Off on a Comet, Jules Verne [10 ebook reader .txt] 📗

growling savagely,

“Pay me you shall; yes, by the God of Abraham, you shall pay me.”

 

“A Jew!” exclaimed Servadac.

 

“Ay, sir, a German Jew,” said Ben Zoof.

 

The party was on the point of entering the thicket, when a singular

spectacle made them pause. A group of Spaniards had just begun

dancing their national fandango, and the extraordinary lightness

which had become the physical property of every object in

the new planet made the dancers bound to a height of thirty feet

or more into the air, considerably above the tops of the trees.

What followed was irresistibly comic. Four sturdy majos had

dragged along with them an old man incapable of resistance,

and compelled him, nolens volens, to join in the dance;

and as they all kept appearing and disappearing above the bank

of foliage, their grotesque attitudes, combined with the pitiable

countenance of their helpless victim, could not do otherwise

than recall most forcibly the story of Sancho Panza tossed

in a blanket by the merry drapers of Segovia.

 

Servadac, the count, Procope, and Ben Zoof now proceeded to make their

way through the thicket until they came to a little glade, where two

men were stretched idly on the grass, one of them playing the guitar,

and the other a pair of castanets; both were exploding with laughter, as they

urged the performers to greater and yet greater exertions in the dance.

At the sight of strangers they paused in their music, and simultaneously

the dancers, with their victim, alighted gently on the sward.

 

Breathless and half exhausted as was the Jew, he rushed

with an effort towards Servadac, and exclaimed in French,

marked by a strong Teutonic accent, “Oh, my lord governor,

help me, help! These rascals defraud me of my rights;

they rob me; but, in the name of the God of Israel, I ask you

to see justice done!”

 

The captain glanced inquiringly towards Ben Zoof, and the orderly,

by a significant nod, made his master understand that he was

to play the part that was implied by the title. He took the cue,

and promptly ordered the Jew to hold his tongue at once.

The man bowed his head in servile submission, and folded his hands

upon his breast.

 

Servadac surveyed him leisurely. He was a man of about fifty, but from

his appearance might well have been taken for at least ten years older.

Small and skinny, with eyes bright and cunning, a hooked nose,

a short yellow beard, unkempt hair, huge feet, and long bony hands,

he presented all the typical characteristics of the German Jew,

the heartless, wily usurer, the hardened miser and skinflint.

As iron is attracted by the magnet, so was this Shylock attracted

by the sight of gold, nor would he have hesitated to draw the life-blood

of his creditors, if by such means he could secure his claims.

 

His name was Isaac Hakkabut, and he was a native of Cologne. Nearly the whole

of his time, however, he informed Captain Servadac, had been spent upon

the sea, his real business being that of a merchant trading at all the ports

of the Mediterranean. A tartan, a small vessel of two hundred tons burden,

conveyed his entire stock of merchandise, and, to say the truth,

was a sort of floating emporium, conveying nearly every possible article

of commerce, from a lucifer match to the radiant fabrics of Frank-fort

and Epinal. Without wife or children, and having no settled home,

Isaac Hakkabut lived almost entirely on board the Hansa, as he had

named his tartan; and engaging a mate, with a crew of three men,

as being adequate to work so light a craft, he cruised along the coasts

of Algeria, Tunis, Egypt, Turkey, and Greece, visiting, moreover, most of the

harbors of the Levant. Careful to be always well supplied with the products

in most general demand—coffee, sugar, rice, tobacco, cotton stuffs,

and gunpowder—and being at all times ready to barter, and prepared to deal

in sec-ondhand wares, he had contrived to amass considerable wealth.

 

On the eventful night of the 1st of January the Hansa had been at Ceuta,

the point on the coast of Morocco exactly opposite Gibraltar. The mate

and three sailors had all gone on shore, and, in common with many of their

fellow-creatures, had entirely disappeared; but the most projecting rock

of Ceuta had been undisturbed by the general catastrophe, and half a score

of Spaniards, who had happened to be upon it, had escaped with their lives.

They were all Andalusian majos, agricultural laborers, and naturally

as careless and apathetic as men of their class usually are, but they

could not help being very considerably embarrassed when they discovered

that they were left in solitude upon a detached and isolated rock.

They took what mutual counsel they could, but became only more and

more perplexed. One of them was named Negrete, and he, as having traveled

somewhat more than the rest, was tacitly recognized as a sort of leader;

but although he was by far the most enlightened of them all, he was quite

incapable of forming the least conception of the nature of what had occurred.

The one thing upon which they could not fail to be conscious was that they

had no prospect of obtaining provisions, and consequently their first

business was to devise a scheme for getting away from their present abode.

The Hansa was lying off shore. The Spaniards would not have had

the slightest hesitation in summarily taking possession of her, but their

utter ignorance of seamanship made them reluctantly come to the conclusion

that the more prudent policy was to make terms with the owner.

 

And now came a singular part of the story. Negrete and his

companions had meanwhile received a visit from two English officers

from Gibraltar. What passed between them the Jew did not know;

he only knew that, immediately after the conclusion of the interview,

Negrete came to him and ordered him to set sail at once

for the nearest point of Morocco. The Jew, afraid to disobey,

but with his eye ever upon the main chance, stipulated that at

the end of their voyage the Spaniards should pay for their passage—

terms to which, as they would to any other, they did not demur,

knowing that they had not the slightest intention of giving him

a single real.

 

The Hansa had weighed anchor on the 3rd of February. The wind blew

from the west, and consequently the working of the tartan was easy enough.

The unpracticed sailors had only to hoist their sails and, though they

were quite unconscious of the fact, the breeze carried them to the only spot

upon the little world they occupied which could afford them a refuge.

 

Thus it fell out that one morning Ben Zoof, from his lookout on Gourbi Island,

saw a ship, not the Dobryna, appear upon the horizon, and make quietly

down towards what had formerly been the right bank of the Shelif.

 

Such was Ben Zoof’s version of what had occurred, as he had gathered

it from the new-comers. He wound up his recital by remarking

that the cargo of the Hansa would be of immense service to them;

he expected, indeed, that Isaac Hakkabut would be difficult to manage,

but considered there could be no harm in appropriating the goods

for the common welfare, since there could be no opportunity now

for selling them.

 

Ben Zoof added, “And as to the difficulties between the Jew

and his passengers, I told him that the governor general

was absent on a tour of inspection, and that he would see

everything equitably settled.”

 

Smiling at his orderly’s tactics, Servadac turned to Hakkabut,

and told him that he would take care that his claims should

be duly investigated and all proper demands should be paid.

The man appeared satisfied, and, for the time at least,

desisted from his complaints and importunities.

 

When the Jew had retired, Count Timascheff asked, “But how in the world

can you ever make those fellows pay anything?”

 

“They have lots of money,” said Ben Zoof.

 

“Not likely,” replied the count; “when did you ever know Spaniards

like them to have lots of money?”

 

“But I have seen it myself,” said Ben Zoof; “and it is English money.”

 

“English money!” echoed Servadac; and his mind again

reverted to the excursion made by the colonel and the major

from Gibraltar, about which they had been so reticent.

“We must inquire more about this,” he said.

 

Then, addressing Count Timascheff, he added, “Altogether, I

think the countries of Europe are fairly represented by the

population of Gallia.”

 

“True, captain,” answered the count; “we have only a fragment

of a world, but it contains natives of France, Russia, Italy, Spain,

and England. Even Germany may be said to have a representative

in the person of this miserable Jew.”

 

“And even in him,” said Servadac, “perhaps we shall not find so indifferent

a representative as we at present imagine.”