been
surveying was not, as he had at first imagined, a peninsula; it was
actually an island.

Strictly speaking, this island was quadrilateral, but the sides were so
irregular that it was much more nearly a triangle, the comparison of the
sides exhibiting these proportions: The section of the right bank of the
Shelif, seventy-two miles; the southern boundary from the Shelif to the
chain of the Little Atlas, twenty-one miles; from the Little Atlas to
the Mediterranean, eighteen miles; and sixty miles of the shore of the
Mediterranean itself, making in all an entire circumference of about 171
miles.

“What does it all mean?” exclaimed the captain, every hour growing more
and more bewildered.

“The will of Providence, and we must submit,” replied Ben Zoof, calm and
undisturbed. With this reflection, the two men silently descended the
mountain and remounted their horses. Before evening they had reached
the Mediterranean. On their road they failed to discern a vestige of the
little town of Montenotte; like Tenes, of which not so much as a ruined
cottage was visible on the horizon, it seemed to be annihilated.

On the following day, the 6th of January, the two men made a forced
march along the coast of the Mediterranean, which they found less
altered than the captain had at first supposed; but four villages had
entirely disappeared, and the headlands, unable to resist the shock of
the convulsion, had been detached from the mainland.

The circuit of the island had been now completed, and the explorers,
after a period of sixty hours, found themselves once more beside the
ruins of their gourbi. Five days, or what, according to the established
order of things, would have been two days and a half, had been occupied
in tracing the boundaries of their new domain; and they had ascertained
beyond a doubt that they were the sole human inhabitants left upon the
island.

“Well, sir, here you are, Governor General of Algeria!” exclaimed Ben
Zoof, as they reached the gourbi.

“With not a soul to govern,” gloomily rejoined the captain.

“How so? Do you not reckon me?”

“Pshaw! Ben Zoof, what are you?”

“What am I? Why, I am the population.”

The captain deigned no reply, but, muttering some expressions of regret
for the fruitless trouble he had taken about his rondo, betook himself
to rest.



CHAPTER VII. BEN ZOOF WATCHES IN VAIN


In a few minutes the governor general and his population were asleep.
The gourbi being in ruins, they were obliged to put up with the best
accommodation they could find in the adjacent erection. It must be owned
that the captain’s slumbers were by no means sound; he was agitated by
the consciousness that he had hitherto been unable to account for his
strange experiences by any reasonable theory. Though far from being
advanced in the knowledge of natural philosophy, he had been instructed,
to a certain degree, in its elementary principles; and, by an effort
of memory, he managed to recall some general laws which he had almost
forgotten. He could understand that an altered inclination of the
earth’s axis with regard to the ecliptic would introduce a change of
position in the cardinal points, and bring about a displacement of
the sea; but the hypothesis entirely failed to account, either for the
shortening of the days, or for the diminution in the pressure of the
atmosphere. He felt that his judgment was utterly baffled; his only
remaining hope was that the chain of marvels was not yet complete, and
that something farther might throw some light upon the mystery.

Ben Zoof’s first care on the following morning was to provide a
good breakfast. To use his own phrase, he was as hungry as the
whole population of three million Algerians, of whom he was the
representative, and he must have enough to eat. The catastrophe which
had overwhelmed the country had left a dozen eggs uninjured, and upon
these, with a good dish of his famous couscous, he hoped that he and his
master might have a sufficiently substantial meal. The stove was ready
for use, the copper skillet was as bright as hands could make it, and
the beads of condensed steam upon the surface of a large stone al-caraza
gave evidence that it was supplied with water. Ben Zoof at once lighted
a fire, singing all the time, according to his wont, a snatch of an old
military refrain.

Ever on the lookout for fresh phenomena, Captain Servadac watched the
preparations with a curious eye. It struck him that perhaps the air,
in its strangely modified condition, would fail to supply sufficient
oxygen, and that the stove, in consequence, might not fulfill its
function. But no; the fire was lighted just as usual, and fanned into
vigor by Ben Zoof applying his mouth in lieu of bellows, and a bright
flame started up from the midst of the twigs and coal. The skillet was
duly set upon the stove, and Ben Zoof was prepared to wait awhile for
the water to boil. Taking up the eggs, he was surprised to notice that
they hardly weighed more than they would if they had been mere shells;
but he was still more surprised when he saw that before the water had
been two minutes over the fire it was at full boil.

“By jingo!” he exclaimed, “a precious hot fire!”

Servadac reflected. “It cannot be that the fire is hotter,” he said,
“the peculiarity must be in the water.” And taking down a centigrade
thermometer, which hung upon the wall, he plunged it into the skillet.
Instead of 100 degrees, the instrument registered only 66 degrees.

“Take my advice, Ben Zoof,” he said; “leave your eggs in the saucepan a
good quarter of an hour.”

“Boil them hard! That will never do,” objected the orderly.

“You will not find them hard, my good fellow. Trust me, we shall be able
to dip our sippets into the yolks easily enough.”

The captain was quite right in his conjecture, that this new phenomenon
was caused by a diminution in the pressure of the atmosphere. Water
boiling at a temperature of 66 degrees was itself an evidence that the
column of air above the earth’s surface had become reduced by one-third
of its altitude. The identical phenomenon would have occurred at
the summit of a mountain 35,000 feet high; and had Servadac been in
possession of a barometer, he would have immediately discovered the fact
that only now for the first time, as the result of experiment, revealed
itself to him--a fact, moreover, which accounted for the compression of
the blood-vessels which both he and Ben Zoof had experienced, as well
as for the attenuation of their voices and their accelerated breathing.
“And yet,” he argued with himself, “if our encampment has been projected
to so great an elevation, how is it that the sea remains at its proper
level?”

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 resume 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.



CHAPTER VIII. VENUS IN PERILOUS PROXIMITY


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.

The precocity of vegetation caused some embarrassment. The time for
the corn and fruit harvest had fallen simultaneously with that of the
haymaking; and as the extreme heat precluded any prolonged exertions,
it was evident “the population” of the island would find it difficult to
provide the necessary amount of labor. Not that the prospect gave
them much concern: the provisions of the gourbi were still far from
exhausted, and now that the roughness of the weather had so happily
subsided, they had every encouragement to hope that a ship of some
sort would soon appear. Not only was that part of the Mediterranean
systematically frequented by the government steamers that watched the
coast, but vessels of all nations were constantly cruising off the
shore.

In spite, however, of all their sanguine speculations, no ship appeared.
Ben Zoof admitted the necessity of extemporizing a kind of parasol for
himself, otherwise he must literally have been roasted to death upon the
exposed summit of the cliff.

Meanwhile, Servadac was doing his utmost--it must be acknowledged, with
indifferent success--to recall the lessons of his school-days. He would
plunge into the wildest speculations in his endeavors to unravel
the difficulties of the new situation, and struggled into a kind of
conviction that if there had been a change of manner in the earth’s
rotation on her axis, there would be a corresponding change in her
revolution round the sun, which would involve the consequence of the
length of the year being either diminished or increased.

Independently of the increased and increasing heat, there was another
very conclusive demonstration that the earth had thus suddenly
approximated towards the sun. The diameter of the solar disc was now
exactly twice what it ordinarily looks to the naked eye; in fact, it was
precisely such as it would appear to an observer on the surface of the
planet Venus. The most obvious inference would therefore be that the
earth’s distance from the sun had been diminished from 91,000,000 to
66,000,000 miles. If the just equilibrium of the earth had thus been
destroyed, and should this diminution of distance still continue, would
there not be reason to fear that the terrestrial world would be carried
onwards to actual contact with the sun, which must result in its total
annihilation?

The continuance of the splendid weather afforded Servadac every facility
for observing the heavens. Night after night, constellations in
their beauty lay stretched before his eyes--an alphabet which, to his
mortification, not to say his rage, he was unable to decipher. In the
apparent dimensions of the fixed stars, in their distance, in their
relative position with regard to each other, he could observe no change.
Although it is established that our sun is approaching the constellation
of Hercules at the rate of more than 126,000,000 miles a year, and
although Arcturus is traveling through space at the rate of fifty-four
miles a second--three times faster than the earth goes round the
sun,--yet such is the remoteness of those stars that no appreciable
change is evident to the senses. The fixed stars taught him nothing.

Far otherwise was it with the planets. The orbits of Venus and Mercury
are within the orbit of the earth, Venus rotating at an average distance
of 66,130,000 miles from the sun, and Mercury at that of 35,393,000.
After pondering long, and as profoundly as he could, upon these figures,
Captain Servadac came to the conclusion that, as the earth was now
receiving about double the amount of light and heat that it had been
receiving before the catastrophe, it was receiving about the same as the
planet Venus; he was driven, therefore, to the estimate of the measure
in which the earth must have approximated to the sun, a deduction in
which he was confirmed when the opportunity came for him to observe
Venus herself in the splendid proportions that she now assumed.

That magnificent planet which--as Phosphorus or Lucifer, Hesperus or
Vesper, the evening star, the morning star, or the shepherd’s star--has
never failed to attract the rapturous admiration of the most indifferent
observers, here revealed herself with unprecedented glory, exhibiting
all the phases of a lustrous moon in miniature. Various indentations in
the outline of its crescent showed that the solar beams were refracted
into regions of its surface where the sun had already set, and proved,
beyond a doubt, that the planet had an atmosphere of her own; and
certain luminous points projecting from the crescent as plainly marked
the existence of mountains. As the result of Servadac’s computations, he
formed the opinion that Venus could hardly be at a greater distance than
6,000,000 miles from the earth.

“And a very safe distance, too,” said Ben Zoof, when his master told him
the conclusion at which he had arrived.

“All very well for two armies, but for a couple of planets not quite so
safe, perhaps, as you may imagine. It is my impression that it is more
than likely we may run foul of Venus,” said the captain.

“Plenty of air and water there, sir?” inquired the orderly.

“Yes; as far as I can tell, plenty,” replied Servadac.

“Then why shouldn’t we go and visit Venus?”

Servadac did his best to explain that as the two planets were of
about equal volume, and were traveling with great velocity in opposite
directions, any collision between them must be attended with the most
disastrous consequences to one or both of them. But Ben Zoof failed to
see that, even at the worst, the catastrophe could be much more serious
than the collision of two railway trains.

The captain became exasperated. “You idiot!” he angrily exclaimed;
“cannot you understand that the planets are traveling a thousand times
faster than the fastest express, and that if they meet, either one
or the other must be destroyed? What would become of your darling
Montmartre then?”

The captain had touched a tender chord. For a moment Ben Zoof stood with
clenched teeth and contracted muscles; then, in a voice of real concern,
he inquired whether anything could be done to avert the calamity.

“Nothing whatever; so you may go about your own business,” was the
captain’s brusque rejoinder.

All discomfited and bewildered, Ben Zoof retired without a word.

During the ensuing days the distance between the two planets continued
to decrease, and it became more and more obvious that the earth, on her
new orbit, was about to cross the orbit of Venus. Throughout this time
the earth had been making a perceptible approach towards Mercury, and
that planet--which is rarely visible to the naked eye, and then only
at what are termed the periods of its greatest eastern and western
elongations--now appeared in all its splendor. It amply justified the
epithet of “sparkling” which the ancients were accustomed to confer
upon it, and could scarcely fail to awaken a new interest. The periodic
recurrence of its phases; its reflection of the sun’s rays, shedding
upon it a light and a heat seven times greater than that received by the
earth; its glacial and its torrid zones, which, on account of the great
inclination of the axis, are scarcely separable; its equatorial bands;
its mountains eleven miles high;--were all subjects of observation
worthy of the most studious regard.

