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

CHAPTER IV

A REVISED CALENDAR

 

All previous hypotheses, then, were now forgotten in the presence

of the one great fact that Gallia was a comet and gravitating through

remote solar regions. Captain Servadac became aware that the huge disc

that had been looming through the clouds after the shock was the form

of the retreating earth, to the proximity of which the one high tide

they had experienced was also to be attributed.

 

As to the fulfillment of the professor’s prediction of an ultimate return

to the terrestrial sphere, that was a point on which it must be owned

that the captain, after the first flush of his excitement was over,

was not without many misgivings.

 

The next day or two were spent in providing for the accommodation

of the new comer. Fortunately his desires were very moderate;

he seemed to live among the stars, and as long as he was

well provided with coffee, he cared little for luxuries,

and paid little or no regard to the ingenuity with which all

the internal arrangements of Nina’s Hive had been devised.

Anxious to show all proper respect to his former tutor,

Servadac proposed to leave the most comfortable apartment of

the place at his disposal; but the professor resolutely declined

to occupy it, saying that what he required was a small chamber,

no matter how small, provided that it was elevated and secluded,

which he could use as an observatory and where he might prosecute

his studies without disturbance. A general search was instituted,

and before long they were lucky enough to find, about a hundred

feet above the central grotto, a small recess or reduct hollowed,

as it were, in the mountain side, which would exactly

answer their purpose. It contained room enough for a bed,

a table, an armchair, a chest of drawers, and, what was

of still more consequence, for the indispensable telescope.

One small stream of lava, an off-shoot of the great torrent,

sufficed to warm the apartment enough.

 

In these retired quarters the astronomer took up his abode. It was on all

hands acknowledged to be advisable to let him go on entirely in his own way.

His meals were taken to him at stated intervals; he slept but little;

carried on his calculations by day, his observations by night, and very rarely

made his appearance amongst the rest of the little community.

 

The cold now became very intense, the thermometer registering

30 degrees F. below zero. The mercury, however, never exhibited

any of those fluctuations that are ever and again to be observed

in variable climates, but continued slowly and steadily to fall,

and in all probability would continue to do so until it reached

the normal temperature of the regions of outlying space.

 

This steady sinking of the mercury was accompanied by a complete

stillness of the atmosphere; the very air seemed to be congealed;

no particle of it stirred; from zenith to horizon there was never a cloud;

neither were there any of the damp mists or dry fogs which so often

extend over the polar regions of the earth; the sky was always clear;

the sun shone by day and the stars by night without causing any

perceptible difference in the temperature.

 

These peculiar conditions rendered the cold endurable even in the open air.

The cause of so many of the diseases that prove fatal to Arctic

explorers resides in the cutting winds, unwholesome fogs, or terrible

snow drifts, which, by drying up, relaxing, or otherwise affecting

the lungs, make them incapable of fulfilling their proper functions.

But during periods of calm weather, when the air has been absolutely still,

many polar navigators, well-clothed and properly fed, have been known

to withstand a temperature when the thermometer has fallen to 60 degrees

below zero. It was the experience of Parry upon Melville Island,

of Kane beyond latitude 81 degrees north, and of Hall and the crew

of the Polaris, that, however intense the cold, in the absence

of the wind they could always brave its rigor.

 

Notwithstanding, then, the extreme lowness of the temperature,

the little population found that they were able to move about

in the open air with perfect immunity. The governor general

made it his special care to see that his people were all well

fed and warmly clad. Food was both wholesome and abundant,

and besides the furs brought from the Dobryna’s stores, fresh skins

could very easily be procured and made up into wearing apparel.

A daily course of out-door exercise was enforced upon everyone;

not even Pablo and Nina were exempted from the general rule;

the two children, muffled up in furs, looking like little Esqui-meaux,

skated along together, Pablo ever at his companion’s side,

ready to give her a helping hand whenever she was weary

with her exertions.

 

After his interview with the newly arrived astronomer,

Isaac Hakkabut slunk back again to his tartan. A change had come

over his ideas; he could no longer resist the conviction that

he was indeed millions and millions of miles away from the earth,

where he had carried on so varied and remunerative a traffic.

It might be imagined that this realization of his true position

would have led him to a better mind, and that, in some degree

at least, he would have been induced to regard the few

fellow-creatures with whom his lot had been so strangely cast,

otherwise than as mere instruments to be turned to his own personal

and pecuniary advantage; but no—the desire of gain was too

thoroughly ingrained into his hard nature ever to be eradicated,

and secure in his knowledge that he was under the protection

of a French officer, who, except under the most urgent necessity,

would not permit him to be molested in retaining his property,

he determined to wait for some emergency to arise which should

enable him to use his present situation for his own profit.

 

On the one hand, the Jew took it into account that although the chances

of returning to the earth might be remote, yet from what he had heard from

the professor he could not believe that they were improbable; on the other,

he knew that a considerable sum of money, in English and Russian coinage,

was in the possession of various members of the little colony, and this,

although valueless now, would be worth as much as ever if the proper condition

of things should be restored; accordingly, he set his heart on getting

all the monetary wealth of Gallia into his possession, and to do this

he must sell his goods. But he would not sell them yet; there might come

a time when for many articles the supply would not be equal to the demand;

that would be the time for him; by waiting he reckoned he should be able

to transact some lucrative business.

 

Such in his solitude were old Isaac’s cogitations, whilst the universal

population of Nina’s Hive were congratulating themselves upon being rid

of his odious presence.

 

As already stated in the message brought by the carrier pigeon,

the distance traveled by Gallia in April was 39,000,000 leagues,

and at the end of the month she was 110,000,000 leagues from the sun.

A diagram representing the elliptical orbit of the planet, accompanied by an

ephemeris made out in minute detail, had been drawn out by the professor.

The curve was divided into twenty-four sections of unequal length,

representing respectively the distance described in the twenty-four months

of the Gallian year, the twelve former divisions, according to Kepler’s law,

gradually diminishing in length as they approached the point denoting

the aphelion and increasing as they neared the perihelion.

 

It was on the 12th of May that Rosette exhibited this result of his

labors to Servadac, the count, and the lieutenant, who visited his

apartment and naturally examined the drawing with the keenest interest.

Gallia’s path, extending beyond the orbit of Jupiter, lay clearly

defined before their eyes, the progress along the orbit and the solar

distances being inserted for each month separately. Nothing could

look plainer, and if the professor’s calculations were correct

(a point upon which they dared not, if they would, express the semblance

of a doubt), Gallia would accomplish her revolution in precisely two years,

and would meet the earth, which would in the same period of time have

completed two annual revolutions, in the very same spot as before.

What would be the consequences of a second collision they scarcely

ventured to think.

 

Without lifting his eye from the diagram, which he was still

carefully scrutinizing, Servadac said, “I see that during

the month of May, Gallia will only travel 30,400,000 leagues,

and that this will leave her about 140,000,000 leagues distant

from the sun.”

 

“Just so,” replied the professor.

 

“Then we have already passed the zone of the telescopic planets, have we not?”

asked the count.

 

“Can you not use your eyes?” said the professor, testily.

“If you will look you will see the zone marked clearly enough

upon the map.”

 

Without noticing the interruption, Servadac continued his own remarks,

“The comet then, I see, is to reach its aphelion on the 15th of January,

exactly a twelvemonth after passing its perihelion.”

 

“A twelvemonth! Not a Gallian twelvemonth?” exclaimed Rosette.

 

Servadac looked