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

CHAPTER XX

A LIGHT ON THE HORIZON

 

On the following day, without giving himself any further concern about

the Jew’s incredulity, the captain gave orders for the Hansa to be

shifted round to the harbor of the Shelif. Hakkabut raised no objection,

not only because he was aware that the move insured the immediate

safety of his tartan, but because he was secretly entertaining the hope

that he might entice away two or three of the Dobryna’s crew and make

his escape to Algiers or some other port.

 

Operations now commenced for preparing proper winter quarters.

Spaniards and Russians alike joined heartily in the work,

the diminution of atmospheric pressure and of the force

of attraction contributing such an increase to their muscular

force as materially facilitated all their labors.

 

The first business was to accommodate the building adjacent to

the gourbi to the wants of the little colony. Here for the present

the Spaniards were lodged, the Russians retaining their berths upon

the yacht, while the Jew was permitted to pass his nights upon

the Hansa. This arrangement, however, could be only temporary.

The time could not be far distant when ships’ sides and ordinary

walls would fail to give an adequate protection from the severity

of the cold that must be expected; the stock of fuel was too limited

to keep up a permanent supply of heat in their present quarters,

and consequently they must be driven to seek some other refuge,

the internal temperature of which would at least be bearable.

 

The plan that seemed to commend itself most to their consideration was,

that they should dig out for themselves some subterraneous pits similar

to “silos,” such as are used as receptacles for grain. They presumed

that when the surface of Gallia should be covered by a thick layer of ice,

which is a bad conductor of heat, a sufficient amount of warmth for

animal vitality might still be retained in excavations of this kind.

After a long consultation they failed to devise any better expedient,

and were forced to resign themselves to this species of troglodyte existence.

 

In one respect they congratulated themselves that they should be better

off than many of the whalers in the polar seas, for as it is impossible

to get below the surface of a frozen ocean, these adventurers have

to seek refuge in huts of wood and snow erected on their ships,

which at best can give but slight protection from extreme cold;

but here, with a solid subsoil, the Gallians might hope to dig down

a hundred feet or so and secure for themselves a shelter that would

enable them to brave the hardest severity of climate.

 

The order, then, was at once given. The work was commenced.

A stock of shovels, mattocks, and pick-axes was brought from

the gourbi, and with Ben Zoof as overseer, both Spanish majos

and Russian sailors set to work with a will.

 

It was not long, however, before a discovery, more unexpected than agreeable,

suddenly arrested their labors. The spot chosen for the excavation was

a little to the right of the gourbi, on a slight elevation of the soil.

For the first day everything went on prosperously enough; but at a depth of

eight feet below the surface, the navvies came in contact with a hard surface,

upon which all their tools failed to make the slightest impression.

Servadac and the count were at once apprised of the fact, and had little

difficulty in recognizing the substance that had revealed itself as the very

same which composed the shores as well as the subsoil of the Gallian sea.

It evidently formed the universal substructure of the new asteroid.

Means for hollowing it failed them utterly. Harder and more resisting

than granite, it could not be blasted by ordinary powder; dynamite alone

could suffice to rend it.

 

The disappointment was very great. Unless some means of protection

were speedily devised, death seemed to be staring them in the face.

Were the figures in the mysterious documents correct? If so, Gallia must

now be a hundred millions of leagues from the sun, nearly three times

the distance of the earth at the remotest section of her orbit.

The intensity of the solar light and heat, too, was very seriously

diminishing, although Gourbi Island (being on the equator of an orb

which had its axes always perpendicular to the plane in which it revolved)

enjoyed a position that gave it a permanent summer. But no advantage

of this kind could compensate for the remoteness of the sun.

The temperature fell steadily; already, to the discomfiture of the

little Italian girl, nurtured in sunshine, ice was beginning to form

in the crevices of the rocks, and manifestly the time was impending

when the sea itself would freeze.

 

Some shelter must be found before the temperature should fall to 60 degrees

below zero. Otherwise death was inevitable. Hitherto, for the last few days,

the thermometer had been registering an average of about 6 degrees

below zero, and it had become matter of experience that the stove,

although replenished with all the wood that was available, was altogether

inadequate to effect any sensible mitigation of the severity of the cold.

Nor could any amount of fuel be enough. It was certain that ere long

the very mercury and spirit in the thermometers would be congealed.

Some other resort must assuredly be soon found, or they must perish.

That was clear.

 

The idea of betaking themselves to the Dobryna and Hansa could

not for a moment be seriously entertained; not only did the structure

of the vessels make them utterly insufficient to give substantial shelter,

but they were totally unfitted to be trusted as to their stability

when exposed to the enormous pressure of the accumulated ice.