But no danger was to be apprehended from Mercury; with Venus only did
collision appear imminent. By the 18th of January the distance between
that planet and the earth had become reduced to between two and three
millions of miles, and the intensity of its light cast heavy shadows
from all terrestrial objects. It might be observed to turn upon its own
axis in twenty-three hours twenty-one minutes--an evidence, from the
unaltered duration of its days, that the planet had not shared in the
disturbance. On its disc the clouds formed from its atmospheric vapor
were plainly perceptible, as also were the seven spots, which, according
to Bianchini, are a chain of seas. It was now visible in broad daylight.
Buonaparte, when under the Directory, once had his attention called to
Venus at noon, and immediately hailed it joyfully, recognizing it as
his own peculiar star in the ascendant. Captain Servadac, it may well be
imagined, did not experience the same gratifying emotion.

On the 20th, the distance between the two bodies had again sensibly
diminished. The captain had ceased to be surprised that no vessel
had been sent to rescue himself and his companion from their strange
imprisonment; the governor general and the minister of war were
doubtless far differently occupied, and their interests far otherwise
engrossed. What sensational articles, he thought, must now be teeming to
the newspapers! What crowds must be flocking to the churches! The end
of the world approaching! the great climax close at hand! Two days more,
and the earth, shivered into a myriad atoms, would be lost in boundless
space!

These dire forebodings, however, were not destined to be realized.
Gradually the distance between the two planets began to increase; the
planes of their orbits did not coincide, and accordingly the dreaded
catastrophe did not ensue. By the 25th, Venus was sufficiently remote to
preclude any further fear of collision. Ben Zoof gave a sigh of relief
when the captain communicated the glad intelligence.

Their proximity to Venus had been close enough to demonstrate that
beyond a doubt that planet has no moon or satellite such as Cassini,
Short, Montaigne of Limoges, Montbarron, and some other astronomers have
imagined to exist. “Had there been such a satellite,” said Servadac,
“we might have captured it in passing. But what can be the meaning,” he
added seriously, “of all this displacement of the heavenly bodies?”

“What is that great building at Paris, captain, with a top like a cap?”
 asked Ben Zoof.

“Do you mean the Observatory?”

“Yes, the Observatory. Are there not people living in the Observatory
who could explain all this?”

“Very likely; but what of that?”

“Let us be philosophers, and wait patiently until we can hear their
explanation.”

Servadac smiled. “Do you know what it is to be a philosopher, Ben Zoof?”
 he asked.

“I am a soldier, sir,” was the servant’s prompt rejoinder, “and I have
learnt to know that ‘what can’t be cured must be endured.’”

The captain made no reply, but for a time, at least, he desisted from
puzzling himself over matters which he felt he was utterly incompetent
to explain. But an event soon afterwards occurred which awakened his
keenest interest.

About nine o’clock on the morning of the 27th, Ben Zoof walked
deliberately into his master’s apartment, and, in reply to a question as
to what he wanted, announced with the utmost composure that a ship was
in sight.

“A ship!” exclaimed Servadac, starting to his feet. “A ship! Ben Zoof,
you donkey! you speak as unconcernedly as though you were telling me
that my dinner was ready.”

“Are we not philosophers, captain?” said the orderly.

But the captain was out of hearing.



CHAPTER IX. INQUIRIES UNSATISFIED


Fast as his legs could carry him, Servadac had made his way to the top
of the cliff. It was quite true that a vessel was in sight, hardly more
than six miles from the shore; but owing to the increase in the earth’s
convexity, and the consequent limitation of the range of vision, the
rigging of the topmasts alone was visible above the water. This was
enough, however, to indicate that the ship was a schooner--an impression
that was confirmed when, two hours later, she came entirely in sight.

“The _Dobryna_!” exclaimed Servadac, keeping his eye unmoved at his
telescope.

“Impossible, sir!” rejoined Ben Zoof; “there are no signs of smoke.”

“The _Dobryna_!” repeated the captain, positively. “She is under sail;
but she is Count Timascheff’s yacht.”

He was right. If the count were on board, a strange fatality was
bringing him to the presence of his rival. But no longer now could
Servadac regard him in the light of an adversary; circumstances had
changed, and all animosity was absorbed in the eagerness with which
he hailed the prospect of obtaining some information about the recent
startling and inexplicable events. During the twenty-seven days that she
had been absent, the _Dobryna_, he conjectured, would have explored the
Mediterranean, would very probably have visited Spain, France, or Italy,
and accordingly would convey to Gourbi Island some intelligence from
one or other of those countries. He reckoned, therefore, not only upon
ascertaining the extent of the late catastrophe, but upon learning
its cause. Count Timascheff was, no doubt, magnanimously coming to the
rescue of himself and his orderly.

The wind being adverse, the _Dobryna_ did not make very rapid progress;
but as the weather, in spite of a few clouds, remained calm, and the
sea was quite smooth, she was enabled to hold a steady course. It seemed
unaccountable that she should not use her engine, as whoever was on
board, would be naturally impatient to reconnoiter the new island, which
must just have come within their view. The probability that suggested
itself was that the schooner’s fuel was exhausted.

Servadac took it for granted that the _Dobryna_ was endeavoring to
put in. It occurred to him, however, that the count, on discovering an
island where he had expected to find the mainland of Africa, would not
unlikely be at a loss for a place of anchorage. The yacht was evidently
making her way in the direction of the former mouth of the Shelif,
and the captain was struck with the idea that he would do well to
investigate whether there was any suitable mooring towards which he
might signal her. Zephyr and Galette were soon saddled, and in twenty
minutes had carried their riders to the western extremity of the island,
where they both dismounted and began to explore the coast.

They were not long in ascertaining that on the farther side of the
point there was a small well-sheltered creek of sufficient depth to
accommodate a vessel of moderate tonnage. A narrow channel formed a
passage through the ridge of rocks that protected it from the open sea,
and which, even in the roughest weather, would ensure the calmness of
its waters.

Whilst examining the rocky shore, the captain observed, to his great
surprise, long and well-defined rows of seaweed, which undoubtedly
betokened that there had been a very considerable ebb and flow of the
waters--a thing unknown in the Mediterranean, where there is scarcely
any perceptible tide. What, however, seemed most remarkable, was the
manifest evidence that ever since the highest flood (which was caused,
in all probability, by the proximity of the body of which the huge
disc had been so conspicuous on the night of the 31st of December) the
phenomenon had been gradually lessening, and in fact was now reduced to
the normal limits which had characterized it before the convulsion.

Without doing more than note the circumstance, Servadac turned his
entire attention to the _Dobryna_, which, now little more than a mile
from shore, could not fail to see and understand his signals. Slightly
changing her course, she first struck her mainsail, and, in order to
facilitate the movements of her helmsman, soon carried nothing but her
two topsails, brigantine and jib. After rounding the peak, she steered
direct for the channel to which Servadac by his gestures was pointing
her, and was not long in entering the creek. As soon as the anchor,
imbedded in the sandy bottom, had made good its hold, a boat was
lowered. In a few minutes more Count Timascheff had landed on the
island. Captain Servadac hastened towards him.

“First of all, count,” he exclaimed impetuously, “before we speak one
other word, tell me what has happened.”

The count, whose imperturbable composure presented a singular contrast
to the French officer’s enthusiastic vivacity, made a stiff bow, and
in his Russian accent replied: “First of all, permit me to express my
surprise at seeing you here. I left you on a continent, and here I have
the honor of finding you on an island.”

“I assure you, count, I have never left the place.”

“I am quite aware of it. Captain Servadac, and I now beg to offer you my
sincere apologies for failing to keep my appointment with you.”

“Never mind, now,” interposed the captain; “we will talk of that
by-and-by. First, tell me what has happened.”

“The very question I was about to put to you, Captain Servadac.”

“Do you mean to say you know nothing of the cause, and can tell me
nothing of the extent, of the catastrophe which has transformed this
part of Africa into an island?”

“Nothing more than you know yourself.”

“But surely, Count Timascheff, you can inform me whether upon the
northern shore of the Mediterranean--”

“Are you certain that this is the Mediterranean?” asked the count
significantly, and added, “I have discovered no sign of land.”

The captain stared in silent bewilderment. For some moments he seemed
perfectly stupefied; then, recovering himself, he began to overwhelm the
count with a torrent of questions. Had he noticed, ever since the 1st
of January, that the sun had risen in the west? Had he noticed that the
days had been only six hours long, and that the weight of the atmosphere
was so much diminished? Had he observed that the moon had quite
disappeared, and that the earth had been in imminent hazard of running
foul of the planet Venus? Was he aware, in short, that the entire
motions of the terrestrial sphere had undergone a complete modification?
To all these inquiries, the count responded in the affirmative. He
was acquainted with everything that had transpired; but, to Servadac’s
increasing astonishment, he could throw no light upon the cause of any
of the phenomena.

“On the night of the 31st of December,” he said, “I was proceeding by
sea to our appointed place of meeting, when my yacht was suddenly caught
on the crest of an enormous wave, and carried to a height which it
is beyond my power to estimate. Some mysterious force seemed to have
brought about a convulsion of the elements. Our engine was damaged, nay
disabled, and we drifted entirely at the mercy of the terrible hurricane
that raged during the succeeding days. That the _Dobryna_ escaped at all
is little less than a miracle, and I can only attribute her safety
to the fact that she occupied the center of the vast cyclone, and
consequently did not experience much change of position.”

He paused, and added: “Your island is the first land we have seen.”

“Then let us put out to sea at once and ascertain the extent of the
disaster,” cried the captain, eagerly. “You will take me on board,
count, will you not?”

“My yacht is at your service, sir, even should you require to make a
tour round the world.”

“A tour round the Mediterranean will suffice for the present, I think,”
 said the captain, smiling.

The count shook his head.

“I am not sure,” said he, “but what the tour of the Mediterranean will
prove to be the tour of the world.”

Servadac made no reply, but for a time remained silent and absorbed in
thought.

After the silence was broken, they consulted as to what course was
best to pursue; and the plan they proposed was, in the first place, to
discover how much of the African coast still remained, and to carry on
the tidings of their own experiences to Algiers; or, in the event of the
southern shore having actually disappeared, they would make their way
northwards and put themselves in communication with the population on
the river banks of Europe.

Before starting, it was indispensable that the engine of the _Dobryna_
should be repaired: to sail under canvas only would in contrary winds
and rough seas be both tedious and difficult. The stock of coal on
board was adequate for two months’ consumption; but as it would at
the expiration of that time be exhausted, it was obviously the part
of prudence to employ it in reaching a port where fuel could be
replenished.

The damage sustained by the engine proved to be not very serious; and
in three days after her arrival the _Dobryna_ was again ready to put to
sea.

Servadac employed the interval in making the count acquainted with
all he knew about his small domain. They made an entire circuit of
the island, and both agreed that it must be beyond the limits of that
circumscribed territory that they must seek an explanation of what had
so strangely transpired.

It was on the last day of January that the repairs of the schooner were
completed. A slight diminution in the excessively high temperature which
had prevailed for the last few weeks, was the only apparent change in
the general order of things; but whether this was to be attributed to
any alteration in the earth’s orbit was a question which would still
require several days to decide. The weather remained fine, and although
a few clouds had accumulated, and might have caused a trifling fall
of the barometer, they were not sufficiently threatening to delay the
departure of the _Dobryna_.

