Off on a Comet, Jules Verne [10 ebook reader .txt] 📗
- Author: Jules Verne
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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, and replied that he felt rather compelled
to take up the despairing cry of Dante, “All hope abandon,
ye who enter here.”
“Nay, not so,” answered the count; “for the present at least,
let our maxim be Nil desperandum!”
A SECOND ENIGMA
Upon re-embarking, the bewildered explorers began to discuss the question
whether it would not now be desirable to make their way back to Gourbi Island,
which was apparently the only spot in their new world from which they could
hope to derive their future sustenance. Captain Servadac tried to console
himself with the reflection that Gourbi Island was, after all, a fragment
of a French colony, and as such almost like a bit of his dear France;
and the plan of returning thither was on the point of being adopted,
when Lieutenant Procope remarked that they ought to remember that they
had not hitherto made an entire circuit of the new shores of the sea on
which they were sailing.
“We have,” he said, “neither investigated the northern shore from the site
of Cape Antibes to the strait that brought us to Gibraltar, nor have we
followed the southern shore that stretches from the strait to the Gulf
of Cabes. It is the old coast, and not the new, that we have been tracing;
as yet, we cannot say positively that there is no outlet to the south;
as yet, we cannot assert that no oasis of the African desert has escaped
the catastrophe. Perhaps, even here in the north, we may find that
Italy and Sicily and the larger islands of the Mediterranean may still
maintain their existence.”
“I entirely concur with you,” said Count Timascheff.
“I quite think we ought to make our survey of the confines
of this new basin as complete as possible before we withdraw.”
Servadac, although he acknowledged the justness of these observations,
could not help pleading that the explorations might be deferred until
after a visit had been paid to Gourbi Island.
“Depend upon it, captain, you are mistaken,” replied the lieutenant;”
the right thing to do is to use the Dobryna while she is available.”
“Available! What do you mean?” asked the count, somewhat taken by surprise.
“I mean,” said Procope, “that the farther this Gallia of ours
recedes from the sun, the lower the temperature will fall.
It is likely enough, I think, that before long the sea
will be frozen over, and navigation will be impossible.
Already you have learned something of the difficulties of
traversing a field of ice, and I am sure, therefore, you will
acquiesce in my wish to continue our explorations while the water
is still open.”
“No doubt you are right, lieutenant,” said the count.
“We will continue our search while we can for some remaining
fragment of Europe. Who shall tell whether we may not meet
with some more survivors from the catastrophe, to whom it
might be in our power to afford assistance, before we go into
our winter quarters?”
Generous and altogether unselfish as this sentiment really was,
it was obviously to the general interest that they should
become acquainted, and if possible establish friendly relations,
with any human inhabitant who might be sharing their own strange
destiny in being rolled away upon a new planet into the infinitude
of space. All difference of race, all distinction of nationality,
must be merged into the one thought that, few as they were,
they were the sole surviving representatives of a world which it
seemed exceedingly improbable that they would ever see again;
and common sense dictated that they were bound to direct all
their energies to insure that their asteroid should at least
have a united and sympathizing population.
It was on the 25th of February that the yacht left the little
creek in which she had taken refuge, and setting off at full
steam eastwards, she continued her way along the northern shore.
A brisk breeze tended to increase the keenness of the temperature,
the thermometer being, on an average, about two degrees below zero.
Salt water freezes only at a lower temperature than fresh;
the course of the Dobryna was therefore unimpeded by ice,
but it could not be concealed that there was the greatest necessity
to maintain the utmost possible speed.
The nights continued lovely; the chilled condition of the atmosphere
prevented the formation of clouds; the constellations gleamed
forth with unsullied luster; and, much as Lieutenant Procope,
from nautical considerations, might regret the absence of the moon,
he could not do otherwise than own that the magnificent nights
of Gallia were such as must awaken the enthusiasm of an astronomer.
And, as if to compensate for the loss of the moonlight,
the heavens were illuminated by a superb shower of falling stars,
far exceeding, both in number and in brilliancy, the phenomena
which are commonly distinguished as the August and November meteors;
in fact, Gallia was passing through that meteoric ring which is known
to lie exterior to the earth’s orbit, but almost concentric with it.
The rocky coast, its metallic surface reflecting the glow of
the dazzling luminaries, appeared literally stippled with light,
whilst the sea, as though spattered with burning hailstones,
shone with a phosphorescence that was perfectly splendid.
So great, however, was the speed at which Gallia was receding
from the sun, that this meteoric storm lasted scarcely more than
four and twenty hours.
Next day the direct progress of the Dobryna was arrested by a
long projection of land, which obliged her to turn southwards,
until she reached what formerly would have been the southern
extremity of Corsica. Of this, however, there was now no trace;
the Strait of Boni-facio had been replaced by a vast expanse of water,
which had at first all the appearance of being utterly desert;
but on the following morning the explorers unexpectedly sighted
a little island, which, unless it should prove, as was only too likely,
to be of recent origin they concluded, from its situation,
must be a portion of the northernmost territory of Sardinia.
The Dobryna approached the land as nearly as was prudent,
the boat was lowered, and in a few minutes the count and Servadac
had landed upon the islet, which was a mere plot of meadow land,
not much more than two acres in extent, dotted here and there with a few
myrtle-bushes and lentisks, interspersed with some ancient olives.
Having ascertained, as they imagined, that the spot was devoid of
living creature, they were on the point of returning to their boat,
when their attention was arrested by a faint bleating, and immediately
afterwards a solitary she-goat came bounding towards the shore.
The creature had dark, almost black hair, and small curved horns,
and was a specimen of that domestic breed which, with considerable
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