 

Neither Servadac, nor the count, nor Lieutenant Procope were men to be

easily disheartened, but it could not be concealed that they felt themselves

in circumstances by which they were equally harassed and perplexed.

The sole expedient that their united counsel could suggest was to obtain

a refuge below ground, and that was denied them by the strange and

impenetrable substratum of the soil; yet hour by hour the sun’s disc was

lessening in its dimensions, and although at midday some faint radiance

and glow were to be distinguished, during the night the painfulness

of the cold was becoming almost intolerable.

 

Mounted upon Zephyr and Galette, the captain and the count

scoured the island in search of some available retreat.

Scarcely a yard of ground was left unexplored, the horses clearing

every obstacle as if they were, like Pegasus, furnished with wings.

But all in vain. Soundings were made again and again,

but invariably with the same result; the rock, hard as adamant,

never failed to reveal itself within a few feet of the surface

of the ground.

 

The excavation of any silo being thus manifestly hopeless,

there seemed nothing to be done except to try and render

the buildings alongside the gourbi impervious to frost.

To contribute to the supply of fuel, orders were given to collect

every scrap of wood, dry or green, that the island produced;

and this involved the necessity of felling the numerous trees

that were scattered over the plain. But toil as they might

at the accumulation of firewood, Captain Servadac and his

companions could not resist the conviction that the consumption

of a very short period would exhaust the total stock.

And what would happen then?

 

Studious if possible to conceal his real misgivings, and anxious that

the rest of the party should be affected as little as might be by his

own uneasiness, Servadac would wander alone about the island, racking his

brain for an idea that would point the way out of the serious difficulty.

But still all in vain.

 

One day he suddenly came upon Ben Zoof, and asked him whether he had no

plan to propose. The orderly shook his head, but after a few moments’

pondering, said: “Ah! master, if only we were at Montmartre, we would

get shelter in the charming stone-quarries.”

 

“Idiot!” replied the captain, angrily, “if we were at Montmartre,

you don’t suppose that we should need to live in stone-quarries?”

 

But the means of preservation which human ingenuity had failed to

secure were at hand from the felicitous provision of Nature herself.

It was on the 10th of March that the captain and Lieutenant Procope

started off once more to investigate the northwest corner of the island;

on their way their conversation naturally was engrossed by the subject

of the dire necessities which only too manifestly were awaiting them.

A discussion more than usually animated arose between them, for the two

men were not altogether of the same mind as to the measures that ought

to be adopted in order to open the fairest chance of avoiding a fatal

climax to their exposure; the captain persisted that an entirely new abode

must be sought, while the lieutenant was equally bent upon devising

a method of some sort by which their present quarters might be rendered

sufficiently warm. All at once, in the very heat of his argument,

Procope paused; he passed his hand across his eyes, as if to dispel a mist,

and stood, with a fixed gaze centered on a point towards the south.

“What is that?” he said, with a kind of hesitation. “No, I am not mistaken,”

he added; “it is a light on the horizon.”

 

“A light!” exclaimed Servadac; “show me where.”

 

“Look there!” answered the lieutenant, and he kept pointing steadily

in its direction, until Servadac also distinctly saw the bright speck

in the distance.

 

It increased in clearness in the gathering shades of evening.

“Can it be a ship?” asked the captain.

 

“If so, it must be in flames; otherwise we should not be able

to see it so far off,” replied Procope.

 

“It does not move,” said Servadac; “and unless I am greatly deceived,

I can hear a kind of reverberation in the air.”

 

For some seconds the two men stood straining eyes and ears

in rapt attention. Suddenly an idea struck Servadac’s mind.

“The volcano!” he cried; “may it not be the volcano that we saw,

whilst we were on board the Dobryna?”

 

The lieutenant agreed that it was very probable.

 

“Heaven be praised!” ejaculated the captain, and he went

on in the tones of a keen excitement: “Nature has provided

us with our winter quarters; the stream of burning lava

that is flowing there is the gift of a bounteous Providence;

it will provide us all the warmth we need. No time to lose!

To-morrow, my dear Procope, to-morrow we will explore it all;

no doubt the life, the heat we want is reserved for us in the heart

and bowels of our own Gallia!”

 

Whilst the captain was indulging in his expressions of enthusiasm,

Procope was endeavoring to collect his thoughts. Distinctly he remembered

the long promontory which had barred the Dobryna’s progress while coasting

the southern confines of the sea, and which had obliged her to ascend

northwards as far as the former latitude of Oran; he remembered also that at

the extremity of the promontory there was a rocky headland crowned with smoke;

and now he was convinced that he was right in identifying