Doubts now arose, and some discussion followed, whether or not it was
desirable for Ben Zoof to accompany his master. There were various
reasons why he should be left behind, not the least important being that
the schooner had no accommodation for horses, and the orderly would have
found it hard to part with Zephyr, and much more with his own favorite
Galette; besides, it was advisable that there should be some one left to
receive any strangers that might possibly arrive, as well as to keep an
eye upon the herds of cattle which, in the dubious prospect before them,
might prove to be the sole resource of the survivors of the catastrophe.
Altogether, taking into consideration that the brave fellow would incur
no personal risk by remaining upon the island, the captain was induced
with much reluctance to forego the attendance of his servant, hoping
very shortly to return and to restore him to his country, when he had
ascertained the reason of the mysteries in which they were enveloped.

On the 31st, then, Ben Zoof was “invested with governor’s powers,” and
took an affecting leave of his master, begging him, if chance should
carry him near Montmartre, to ascertain whether the beloved “mountain”
 had been left unmoved.

Farewells over, the _Dobryna_ was carefully steered through the creek,
and was soon upon the open sea.



CHAPTER X. A SEARCH FOR ALGERIA


The _Dobryna_, a strong craft of 200 tons burden, had been built in the
famous shipbuilding yards in the Isle of Wight. Her sea going qualities
were excellent, and would have amply sufficed for a circumnavigation of
the globe. Count Timascheff was himself no sailor, but had the
greatest confidence in leaving the command of his yacht in the hands of
Lieutenant Procope, a man of about thirty years of age, and an excellent
seaman. Born on the count’s estates, the son of a serf who had been
emancipated long before the famous edict of the Emperor Alexander,
Procope was sincerely attached, by a tie of gratitude as well as of duty
and affection, to his patron’s service. After an apprenticeship on a
merchant ship he had entered the imperial navy, and had already reached
the rank of lieutenant when the count appointed him to the charge of
his own private yacht, in which he was accustomed to spend by far the
greater part of his time, throughout the winter generally cruising in
the Mediterranean, whilst in the summer he visited more northern waters.

The ship could not have been in better hands. The lieutenant was well
informed in many matters outside the pale of his profession, and his
attainments were alike creditable to himself and to the liberal friend
who had given him his education. He had an excellent crew, consisting
of Tiglew the engineer, four sailors named Niegoch, Tolstoy, Etkef, and
Panofka, and Mochel the cook. These men, without exception, were all
sons of the count’s tenants, and so tenaciously, even out at sea, did
they cling to their old traditions, that it mattered little to them what
physical disorganization ensued, so long as they felt they were sharing
the experiences of their lord and master. The late astounding events,
however, had rendered Procope manifestly uneasy, and not the less
so from his consciousness that the count secretly partook of his own
anxiety.

Steam up and canvas spread, the schooner started eastwards. With a
favorable wind she would certainly have made eleven knots an hour
had not the high waves somewhat impeded her progress. Although only a
moderate breeze was blowing, the sea was rough, a circumstance to
be accounted for only by the diminution in the force of the earth’s
attraction rendering the liquid particles so buoyant, that by the mere
effect of oscillation they were carried to a height that was quite
unprecedented. M. Arago has fixed twenty-five or twenty-six feet as
the maximum elevation ever attained by the highest waves, and his
astonishment would have been very great to see them rising fifty or
even sixty feet. Nor did these waves in the usual way partially unfurl
themselves and rebound against the sides of the vessel; they might
rather be described as long undulations carrying the schooner (its
weight diminished from the same cause as that of the water) alternately
to such heights and depths, that if Captain Servadac had been subject to
seasickness he must have found himself in sorry plight. As the pitching,
however, was the result of a long uniform swell, the yacht did not labor
much harder than she would against the ordinary short strong waves of
the Mediterranean; the main inconvenience that was experienced was the
diminution in her proper rate of speed.

For a few miles she followed the line hitherto presumably occupied by
the coast of Algeria; but no land appeared to the south. The changed
positions of the planets rendered them of no avail for purposes of
nautical observation, nor could Lieutenant Procope calculate his
latitude and longitude by the altitude of the sun, as his reckonings
would be useless when applied to charts that had been constructed for
the old order of things; but nevertheless, by means of the log, which
gave him the rate of progress, and by the compass which indicated the
direction in which they were sailing, he was able to form an estimate
of his position that was sufficiently free from error for his immediate
need.

Happily the recent phenomena had no effect upon the compass; the
magnetic needle, which in these regions had pointed about 22 degrees
from the north pole, had never deviated in the least--a proof that,
although east and west had apparently changed places, north and south
continued to retain their normal position as cardinal points. The log
and the compass, therefore, were able to be called upon to do the work
of the sextant, which had become utterly useless.

On the first morning of the cruise Lieutenant Procope, who, like most
Russians, spoke French fluently, was explaining these peculiarities
to Captain Servadac; the count was present, and the conversation
perpetually recurred, as naturally it would, to the phenomena which
remained so inexplicable to them all.

“It is very evident,” said the lieutenant, “that ever since the 1st of
January the earth has been moving in a new orbit, and from some unknown
cause has drawn nearer to the sun.”

“No doubt about that,” said Servadac; “and I suppose that, having
crossed the orbit of Venus, we have a good chance of running into the
orbit of Mercury.”

“And finish up by a collision with the sun!” added the count.

“There is no fear of that, sir. The earth has undoubtedly entered upon
a new orbit, but she is not incurring any probable risk of being
precipitated onto the sun.”

“Can you satisfy us of that?” asked the count.

“I can, sir. I can give you a proof which I think you will own is
conclusive. If, as you suppose, the earth is being drawn on so as to
be precipitated against the sun, the great center of attraction of our
system, it could only be because the centrifugal and centripetal forces
that cause the planets to rotate in their several orbits had been
entirely suspended: in that case, indeed, the earth would rush onwards
towards the sun, and in sixty-four days and a half the catastrophe you
dread would inevitably happen.”

“And what demonstration do you offer,” asked Servadac eagerly, “that it
will not happen?”

“Simply this, captain: that since the earth entered her new orbit
half the sixty-four days has already elapsed, and yet it is only just
recently that she has crossed the orbit of Venus, hardly one-third of
the distance to be traversed to reach the sun.”

The lieutenant paused to allow time for reflection, and added:
“Moreover, I have every reason to believe that we are not so near the
sun as we have been. The temperature has been gradually diminishing;
the heat upon Gourbi Island is not greater now than we might ordinarily
expect to find in Algeria. At the same time, we have the problem still
unsolved that the Mediterranean has evidently been transported to the
equatorial zone.”

Both the count and the captain expressed themselves reassured by his
representations, and observed that they must now do all in their power
to discover what had become of the vast continent of Africa, of which,
they were hitherto failing so completely to find a vestige.

Twenty-four hours after leaving the island, the _Dobryna_ had passed
over the sites where Tenes, Cherchil, Koleah, and Sidi-Feruch once had
been, but of these towns not one appeared within range of the telescope.
Ocean reigned supreme. Lieutenant Procope was absolutely certain that
he had not mistaken his direction; the compass showed that the wind
had never shifted from the west, and this, with the rate of speed as
estimated by the log, combined to assure him that at this date, the 2d
of February, the schooner was in lat. 36 degrees 49 min N. and long. 3
degrees 25 min E., the very spot which ought to have been occupied by
the Algerian capital. But Algiers, like all the other coast-towns, had
apparently been absorbed into the bowels of the earth.

Captain Servadac, with clenched teeth and knitted brow, stood sternly,
almost fiercely, regarding the boundless waste of water. His pulse beat
fast as he recalled the friends and comrades with whom he had spent the
last few years in that vanished city. All the images of his past life
floated upon his memory; his thoughts sped away to his native France,
only to return again to wonder whether the depths of ocean would reveal
any traces of the Algerian metropolis.

“Is it not impossible,” he murmured aloud, “that any city should
disappear so completely? Would not the loftiest eminences of the city
at least be visible? Surely some portion of the Casbah must still rise
above the waves? The imperial fort, too, was built upon an elevation
of 750 feet; it is incredible that it should be so totally submerged.
Unless some vestiges of these are found, I shall begin to suspect that
the whole of Africa has been swallowed in some vast abyss.”

Another circumstance was most remarkable. Not a material object of any
kind was to be noticed floating on the surface of the water; not one
branch of a tree had been seen drifting by, nor one spar belonging to
one of the numerous vessels that a month previously had been moored
in the magnificent bay which stretched twelve miles across from Cape
Matafuz to Point Pexade. Perhaps the depths might disclose what the
surface failed to reveal, and Count Timascheff, anxious that Servadac
should have every facility afforded him for solving his doubts, called
for the sounding-line. Forthwith, the lead was greased and lowered.
To the surprise of all, and especially of Lieutenant Procope, the
line indicated a bottom at a nearly uniform depth of from four to five
fathoms; and although the sounding was persevered with continuously for
more than two hours over a considerable area, the differences of level
were insignificant, not corresponding in any degree to what would be
expected over the site of a city that had been terraced like the seats
of an amphitheater. Astounding as it seemed, what alternative was left
but to suppose that the Algerian capital had been completely leveled by
the flood?

The sea-bottom was composed of neither rock, mud, sand, nor shells;
the sounding-lead brought up nothing but a kind of metallic dust, which
glittered with a strange iridescence, and the nature of which it was
impossible to determine, as it was totally unlike what had ever been
known to be raised from the bed of the Mediterranean.

“You must see, lieutenant, I should think, that we are not so near the
coast of Algeria as you imagined.”

The lieutenant shook his head. After pondering awhile, he said: “If
we were farther away I should expect to find a depth of two or three
hundred fathoms instead of five fathoms. Five fathoms! I confess I am
puzzled.”

For the next thirty-six hours, until the 4th of February, the sea was
examined and explored with the most unflagging perseverance. Its depth
remained invariable, still four, or at most five, fathoms; and although
its bottom was assiduously dredged, it was only to prove it barren of
marine production of any type.

The yacht made its way to lat. 36 degrees, and by reference to the
charts it was tolerably certain that she was cruising over the site of
the Sahel, the ridge that had separated the rich plain of the Mitidja
from the sea, and of which the highest peak, Mount Boujereah, had
reached an altitude of 1,200 feet; but even this peak, which might have
been expected to emerge like an islet above the surface of the sea,
was nowhere to be traced. Nothing was to be done but to put about, and
return in disappointment towards the north.

Thus the _Dobryna_ regained the waters of the Mediterranean without
discovering a trace of the missing province of Algeria.



CHAPTER XI. AN ISLAND TOMB


No longer, then, could there be any doubt as to the annihilation of
a considerable portion of the colony. Not merely had there been a
submersion of the land, but the impression was more and more confirmed
that the very bowels of the earth must have yawned and closed again upon
a large territory. Of the rocky substratum of the province it became
more evident than ever that not a trace remained, and a new soil
of unknown formation had certainly taken the place of the old sandy
sea-bottom. As it altogether transcended the powers of those on board to
elucidate the origin of this catastrophe, it was felt to be incumbent on
them at least to ascertain its extent.

After a long and somewhat wavering discussion, it was at length decided
that the schooner should take advantage of the favorable wind and
weather, and proceed at first towards the east, thus following the
outline of what had formerly represented the coast of Africa, until that
coast had been lost in boundless sea.

Not a vestige of it all remained; from Cape Matafuz to Tunis it had all
gone, as though it had never been. The maritime town of Dellis, built
like Algiers, amphitheater-wise, had totally disappeared; the highest
points were quite invisible; not a trace on the horizon was left of the
Jurjura chain, the topmost point of which was known to have an altitude
of more than 7,000 feet.

