Off on a Comet, Jules Verne [10 ebook reader .txt] 📗
- Author: Jules Verne
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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?
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 chessboard.
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 chessboard, 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
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