Unsparing of her fuel, the _Dobryna_ made her way at full steam towards
Cape Blanc. Neither Cape Negro nor Cape Serrat was to be seen. The town
of Bizerta, once charming in its oriental beauty, had vanished utterly;
its marabouts, or temple-tombs, shaded by magnificent palms that fringed
the gulf, which by reason of its narrow mouth had the semblance of a
lake, all had disappeared, giving place to a vast waste of sea, the
transparent waves of which, as still demonstrated by the sounding-line,
had ever the same uniform and arid bottom.

In the course of the day the schooner rounded the point where, five
weeks previously, Cape Blanc had been so conspicuous an object, and she
was now stemming the waters of what once had been the Bay of Tunis. But
bay there was none, and the town from which it had derived its name,
with the Arsenal, the Goletta, and the two peaks of Bou-Kournein, had
all vanished from the view. Cape Bon, too, the most northern promontory
of Africa and the point of the continent nearest to the island of
Sicily, had been included in the general devastation.

Before the occurrence of the recent prodigy, the bottom of the
Mediterranean just at this point had formed a sudden ridge across the
Straits of Libya. The sides of the ridge had shelved to so great an
extent that, while the depth of water on the summit had been little more
than eleven fathoms, that on either hand of the elevation was little
short of a hundred fathoms. A formation such as this plainly indicated
that at some remote epoch Cape Bon had been connected with Cape Furina,
the extremity of Sicily, in the same manner as Ceuta has doubtless been
connected with Gibraltar.

Lieutenant Procope was too well acquainted with the Mediterranean to
be unaware of this peculiarity, and would not lose the opportunity of
ascertaining whether the submarine ridge still existed, or whether the
sea-bottom between Sicily and Africa had undergone any modification.

Both Timascheff and Servadac were much interested in watching the
operations. At a sign from the lieutenant, a sailor who was stationed at
the foot of the fore-shrouds dropped the sounding-lead into the water,
and in reply to Procope’s inquiries, reported--“Five fathoms and a flat
bottom.”

The next aim was to determine the amount of depression on either side of
the ridge, and for this purpose the _Dobryna_ was shifted for a distance
of half a mile both to the right and left, and the soundings taken
at each station. “Five fathoms and a flat bottom,” was the unvaried
announcement after each operation. Not only, therefore, was it evident
that the submerged chain between Cape Bon and Cape Furina no longer
existed, but it was equally clear that the convulsion had caused a
general leveling of the sea-bottom, and that the soil, degenerated, as
it has been said, into a metallic dust of unrecognized composition,
bore no trace of the sponges, sea-anemones, star-fish, sea-nettles,
hydrophytes, and shells with which the submarine rocks of the
Mediterranean had hitherto been prodigally clothed.

The _Dobryna_ now put about and resumed her explorations in a southerly
direction. It remained, however, as remarkable as ever how completely
throughout the voyage the sea continued to be deserted; all expectations
of hailing a vessel bearing news from Europe were entirely falsified, so
that more and more each member of the crew began to be conscious of his
isolation, and to believe that the schooner, like a second Noah’s ark,
carried the sole survivors of a calamity that had overwhelmed the earth.

On the 9th of February the _Dobryna_ passed over the site of the city
of Dido, the ancient Byrsa--a Carthage, however, which was now more
completely destroyed than ever Punic Carthage had been destroyed by
Scipio Africanus or Roman Carthage by Hassan the Saracen.

In the evening, as the sun was sinking below the eastern horizon,
Captain Servadac was lounging moodily against the taffrail. From the
heaven above, where stars kept peeping fitfully from behind the moving
clouds, his eye wandered mechanically to the waters below, where the
long waves were rising and falling with the evening breeze.

All at once, his attention was arrested by a luminous speck straight
ahead on the southern horizon. At first, imagining that he was the
victim of some spectral illusion, he observed it with silent attention;
but when, after some minutes, he became convinced that what he saw was
actually a distant light, he appealed to one of the sailors, by whom
his impression was fully corroborated. The intelligence was immediately
imparted to Count Timascheff and the lieutenant.

“Is it land, do you suppose?” inquired Servadac, eagerly.

“I should be more inclined to think it is a light on board some ship,”
 replied the count.

“Whatever it is, in another hour we shall know all about it,” said
Servadac.

“No, captain,” interposed Lieutenant Procope; “we shall know nothing
until to-morrow.”

“What! not bear down upon it at once?” asked the count in surprise.

“No, sir; I should much rather lay to and wait till daylight. If we are
really near land, I should be afraid to approach it in the dark.”

The count expressed his approval of the lieutenant’s caution, and
thereupon all sail was shortened so as to keep the _Dobryna_ from making
any considerable progress all through the hours of night. Few as those
hours were, they seemed to those on board as if their end would never
come. Fearful lest the faint glimmer should at any moment cease to be
visible, Hector Servadac did not quit his post upon the deck; but the
light continued unchanged. It shone with about the same degree of luster
as a star of the second magnitude, and from the fact of its remaining
stationary, Procope became more and more convinced that it was on land
and did not belong to a passing vessel.

At sunrise every telescope was pointed with keenest interest towards the
center of attraction. The light, of course, had ceased to be visible,
but in the direction where it had been seen, and at a distance of about
ten miles, there was the distinct outline of a solitary island of very
small extent; rather, as the count observed, it had the appearance of
being the projecting summit of a mountain all but submerged. Whatever it
was, it was agreed that its true character must be ascertained, not
only to gratify their own curiosity, but for the benefit of all future
navigators. The schooner accordingly was steered directly towards it,
and in less than an hour had cast anchor within a few cables’ lengths of
the shore.

The little island proved to be nothing more than an arid rock rising
abruptly about forty feet above the water. It had no outlying reefs, a
circumstance that seemed to suggest the probability that in the recent
convulsion it had sunk gradually, until it had reached its present
position of equilibrium.

Without removing his eye from his telescope, Servadac exclaimed: “There
is a habitation on the place; I can see an erection of some kind quite
distinctly. Who can tell whether we shall not come across a human
being?”

Lieutenant Procope looked doubtful. The island had all the appearance of
being deserted, nor did a cannon-shot fired from the schooner have
the effect of bringing any resident to the shore. Nevertheless, it was
undeniable that there was a stone building situated on the top of
the rock, and that this building had much the character of an Arabian
mosque.

The boat was lowered and manned by the four sailors; Servadac,
Timascheff and Procope were quickly rowed ashore, and lost no time
in commencing their ascent of the steep acclivity. Upon reaching the
summit, they found their progress arrested by a kind of wall, or rampart
of singular construction, its materials consisting mainly of vases,
fragments of columns, carved bas-reliefs, statues, and portions of
broken stelae, all piled promiscuously together without any pretense
to artistic arrangement. They made their way into the enclosure, and
finding an open door, they passed through and soon came to a second
door, also open, which admitted them to the interior of the mosque,
consisting of a single chamber, the walls of which were ornamented in
the Arabian style by sculptures of indifferent execution. In the center
was a tomb of the very simplest kind, and above the tomb was suspended a
large silver lamp with a capacious reservoir of oil, in which floated a
long lighted wick, the flame of which was evidently the light that had
attracted Servadac’s attention on the previous night.

“Must there not have been a custodian of the shrine?” they mutually
asked; but if such there had ever been, he must, they concluded, either
have fled or have perished on that eventful night. Not a soul was there
in charge, and the sole living occupants were a flock of wild cormorants
which, startled at the entrance of the intruders, rose on wing, and took
a rapid flight towards the south.

An old French prayer-book was lying on the corner of the tomb; the
volume was open, and the page exposed to view was that which contained
the office for the celebration of the 25th of August. A sudden
revelation dashed across Servadac’s mind. The solemn isolation of the
island tomb, the open breviary, the ritual of the ancient anniversary,
all combined to apprise him of the sanctity of the spot upon which he
stood.

“The tomb of St. Louis!” he exclaimed, and his companions involuntarily
followed his example, and made a reverential obeisance to the venerated
monument.

It was, in truth, the very spot on which tradition asserts that the
canonized monarch came to die, a spot to which for six centuries and
more his countrymen had paid the homage of a pious regard. The lamp
that had been kindled at the memorial shrine of a saint was now in all
probability the only beacon that threw a light across the waters of the
Mediterranean, and even this ere long must itself expire.

There was nothing more to explore. The three together quitted the
mosque, and descended the rock to the shore, whence their boat
re-conveyed them to the schooner, which was soon again on her southward
voyage; and it was not long before the tomb of St. Louis, the only spot
that had survived the mysterious shock, was lost to view.



CHAPTER XII. AT THE MERCY OF THE WINDS

As the affrighted cormorants had winged their flight towards the south,
there sprang up a sanguine hope on board the schooner that land might be
discovered in that direction. Thither, accordingly, it was determined to
proceed, and in a few hours after quitting the island of the tomb,
the _Dobryna_ was traversing the shallow waters that now covered the
peninsula of Dakhul, which had separated the Bay of Tunis from the Gulf
of Hammamet. For two days she continued an undeviating course, and
after a futile search for the coast of Tunis, reached the latitude of 34
degrees.

Here, on the 11th of February, there suddenly arose the cry of “Land!”
 and in the extreme horizon, right ahead, where land had never been
before, it was true enough that a shore was distinctly to be seen. What
could it be? It could not be the coast of Tripoli; for not only would
that low-lying shore be quite invisible at such a distance, but it was
certain, moreover, that it lay two degrees at least still further
south. It was soon observed that this newly discovered land was of
very irregular elevation, that it extended due east and west across
the horizon, thus dividing the gulf into two separate sections and
completely concealing the island of Jerba, which must lie behind. Its
position was duly traced on the _Dobryna_‘s chart.

“How strange,” exclaimed Hector Servadac, “that after sailing all this
time over sea where we expected to find land, we have at last come upon
land where we thought to find sea!”

“Strange, indeed,” replied Lieutenant Procope; “and what appears to me
almost as remarkable is that we have never once caught sight either of
one of the Maltese tartans or one of the Levantine xebecs that traffic
so regularly on the Mediterranean.”

“Eastwards or westwards,” asked the count--“which shall be our course?
All farther progress to the south is checked.”

“Westwards, by all means,” replied Servadac quickly. “I am longing to
know whether anything of Algeria is left beyond the Shelif; besides,
as we pass Gourbi Island we might take Ben Zoof on board, and then
make away for Gibraltar, where we should be sure to learn something, at
least, of European news.”

With his usual air of stately courtesy, Count Timascheff begged the
captain to consider the yacht at his own disposal, and desired him to
give the lieutenant instructions accordingly.

Lieutenant Procope, however, hesitated, and after revolving matters
for a few moments in his mind, pointed out that as the wind was blowing
directly from the west, and seemed likely to increase, if they went to
the west in the teeth of the weather, the schooner would be reduced to
the use of her engine only, and would have much difficulty in making any
headway; on the other hand, by taking an eastward course, not only would
they have the advantage of the wind, but, under steam and canvas, might
hope in a few days to be off the coast of Egypt, and from Alexandria or
some other port they would have the same opportunity of getting tidings
from Europe as they would at Gibraltar.

Intensely anxious as he was to revisit the province of Oran, and
eager, too, to satisfy himself of the welfare of his faithful Ben
Zoof, Servadac could not but own the reasonableness of the lieutenant’s
objections, and yielded to the proposal that the eastward course should
be adopted. The wind gave signs only too threatening of the breeze
rising to a gale; but, fortunately, the waves did not culminate in
breakers, but rather in a long swell which ran in the same direction as
the vessel.

During the last fortnight the high temperature had been gradually
diminishing, until it now reached an average of 20 degrees Cent. (or 68
degrees Fahr.), and sometimes descended as low as 15 degrees. That this
diminution was to be attributed to the change in the earth’s orbit was a
question that admitted of little doubt. After approaching so near to the
sun as to cross the orbit of Venus, the earth must now have receded
so far from the sun that its normal distance of ninety-one millions of
miles was greatly increased, and the probability was great that it was
approximating to the orbit of Mars, that planet which in its physical
constitution most nearly resembles our own. Nor was this supposition
suggested merely by the lowering of the temperature; it was strongly
corroborated by the reduction of the apparent diameter of the sun’s disc
to the precise dimensions which it would assume to an observer actually
stationed on the surface of Mars. The necessary inference that seemed to
follow from these phenomena was that the earth had been projected into a
new orbit, which had the form of a very elongated ellipse.

Very slight, however, in comparison was the regard which these
astronomical wonders attracted on board the _Dobryna_. All interest
there was too much absorbed in terrestrial matters, and in ascertaining
what changes had taken place in the configuration of the earth itself,
to permit much attention to be paid to its erratic movements through
space.

The schooner kept bravely on her way, but well out to sea, at a distance
of two miles from land. There was good need of this precaution, for so
precipitous was the shore that a vessel driven upon it must inevitably
have gone to pieces; it did not offer a single harbor of refuge, but,
smooth and perpendicular as the walls of a fortress, it rose to a height
of two hundred, and occasionally of three hundred feet. The waves dashed
violently against its base. Upon the general substratum rested a massive
conglomerate, the crystallizations of which rose like a forest of
gigantic pyramids and obelisks.

But what struck the explorers more than anything was the appearance of
singular newness that pervaded the whole of the region. It all seemed
so recent in its formation that the atmosphere had had no opportunity of
producing its wonted effect in softening the hardness of its lines, in
rounding the sharpness of its angles, or in modifying the color of
its surface; its outline was clearly marked against the sky, and its
substance, smooth and polished as though fresh from a founder’s mold,
glittered with the metallic brilliancy that is characteristic of
pyrites. It seemed impossible to come to any other conclusion but
that the land before them, continent or island, had been upheaved by
subterranean forces above the surface of the sea, and that it was mainly
composed of the same metallic element as had characterized the dust so
frequently uplifted from the bottom.

The extreme nakedness of the entire tract was likewise very
extraordinary. Elsewhere, in various quarters of the globe, there may
be sterile rocks, but there are none so adamant as to be altogether
unfurrowed by the filaments engendered in the moist residuum of the
condensed vapor; elsewhere there may be barren steeps, but none so rigid
as not to afford some hold to vegetation, however low and elementary
may be its type; but here all was bare, and blank, and desolate--not a
symptom of vitality was visible.

Such being the condition of the adjacent land, it could hardly be a
matter of surprise that all the sea-birds, the albatross, the gull, the
sea-mew, sought continual refuge on the schooner; day and night they
perched fearlessly upon the yards, the report of a gun failing to
dislodge them, and when food of any sort was thrown upon the deck,
they would dart down and fight with eager voracity for the prize. Their
extreme avidity was recognized as a proof that any land where they could
obtain a sustenance must be far remote.

Onwards thus for several days the _Dobryna_ followed the contour of the
inhospitable coast, of which the features would occasionally change,
sometimes for two or three miles assuming the form of a simple arris,
sharply defined as though cut by a chisel, when suddenly the prismatic
lamellae soaring in rugged confusion would again recur; but all along
there was the same absence of beach or tract of sand to mark its base,
neither were there any of those shoals of rock that are ordinarily found
in shallow water. At rare intervals there were some narrow fissures,
but not a creek available for a ship to enter to replenish its supply of
water; and the wide roadsteads were unprotected and exposed to well-nigh
every point of the compass.

But after sailing two hundred and forty miles, the progress of the
_Dobryna_ was suddenly arrested. Lieutenant Procope, who had sedulously
inserted the outline of the newly revealed shore upon the maps,
announced that it had ceased to run east and west, and had taken a turn
due north, thus forming a barrier to their continuing their previous
direction. It was, of course, impossible to conjecture how far this
barrier extended; it coincided pretty nearly with the fourteenth
meridian of east longitude; and if it reached, as probably it did,
beyond Sicily to Italy, it was certain that the vast basin of the
Mediterranean, which had washed the shores alike of Europe, Asia, and
Africa, must have been reduced to about half its original area.

It was resolved to proceed upon the same plan as heretofore, following
the boundary of the land at a safe distance. Accordingly, the head of
the _Dobryna_ was pointed north, making straight, as it was presumed,
for the south of Europe. A hundred miles, or somewhat over, in that
direction, and it was to be anticipated she would come in sight of
Malta, if only that ancient island, the heritage in succession of
Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Sicilians, Romans, Vandals, Greeks,
Arabians, and the knights of Rhodes, should still be undestroyed.

But Malta, too, was gone; and when, upon the 14th, the sounding-line was
dropped upon its site, it was only with the same result so oftentimes
obtained before.

“The devastation is not limited to Africa,” observed the count.

“Assuredly not,” assented the lieutenant; adding, “and I confess I am
almost in despair whether we shall ever ascertain its limits. To what
quarter of Europe, if Europe still exists, do you propose that I should
now direct your course?”

“To Sicily, Italy, France!” ejaculated Servadac, eagerly,--“anywhere
where we can learn the truth of what has befallen us.”

“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?



CHAPTER XIII. A ROYAL SALUTE


“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:

 _To the First Lord of the Admiralty,
  London,_

and kept in readiness for transmission by the first ship that should
hail in sight. But time elapsed, and here was the 18th of February
without an opportunity having been afforded for any communication with
the British Government.

At breakfast that morning, the colonel observed to the major that he was
under the most decided impression that the 18th of February was a royal
anniversary; and he went on to say that, although he had received no
definite instructions on the subject, he did not think that the peculiar
circumstances under which they found themselves should prevent them from
giving the day its due military honors.

The major quite concurred; and it was mutually agreed that the occasion
must be honored by a bumper of port, and by a royal salute. Corporal Pim
must be sent for. The corporal soon made his appearance, smacking his
lips, having, by a ready intuition, found a pretext for a double morning
ration of spirits.

“The 18th of February, you know, Pim,” said the colonel; “we must have a
salute of twenty-one guns.”

“Very good,” replied Pim, a man of few words.

“And take care that your fellows don’t get their arms and legs blown
off,” added the officer.

“Very good, sir,” said the corporal; and he made his salute and
withdrew.

Of all the bombs, howitzers, and various species of artillery with which
the fortress had been crowded, one solitary piece remained. This was a
cumbrous muzzle-loader of 9-inch caliber, and, in default of the smaller
ordnance generally employed for the purpose, had to be brought into
requisition for the royal salute.

A sufficient number of charges having been provided, the corporal
brought his men to the reduct, whence the gun’s mouth projected over
a sloping embrasure. The two officers, in cocked hats and full staff
uniform, attended to take charge of the proceedings. The gun was
maneuvered in strict accordance with the rules of “The Artilleryman’s
Manual,” and the firing commenced.

Not unmindful of the warning he had received, the corporal was most
careful between each discharge to see that every vestige of fire was
extinguished, so as to prevent an untimely explosion while the men were
reloading; and accidents, such as so frequently mar public rejoicings,
were all happily avoided.

Much to the chagrin of both Colonel Murphy and Major Oliphant, the
effect of the salute fell altogether short of their anticipations. The
weight of the atmosphere was so reduced that there was comparatively
little resistance to the explosive force of the gases, liberated at the
cannon’s mouth, and there was consequently none of the reverberation,
like rolling thunder, that ordinarily follows the discharge of heavy
artillery.

Twenty times had the gun been fired, and it was on the point of being
loaded for the last time, when the colonel laid his hand upon the arm of
the man who had the ramrod. “Stop!” he said; “we will have a ball this
time. Let us put the range of the piece to the test.”

“A good idea!” replied the major. “Corporal, you hear the orders.”

In quick time an artillery-wagon was on the spot, and the men lifted
out a full-sized shot, weighing 200 lbs., which, under ordinary
circumstances, the cannon would carry about four miles. It was proposed,
by means of telescopes, to note the place where the ball first touched
the water, and thus to obtain an approximation sufficiently accurate as
to the true range.

Having been duly charged with powder and ball, the gun was raised to an
angle of something under 45 degrees, so as to allow proper development
to the curve that the projectile would make, and, at a signal from the
major, the light was applied to the priming.

“Heavens!” “By all that’s good!” exclaimed both officers in one breath,
as, standing open-mouthed, they hardly knew whether they were to believe
the evidence of their own senses. “Is it possible?”

The diminution of the force of attraction at the earth’s surface was so
considerable that the ball had sped beyond the horizon.

“Incredible!” ejaculated the colonel.

“Incredible!” echoed the major.

“Six miles at least!” observed the one.

“Ay, more than that!” replied the other.

Awhile, they gazed at the sea and at each other in mute amazement. But
in the midst of their perplexity, what sound was that which startled
them? Was it mere fancy? Was it the reverberation of the cannon still
booming in their ears? Or was it not truly the report of another and
a distant gun in answer to their own? Attentively and eagerly they
listened. Twice, thrice did the sound repeat itself. It was quite
distinct. There could be no mistake.

“I told you so,” cried the colonel, triumphantly. “I knew our country
would not forsake us; it is an English ship, no doubt.”

In half an hour two masts were visible above the horizon. “See! Was
I not right? Our country was sure to send to our relief. Here is the
ship.”

“Yes,” replied the major; “she responded to our gun.”

“It is to be hoped,” muttered the corporal, “that our ball has done her
no damage.”

Before long the hull was full in sight. A long trail of smoke betokened
her to be a steamer; and very soon, by the aid of the glass, it could be
ascertained that she was a schooner-yacht, and making straight for the
island. A flag at her mast-head fluttered in the breeze, and towards
this the two officers, with the keenest attention, respectively adjusted
their focus.

Simultaneously the two telescopes were lowered. The colonel and the
major stared at each other in blank astonishment. “Russian!” they
gasped.

And true it was that the flag that floated at the head of yonder mast
was the blue cross of Russia.



CHAPTER XIV. SENSITIVE NATIONALITY


When the schooner had approached the island, the Englishmen were able
to make out the name “_Dobryna_” painted on the aft-board. A sinuous
irregularity of the coast had formed a kind of cove, which, though
hardly spacious enough for a few fishing-smacks, would afford the yacht
a temporary anchorage, so long as the wind did not blow violently from
either west or south. Into this cove the _Dobryna_ was duly signaled,
and as soon as she was safely moored, she lowered her four-oar, and
Count Timascheff and Captain Servadac made their way at once to land.

Colonel Heneage Finch Murphy and Major Sir John Temple Oliphant stood,
grave and prim, formally awaiting the arrival of their visitors. Captain
Servadac, with the uncontrolled vivacity natural to a Frenchman, was the
first to speak.

“A joyful sight, gentlemen!” he exclaimed. “It will give us unbounded
pleasure to shake hands again with some of our fellow-creatures. You, no
doubt, have escaped the same disaster as ourselves.”

But the English officers, neither by word nor gesture, made the
slightest acknowledgment of this familiar greeting.

“What news can you give us of France, England, or Russia?” continued
Servadac, perfectly unconscious of the stolid rigidity with which his
advances were received. “We are anxious to hear anything you can tell
us. Have you had communications with Europe? Have you--”

“To whom have we the honor of speaking?” at last interposed Colonel
Murphy, in the coldest and most measured tone, and drawing himself up to
his full height.

“Ah! how stupid! I forgot,” said Servadac, with the slightest possible
shrug of the shoulders; “we have not been introduced.”

Then, with a wave of his hand towards his companion, who meanwhile had
exhibited a reserve hardly less than that of the British officers, he
said:

“Allow me to introduce you to Count Wassili Timascheff.”

“Major Sir John Temple Oliphant,” replied the colonel.

The Russian and the Englishman mutually exchanged the stiffest of bows.

“I have the pleasure of introducing Captain Servadac,” said the count in
his turn.

“And this is Colonel Heneage Finch Murphy,” was the major’s grave
rejoinder.

More bows were interchanged and the ceremony brought to its due
conclusion. It need hardly be said that the conversation had been
carried on in French, a language which is generally known both by
Russians and Englishmen--a circumstance that is probably in some measure
to be accounted for by the refusal of Frenchmen to learn either Russian
or English.

The formal preliminaries of etiquette being thus complete, there was no
longer any obstacle to a freer intercourse. The colonel, signing to
his guests to follow, led the way to the apartment occupied jointly by
himself and the major, which, although only a kind of casemate hollowed
in the rock, nevertheless wore a general air of comfort. Major
Oliphant accompanied them, and all four having taken their seats, the
conversation was commenced.

Irritated and disgusted at all the cold formalities, Hector Servadac
resolved to leave all the talking to the count; and he, quite aware that
the Englishmen would adhere to the fiction that they could be supposed
to know nothing that had transpired previous to the introduction felt
himself obliged to recapitulate matters from the very beginning.

“You must be aware, gentlemen,” began the count, “that a most singular
catastrophe occurred on the 1st of January last. Its cause, its limits
we have utterly failed to discover, but from the appearance of the
island on which we find you here, you have evidently experienced its
devastating consequences.”

The Englishmen, in silence, bowed assent.

“Captain Servadac, who accompanies me,” continued the count, “has been
most severely tried by the disaster. Engaged as he was in an important
mission as a staff-officer in Algeria--”

“A French colony, I believe,” interposed Major Oliphant, half shutting
his eyes with an expression of supreme indifference.

Servadac was on the point of making some cutting retort, but Count
Timascheff, without allowing the interruption to be noticed, calmly
continued his narrative:

“It was near the mouth of the Shelif that a portion of Africa, on that
eventful night, was transformed into an island which alone survived; the
rest of the vast continent disappeared as completely as if it had never
been.”

The announcement seemed by no means startling to the phlegmatic colonel.

“Indeed!” was all he said.

“And where were you?” asked Major Oliphant.

“I was out at sea, cruising in my yacht; hard by; and I look upon it as
a miracle, and nothing less, that I and my crew escaped with our lives.”

“I congratulate you on your luck,” replied the major.

The count resumed: “It was about a month after the great disruption
that I was sailing--my engine having sustained some damage in the
shock--along the Algerian coast, and had the pleasure of meeting with
my previous acquaintance, Captain Servadac, who was resident upon the
island with his orderly, Ben Zoof.”

“Ben who?” inquired the major.

“Zoof! Ben Zoof!” ejaculated Servadac, who could scarcely shout loud
enough to relieve his pent-up feelings.

Ignoring this ebullition of the captain’s spleen, the count went on to
say: “Captain Servadac was naturally most anxious to get what news he
could. Accordingly, he left his servant on the island in charge of his
horses, and came on board the _Dobryna_ with me. We were quite at a loss
to know where we should steer, but decided to direct our course to
what previously had been the east, in order that we might, if possible,
discover the colony of Algeria; but of Algeria not a trace remained.”

The colonel curled his lip, insinuating only too plainly that to him it
was by no means surprising that a French colony should be wanting in the
element of stability. Servadac observed the supercilious look, and half
rose to his feet, but, smothering his resentment, took his seat again
without speaking.

“The devastation, gentlemen,” said the count, who persistently refused
to recognize the Frenchman’s irritation, “everywhere was terrible and
complete. Not only was Algeria lost, but there was no trace of Tunis,
except one solitary rock, which was crowned by an ancient tomb of one of
the kings of France--”

“Louis the Ninth, I presume,” observed the colonel.

“Saint Louis,” blurted out Servadac, savagely.

Colonel Murphy slightly smiled.

Proof against all interruption, Count Timascheff, as if he had not heard
it, went on without pausing. He related how the schooner had pushed her
way onwards to the south, and had reached the Gulf of Cabes; and how
she had ascertained for certain that the Sahara Sea had no longer an
existence.

The smile of disdain again crossed the colonel’s face; he could not
conceal his opinion that such a destiny for the work of a Frenchman
could be no matter of surprise.

“Our next discovery,” continued the count, “was that a new coast
had been upheaved right along in front of the coast of Tripoli, the
geological formation of which was altogether strange, and which extended
to the north as far as the proper place of Malta.”

“And Malta,” cried Servadac, unable to control himself any longer;
“Malta--town, forts, soldiers, governor, and all--has vanished just like
Algeria.”

For a moment a cloud rested upon the colonel’s brow, only to give place
to an expression of decided incredulity.

“The statement seems highly incredible,” he said.

“Incredible?” repeated Servadac. “Why is it that you doubt my word?”

The captain’s rising wrath did not prevent the colonel from replying
coolly, “Because Malta belongs to England.”

“I can’t help that,” answered Servadac, sharply; “it has gone just as
utterly as if it had belonged to China.”

Colonel Murphy turned deliberately away from Servadac, and appealed to
the count: “Do you not think you may have made some error, count, in
reckoning the bearings of your yacht?”

“No, colonel, I am quite certain of my reckonings; and not only can
I testify that Malta has disappeared, but I can affirm that a large
section of the Mediterranean has been closed in by a new continent.
After the most anxious investigation, we could discover only one narrow
opening in all the coast, and it is by following that little channel
that we have made our way hither. England, I fear, has suffered
grievously by the late catastrophe. Not only has Malta been entirely
lost, but of the Ionian Islands that were under England’s protection,
there seems to be but little left.”

“Ay, you may depend upon it,” said Servadac, breaking in upon the
conversation petulantly, “your grand resident lord high commissioner has
not much to congratulate himself about in the condition of Corfu.”

The Englishmen were mystified.

“Corfu, did you say?” asked Major Oliphant.

“Yes, Corfu; I said Corfu,” replied Servadac, with a sort of malicious
triumph.

The officers were speechless with astonishment.

The silence of bewilderment was broken at length by Count Timascheff
making inquiry whether nothing had been heard from England, either by
telegraph or by any passing ship.

“No,” said the colonel; “not a ship has passed; and the cable is
broken.”

“But do not the Italian telegraphs assist you?” continued the count.

“Italian! I do not comprehend you. You must mean the Spanish, surely.”

“How?” demanded Timascheff.

“Confound it!” cried the impatient Servadac. “What matters whether it be
Spanish or Italian? Tell us, have you had no communication at all from
Europe?--no news of any sort from London?”

“Hitherto, none whatever,” replied the colonel; adding with a stately
emphasis, “but we shall be sure to have tidings from England before
long.”

“Whether England is still in existence or not, I suppose,” said
Servadac, in a tone of irony.

The Englishmen started simultaneously to their feet.

“England in existence?” the colonel cried. “England! Ten times more
probable that France--”

“France!” shouted Servadac in a passion. “France is not an island that
can be submerged; France is an integral portion of a solid continent.
France, at least, is safe.”

A scene appeared inevitable, and Count Timascheff’s efforts to
conciliate the excited parties were of small avail.

“You are at home here,” said Servadac, with as much calmness as he
could command; “it will be advisable, I think, for this discussion to
be carried on in the open air.” And hurriedly he left the room. Followed
immediately by the others, he led the way to a level piece of ground,
which he considered he might fairly claim as neutral territory.

“Now, gentlemen,” he began haughtily, “permit me to represent that,
in spite of any loss France may have sustained in the fate of Algeria,
France is ready to answer any provocation that affects her honor. Here I
am the representative of my country, and here, on neutral ground--”

“Neutral ground?” objected Colonel Murphy; “I beg your pardon. This,
Captain Servadac, is English territory. Do you not see the English
flag?” and, as he spoke, he pointed with national pride to the British
standard floating over the top of the island.

“Pshaw!” cried Servadac, with a contemptuous sneer; “that flag, you
know, has been hoisted but a few short weeks.”

“That flag has floated where it is for ages,” asserted the colonel.

“An imposture!” shouted Servadac, as he stamped with rage.

Recovering his composure in a degree, he continued: “Can you suppose
that I am not aware that this island on which we find you is what
remains of the Ionian representative republic, over which you English
exercise the right of protection, but have no claim of government?”

The colonel and the major looked at each other in amazement.

Although Count Timascheff secretly sympathized with Servadac, he had
carefully refrained from taking part in the dispute; but he was on
the point of interfering, when the colonel, in a greatly subdued tone,
begged to be allowed to speak.

“I begin to apprehend,” he said, “that you must be laboring under some
strange mistake. There is no room for questioning that the territory
here is England’s--England’s by right of conquest; ceded to England
by the Treaty of Utrecht. Three times, indeed--in 1727, 1779, and
1792--France and Spain have disputed our title, but always to no
purpose. You are, I assure you, at the present moment, as much on
English soil as if you were in London, in the middle of Trafalgar
Square.”

It was now the turn of the captain and the count to look surprised. “Are
we not, then, in Corfu?” they asked.

“You are at Gibraltar,” replied the colonel.

Gibraltar! The word fell like a thunderclap upon their ears. Gibraltar!
the western extremity of the Mediterranean! Why, had they not been
sailing persistently to the east? Could they be wrong in imagining that
they had reached the Ionian Islands? What new mystery was this?

Count Timascheff was about to proceed with a more rigorous
investigation, when the attention of all was arrested by a loud outcry.
Turning round, they saw that the crew of the _Dobryna_ was in hot
dispute with the English soldiers. A general altercation had arisen
from a disagreement between the sailor Panofka and Corporal Pim. It had
transpired that the cannon-ball fired in experiment from the island
had not only damaged one of the spars of the schooner, but had broken
Panofka’s pipe, and, moreover, had just grazed his nose, which, for a
Russian’s, was unusually long. The discussion over this mishap led to
mutual recriminations, till the sailors had almost come to blows with
the garrison.

Servadac was just in the mood to take Panofka’s part, which drew from
Major Oliphant the remark that England could not be held responsible for
any accidental injury done by her cannon, and if the Russian’s long nose
came in the way of the ball, the Russian must submit to the mischance.

This was too much for Count Timascheff, and having poured out a torrent
of angry invective against the English officers, he ordered his crew to
embark immediately.

“We shall meet again,” said Servadac, as they pushed off from shore.

“Whenever you please,” was the cool reply.

The geographical mystery haunted the minds of both the count and the
captain, and they felt they could never rest till they had ascertained
what had become of their respective countries. They were glad to be on
board again, that they might resume their voyage of investigation,
and in two hours were out of sight of the sole remaining fragment of
Gibraltar.



CHAPTER XV. AN ENIGMA FROM THE SEA


Lieutenant Procope had been left on board in charge of the _Dobryna_,
and on resuming the voyage it was a task of some difficulty to make him
understand the fact that had just come to light. Some hours were spent
in discussion and in attempting to penetrate the mysteries of the
situation.

There were certain things of which they were perfectly certain. They
could be under no misapprehension as to the distance they had positively
sailed from Gourbi Island towards the east before their further progress
was arrested by the unknown shore; as nearly as possible that was
fifteen degrees; the length of the narrow strait by which they had made
their way across that land to regain the open sea was about three miles
and a half; thence onward to the island, which they had been assured,
on evidence that they could not disbelieve, to be upon the site of
Gibraltar, was four degrees; while from Gibraltar to Gourbi Island was
seven degrees or but little more. What was it altogether? Was it not
less than thirty degrees? In that latitude, the degree of longitude
represents eight and forty miles. What, then, did it all amount to?
Indubitably, to less than 1,400 miles. So brief a voyage would bring the
_Dobryna_ once again to her starting-point, or, in other words, would
enable her to complete the circumnavigation of the globe. How changed
the condition of things! Previously, to sail from Malta to Gibraltar by
an eastward course would have involved the passage of the Suez Canal,
the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific, the Atlantic; but what had
happened now? Why, Gibraltar had been reached as if it had been just at
Corfu, and some three hundred and thirty degrees of the earth’s circuit
had vanished utterly.

After allowing for a certain margin of miscalculation, the main fact
remained undeniable; and the necessary inference that Lieutenant Procope
drew from the round of the earth being completed in 1,400 miles, was
that the earth’s diameter had been reduced by about fifteen sixteenths
of its length.

“If that be so,” observed the count, “it accounts for some of the
strange phenomena we witness. If our world has become so insignificant a
spheroid, not only has its gravity diminished, but its rotary speed has
been accelerated; and this affords an adequate explanation of our days
and nights being thus curtailed. But how about the new orbit in which we
are moving?”

He paused and pondered, and then looked at Procope as though awaiting
from him some further elucidation of the difficulty. The lieutenant
hesitated. When, in a few moments, he began to speak, Servadac smiled
intelligently, anticipating the answer he was about to hear.

“My conjecture is,” said Procope, “that a fragment of considerable
magnitude has been detached from the earth; that it has carried with
it an envelope of the earth’s atmosphere, and that it is now traveling
through the solar system in an orbit that does not correspond at all
with the proper orbit of the earth.”

The hypothesis was plausible; but what a multitude of bewildering
speculations it entailed! If, in truth, a certain mass had been broken
off from the terrestrial sphere, whither would it wend its way? What
would be the measure of the eccentricity of its path? What would be its
period round the sun? Might it not, like a comet, be carried away into
the vast infinity of space? or, on the other hand, might it not be
attracted to the great central source of light and heat, and be absorbed
in it? Did its orbit correspond with the orbit of the ecliptic? and was
there no chance of its ever uniting again with the globe, from which it
had been torn off by so sudden and violent a disruption?

A thoughtful silence fell upon them all, which Servadac was the first
to break. “Lieutenant,” he said, “your explanation is ingenious, and
accounts for many appearances; but it seems to me that in one point it
fails.”

“How so?” replied Procope. “To my mind the theory meets all objections.”

“I think not,” Servadac answered. “In one point, at least, it appears to
me to break down completely.”

“What is that?” asked the lieutenant.

“Stop a moment,” said the captain. “Let us see that we understand each
other right. Unless I mistake you, your hypothesis is that a fragment of
the earth, comprising the Mediterranean and its shores from Gibraltar
to Malta, has been developed into a new asteroid, which is started on an
independent orbit in the solar regions. Is not that your meaning?”

“Precisely so,” the lieutenant acquiesced.

“Well, then,” continued Servadac, “it seems to me to be at fault in this
respect: it fails, and fails completely, to account for the geological
character of the land that we have found now encompassing this sea. Why,
if the new land is a fragment of the old--why does it not retain its old
formation? What has become of the granite and the calcareous deposits?
How is it that these should all be changed into a mineral concrete with
which we have no acquaintance?”

No doubt, it was a serious objection; for, however likely it might be
that a mass of the earth on being detached would be eccentric in its
movements, there was no probable reason to be alleged why the material
of its substance should undergo so complete a change. There was nothing
to account for the fertile shores, rich in vegetation, being transformed
into rocks arid and barren beyond precedent.

The lieutenant felt the difficulty, and owned himself unprepared to give
at once an adequate solution; nevertheless, he declined to renounce his
theory. He asserted that the arguments in favor of it carried conviction
to his mind, and that he entertained no doubt but that, in the course of
time, all apparently antagonistic circumstances would be explained so as
to become consistent with the view he took. He was careful, however,
to make it understood that with respect to the original cause of
the disruption he had no theory to offer; and although he knew what
expansion might be the result of subterranean forces, he did not venture
to say that he considered it sufficient to produce so tremendous an
effect. The origin of the catastrophe was a problem still to be solved.

“Ah! well,” said Servadac, “I don’t know that it matters much where our
new little planet comes from, or what it is made of, if only it carries
France along with it.”

“And Russia,” added the count.

“And Russia, of course,” said Servadac, with a polite bow.

There was, however, not much room for this sanguine expectation, for if
a new asteroid had thus been brought into existence, it must be a sphere
of extremely limited dimensions, and there could be little chance that
it embraced more than the merest fraction of either France or Russia. As
to England, the total cessation of all telegraphic communication between
her shores and Gibraltar was a virtual proof that England was beyond its
compass.

And what was the true measurement of the new little world? At Gourbi
Island the days and nights were of equal length, and this seemed to
indicate that it was situated on the equator; hence the distance by
which the two poles stood apart would be half what had been reckoned
would be the distance completed by the _Dobryna_ in her circuit. That
distance had been already estimated to be something under 1,400 miles,
so that the Arctic Pole of their recently fashioned world must be about
350 miles to the north, and the Antarctic about 350 miles to the south
of the island. Compare these calculations with the map, and it is at
once apparent that the northernmost limit barely touched the coast of
Provence, while the southernmost reached to about lat. 20 degrees
N., and fell in the heart of the desert. The practical test of these
conclusions would be made by future investigation, but meanwhile
the fact appeared very much to strengthen the presumption that, if
Lieutenant Procope had not arrived at the whole truth, he had made a
considerable advance towards it.

The weather, ever since the storm that had driven the _Dobryna_ into the
creek, had been magnificent. The wind continued favorable, and now under
both steam and canvas, she made a rapid progress towards the north,
a direction in which she was free to go in consequence of the total
disappearance of the Spanish coast, from Gibraltar right away to
Alicante. Malaga, Almeria, Cape Gata, Carthagena. Cape Palos--all were
gone. The sea was rolling over the southern extent of the peninsula, so
that the yacht advanced to the latitude of Seville before it sighted any
land at all, and then, not shores such as the shores of Andalusia, but
a bluff and precipitous cliff, in its geological features resembling
exactly the stern and barren rock that she had coasted beyond the site
of Malta. Here the sea made a decided indentation on the coast; it ran
up in an acute-angled triangle till its apex coincided with the very
spot upon which Madrid had stood. But as hitherto the sea had encroached
upon the land, the land in its turn now encroached upon the sea; for a
frowning headland stood out far into the basin of the Mediterranean,
and formed a promontory stretching out beyond the proper places of
the Balearic Isles. Curiosity was all alive. There was the intensest
interest awakened to determine whether no vestige could be traced of
Majorca, Minorca, or any of the group, and it was during a deviation
from the direct course for the purpose of a more thorough scrutiny, that
one of the sailors raised a thrill of general excitement by shouting, “A
bottle in the sea!”

Here, then, at length was a communication from the outer world. Surely
now they would find a document which would throw some light upon all the
mysteries that had happened? Had not the day now dawned that should set
their speculations all at rest?

It was the morning of the 21st of February. The count, the captain,
the lieutenant, everybody hurried to the forecastle; the schooner was
dexterously put about, and all was eager impatience until the supposed
bottle was hauled on deck.

It was not, however, a bottle; it proved to be a round leather
telescope-case, about a foot long, and the first thing to do before
investigating its contents was to make a careful examination of its
exterior. The lid was fastened on by wax, and so securely that it would
take a long immersion before any water could penetrate; there was no
maker’s name to be deciphered; but impressed very plainly with a seal on
the wax were the two initials “P. R.”

When the scrutiny of the outside was finished, the wax was removed and
the cover opened, and the lieutenant drew out a slip of ruled paper,
evidently torn from a common note-book. The paper had an inscription
written in four lines, which were remarkable for the profusion of notes
of admiration and interrogation with which they were interspersed:

     “Gallia???
     _Ab sole_, au 15 fev. 59,000,000 l.!
     Chemin parcouru de janv. a fev. 82,000,000 l.!!
     _Va bene! All right!!_ Parfait!!!”

There was a general sigh of disappointment. They turned the paper over
and over, and handed it from one to another. “What does it all mean?”
 exclaimed the count.

“Something mysterious here!” said Servadac. “But yet,” he continued,
after a pause, “one thing is tolerably certain: on the 15th, six days
ago, someone was alive to write it.”

“Yes; I presume there is no reason to doubt the accuracy of the date,”
 assented the count.

To this strange conglomeration of French, English, Italian, and Latin,
there was no signature attached; nor was there anything to give a
clue as to the locality in which it had been committed to the waves.
A telescope-case would probably be the property of some one on board
a ship; and the figures obviously referred to the astronomical wonders
that had been experienced.

To these general observations Captain Servadac objected that he thought
it unlikely that any one on board a ship would use a telescope-case for
this purpose, but would be sure to use a bottle as being more secure;
and, accordingly, he should rather be inclined to believe that the
message had been set afloat by some _savant_ left alone, perchance, upon
some isolated coast.

“But, however interesting it might be,” observed the count, “to know
the author of the lines, to us it is of far greater moment to ascertain
their meaning.”

And taking up the paper again, he said, “Perhaps we might analyze it
word by word, and from its detached parts gather some clue to its sense
as a whole.”

“What can be the meaning of all that cluster of interrogations after
Gallia?” asked Servadac.

Lieutenant Procope, who had hitherto not spoken, now broke his silence
by saying, “I beg, gentlemen, to submit my opinion that this document
goes very far to confirm my hypothesis that a fragment of the earth has
been precipitated into space.”

Captain Servadac hesitated, and then replied, “Even if it does, I do not
see how it accounts in the least for the geological character of the new
asteroid.”

“But will you allow me for one minute to take my supposition for
granted?” said Procope. “If a new little planet has been formed, as I
imagine, by disintegration from the old, I should conjecture that Gallia
is the name assigned to it by the writer of this paper. The very notes
of interrogation are significant that he was in doubt what he should
write.”

“You would presume that he was a Frenchman?” asked the count.

“I should think so,” replied the lieutenant.

“Not much doubt about that,” said Servadac; “it is all in French,
except a few scattered words of English, Latin, and Italian, inserted to
attract attention. He could not tell into whose hands the message would
fall first.”

“Well, then,” said Count Timascheff, “we seem to have found a name for
the new world we occupy.”

“But what I was going especially to observe,” continued the lieutenant,
“is that the distance, 59,000,000 leagues, represents precisely the
distance we ourselves were from the sun on the 15th. It was on that day
we crossed the orbit of Mars.”

“Yes, true,” assented the others.

“And the next line,” said the lieutenant, after reading it aloud,
“apparently registers the distance traversed by Gallia, the new little
planet, in her own orbit. Her speed, of course, we know by Kepler’s
laws, would vary according to her distance from the sun, and if she
were--as I conjecture from the temperature at that date--on the 15th of
January at her perihelion, she would be traveling twice as fast as the
earth, which moves at the rate of between 50,000 and 60,000 miles an
hour.”

“You think, then,” said Servadac, with a smile, “you have determined
the perihelion of our orbit; but how about the aphelion? Can you form a
judgment as to what distance we are likely to be carried?”

“You are asking too much,” remonstrated the count.

“I confess,” said the lieutenant, “that just at present I am not able to
clear away the uncertainty of the future; but I feel confident that by
careful observation at various points we shall arrive at conclusions
which not only will determine our path, but perhaps may clear up the
mystery about our geological structure.”

“Allow me to ask,” said Count Timascheff, “whether such a new asteroid
would not be subject to ordinary mechanical laws, and whether, once
started, it would not have an orbit that must be immutable?”

“Decidedly it would, so long as it was undisturbed by the attraction
of some considerable body; but we must recollect that, compared to the
great planets, Gallia must be almost infinitesimally small, and so might
be attracted by a force that is irresistible.”

“Altogether, then,” said Servadac, “we seem to have settled it to our
entire satisfaction that we must be the population of a young little
world called Gallia. Perhaps some day we may have the honor of being
registered among the minor planets.”

“No chance of that,” quickly rejoined Lieutenant Procope. “Those minor
planets all are known to rotate in a narrow zone between the orbits of
Mars and Jupiter; in their perihelia they cannot approximate the sun as
we have done; we shall not be classed with them.”

“Our lack of instruments,” said the count, “is much to be deplored; it
baffles our investigations in every way.”

“Ah, never mind! Keep up your courage, count!” said Servadac, cheerily.

And Lieutenant Procope renewed his assurances that he entertained good
hopes that every perplexity would soon be solved.

“I suppose,” remarked the count, “that we cannot attribute much
importance to the last line: _‘Va bene! All right!!_ Parfait!!!’”

The captain answered, “At least, it shows that whoever wrote it had no
murmuring or complaint to make, but was quite content with the new order
of things.”



CHAPTER XVI. THE RESIDUUM OF A CONTINENT


Almost unconsciously, the voyagers in the _Dobryna_ fell into the habit
of using Gallia as the name of the new world in which they became aware
they must be making an extraordinary excursion through the realms
of space. Nothing, however, was allowed to divert them from their
ostensible object of making a survey of the coast of the Mediterranean,
and accordingly they persevered in following that singular boundary
which had revealed itself to their extreme astonishment.

Having rounded the great promontory that had barred her farther progress
to the north, the schooner skirted its upper edge. A few more leagues
and they ought to be abreast of the shores of France. Yes, of France.

But who shall describe the feelings of Hector Servadac when, instead of
the charming outline of his native land, he beheld nothing but a solid
boundary of savage rock? Who shall paint the look of consternation with
which he gazed upon the stony rampart--rising perpendicularly for a
thousand feet--that had replaced the shores of the smiling south? Who
shall reveal the burning anxiety with which he throbbed to see beyond
that cruel wall?

But there seemed no hope. Onwards and onwards the yacht made her way,
and still no sign of France. It might have been supposed that Servadac’s
previous experiences would have prepared him for the discovery that the
catastrophe which had overwhelmed other sites had brought destruction
to his own country as well. But he had failed to realize how it might
extend to France; and when now he was obliged with his own eyes to
witness the waves of ocean rolling over what once had been the lovely
shores of Provence, he was well-nigh frantic with desperation.

“Am I to believe that Gourbi Island, that little shred of Algeria,
constitutes all that is left of our glorious France? No, no; it cannot
be. Not yet have we reached the pole of our new world. There is--there
must be--something more behind that frowning rock. Oh, that for a moment
we could scale its towering height and look beyond! By Heaven, I adjure
you, let us disembark, and mount the summit and explore! France lies
beyond.”

Disembarkation, however, was an utter impossibility. There was no
semblance of a creek in which the _Dobryna_ could find an anchorage.
There was no outlying ridge on which a footing could be gained. The
precipice was perpendicular as a wall, its topmost height crowned with
the same conglomerate of crystallized lamellae that had all along been
so pronounced a feature.

With her steam at high pressure, the yacht made rapid progress towards
the east. The weather remained perfectly fine, the temperature
became gradually cooler, so that there was little prospect of vapors
accumulating in the atmosphere; and nothing more than a few cirri,
almost transparent, veiled here and there the clear azure of the sky.
Throughout the day the pale rays of the sun, apparently lessened in its
magnitude, cast only faint and somewhat uncertain shadows; but at night
the stars shone with surpassing brilliancy. Of the planets, some, it was
observed, seemed to be fading away in remote distance. This was the case
with Mars, Venus, and that unknown orb which was moving in the orbit of
the minor planets; but Jupiter, on the other hand, had assumed splendid
proportions; Saturn was superb in its luster, and Uranus, which hitherto
had been imperceptible without a telescope was pointed out by
Lieutenant Procope, plainly visible to the naked eye. The inference was
irresistible that Gallia was receding from the sun, and traveling far
away across the planetary regions.

On the 24th of February, after following the sinuous course of what
before the date of the convulsion had been the coast line of the
department of Var, and after a fruitless search for Hyeres, the
peninsula of St. Tropez, the Lerius Islands, and the gulfs of Cannes and
Jouar, the _Dobryna_ arrived upon the site of the Cape of Antibes.

Here, quite unexpectedly, the explorers made the discovery that the
massive wall of cliff had been rent from the top to the bottom by a
narrow rift, like the dry bed of a mountain torrent, and at the base of
the opening, level with the sea, was a little strand upon which there
was just space enough for their boat to be hauled up.

“Joy! joy!” shouted Servadac, half beside himself with ecstasy; “we can
land at last!”

Count Timascheff and the lieutenant were scarcely less impatient than
the captain, and little needed his urgent and repeated solicitations:
“Come on! Quick! Come on! no time to lose!”

It was half-past seven in the morning, when they set their foot upon
this untried land. The bit of strand was only a few square yards in
area, quite a narrow strip. Upon it might have been recognized
some fragments of that agglutination of yellow limestone which is
characteristic of the coast of Provence. But the whole party was far
too eager to wait and examine these remnants of the ancient shore; they
hurried on to scale the heights.

The narrow ravine was not only perfectly dry, but manifestly had never
been the bed of any mountain torrent. The rocks that rested at the
bottom--just as those which formed its sides--were of the same lamellous
formation as the entire coast, and had not hitherto been subject to the
disaggregation which the lapse of time never fails to work. A skilled
geologist would probably have been able to assign them their proper
scientific classification, but neither Servadac, Timascheff, nor
the lieutenant could pretend to any acquaintance with their specific
character.

Although, however, the bottom of the chasm had never as yet been the
channel of a stream, indications were not wanting that at some future
time it would be the natural outlet of accumulated waters; for already,
in many places, thin layers of snow were glittering upon the surface of
the fractured rocks, and the higher the elevation that was gained, the
more these layers were found to increase in area and in depth.

“Here is a trace of fresh water, the first that Gallia has exhibited,”
 said the count to his companions, as they toiled up the precipitous
path.

“And probably,” replied the lieutenant, “as we ascend we shall find not
only snow but ice. We must suppose this Gallia of ours to be a sphere,
and if it is so, we must now be very close to her Arctic regions; it is
true that her axis is not so much inclined as to prolong day and night
as at the poles of the earth, but the rays of the sun must reach us here
only very obliquely, and the cold, in all likelihood, will be intense.”

“So cold, do you think,” asked Servadac, “that animal life must be
extinct?”

“I do not say that, captain,” answered the lieutenant; “for, however
far our little world may be removed from the sun, I do not see why its
temperature should fall below what prevails in those outlying regions
beyond our system where sky and air are not.” “And what temperature may
that be?” inquired the captain with a shudder.

“Fourier estimates that even in those vast unfathomable tracts, the
temperature never descends lower than 60 degrees,” said Procope.

“Sixty! Sixty degrees below zero!” cried the count. “Why, there’s not a
Russian could endure it!”

“I beg your pardon, count. It is placed on record that the English
_have_ survived it, or something quite approximate, upon their Arctic
expeditions. When Captain Parry was on Melville Island, he knew the
thermometer to fall to 56 degrees,” said Procope.

As the explorers advanced, they seemed glad to pause from time to time,
that they might recover their breath; for the air, becoming more and
more rarefied, made respiration somewhat difficult and the ascent
fatiguing. Before they had reached an altitude of 600 feet they noticed
a sensible diminution of the temperature; but neither cold nor fatigue
deterred them, and they were resolved to persevere. Fortunately, the
deep striae or furrows in the surface of the rocks that made the bottom
of the ravine in some degree facilitated their progress, but it was not
until they had been toiling up for two hours more that they succeeded in
reaching the summit of the cliff.

Eagerly and anxiously did they look around. To the south there was
nothing but the sea they had traversed; to the north, nothing but one
drear, inhospitable stretch.

Servadac could not suppress a cry of dismay. Where was his beloved
France? Had he gained this arduous height only to behold the rocks
carpeted with ice and snow, and reaching interminably to the far-off
horizon? His heart sank within him.

The whole region appeared to consist of nothing but the same strange,
uniform mineral conglomerate, crystallized into regular hexagonal
prisms. But whatever was its geological character, it was only too
evident that it had entirely replaced the former soil, so that not a
vestige of the old continent of Europe could be discerned. The
lovely scenery of Provence, with the grace of its rich and undulating
landscape; its gardens of citrons and oranges rising tier upon tier
from the deep red soil--all, all had vanished. Of the vegetable kingdom,
there was not a single representative; the most meager of Arctic plants,
the most insignificant of lichens, could obtain no hold upon that stony
waste. Nor did the animal world assert the feeblest sway. The mineral
kingdom reigned supreme.

Captain Servadac’s deep dejection was in strange contrast to his general
hilarity. Silent and tearful, he stood upon an ice-bound rock, straining
his eyes across the boundless vista of the mysterious territory. “It
cannot be!” he exclaimed. “We must somehow have mistaken our bearings.
True, we have encountered this barrier; but France is there beyond! Yes,
France is _there!_ Come, count, come! By all that’s pitiful, I entreat
you, come and explore the farthest verge of the ice-bound track!”

He pushed onwards along the rugged surface of the rock, but had not
proceeded far before he came to a sudden pause. His foot had come in
contact with something hard beneath the snow, and, stooping down, he
picked up a little block of stony substance, which the first glance
revealed to be of a geological character altogether alien to the
universal rocks around. It proved to be a fragment of dis-colored
marble, on which several letters were inscribed, of which the only part
at all decipherable was the syllable “Vil.”

“Vil--Villa!” he cried out, in his excitement dropping the marble, which
was broken into atoms by the fall.

What else could this fragment be but the sole surviving remnant of some
sumptuous mansion that once had stood on this unrivaled site? Was it not
the residue of some edifice that had crowned the luxuriant headland of
Antibes, overlooking Nice, and commanding the gorgeous panorama that
embraced the Maritime Alps and reached beyond Monaco and Mentone to the
Italian height of Bordighera? And did it not give in its sad and too
convincing testimony that Antibes itself had been involved in the great
destruction? Servadac gazed upon the shattered marble, pensive and
disheartened.

Count Timascheff laid his hand kindly on the captain’s shoulder, and
said, “My friend, do you not remember the motto of the old Hope family?”

He shook his head mournfully.

“_Orbe fracto, spes illoesa_,” continued the count--“Though the world be
shattered, hope is unimpaired.”

Servadac smiled faintly

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