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

>It is not likely that we shall be forgotten. What, then, you have to do,

Ben Zoof, is to keep a sharp lookout, and to be ready, in case a vessel

should appear, to make signals at once.”

 

“But if no vessel should appear!” sighed the orderly.

 

“Then we must build a boat, and go in search of those who do not come

in search of us.”

 

“Very good. But what sort of a sailor are you?”

 

“Everyone can be a sailor when he must,” said Servadac calmly.

 

Ben Zoof said no more. For several succeeding days he scanned the horizon

unintermittently with his telescope. His watching was in vain.

No ship appeared upon the desert sea. “By the name of a Kabyle!”

he broke out impatiently, “his Excellency is grossly negligent!”

 

Although the days and nights had become reduced from twenty-four hours

to twelve, Captain Servadac would not accept the new condition of things,

but resolved to adhere to the computations of the old calendar.

Notwithstanding, therefore, that the sun had risen and set twelve

times since the commencement of the new year, he persisted in calling

the following day the 6th of January. His watch enabled him to keep

an accurate account of the passing hours.

 

In the course of his life, Ben Zoof had read a few books.

After pondering one day, he said: “It seems to me, captain,

that you have turned into Robinson Crusoe, and that I am your

man Friday. I hope I have not become a negro.”

 

“No,” replied the captain. “Your complexion isn’t the fairest in the world,

but you are not black yet.”

 

“Well, I had much sooner be a white Friday than a black one,”

rejoined Ben Zoof.

 

Still no ship appeared; and Captain Servadac, after the example

of all previous Crusoes, began to consider it advisable

to investigate the resources of his domain. The new territory

of which he had become the monarch he named Gourbi Island. It had

a superficial area of about nine hundred square miles.

Bullocks, cows, goats, and sheep existed in considerable numbers;

and as there seemed already to be an abundance of game,

it was hardly likely that a future supply would fail them.

The condition of the cereals was such as to promise a fine

ingathering of wheat, maize, and rice; so that for the governor

and his population, with their two horses, not only was there

ample provision, but even if other human inhabitants besides

themselves should yet be discovered, there was not the remotest

prospect of any of them perishing by starvation.

 

From the 6th to the 13th of January the rain came down

in torrents; and, what was quite an unusual occurrence at this

season of the year, several heavy storms broke over the island.

In spite, however, of the continual downfall, the heavens still

remained veiled in cloud. Servadac, moreover, did not fail to observe

that for the season the temperature was unusually high; and, as a matter

still more surprising, that it kept steadily increasing, as though

the earth were gradually and continuously approximating to the sun.

In proportion to the rise of temperature, the light also assumed

greater intensity; and if it had not been for the screen of vapor

interposed between the sky and the island, the irradiation which

would have illumined all terrestrial objects would have been vivid

beyond all precedent.

 

But neither sun, moon, nor star ever appeared; and Servadac’s

irritation and annoyance at being unable to identify any one point

of the firmament may be more readily imagined than described.

On one occasion Ben Zoof endeavored to mitigate his master’s

impatience by exhorting him to assume the resignation, even if

he did not feel the indifference, which he himself experienced;

but his advice was received with so angry a rebuff that he

retired in all haste, abashed, to r�sum� his watchman’s duty,

which he performed with exemplary perseverance.

Day and night, with the shortest possible intervals of rest,

despite wind, rain, and storm, he mounted guard upon the cliff—

but all in vain. Not a speck appeared upon the desolate horizon.

To say the truth, no vessel could have stood against the weather.

The hurricane raged with tremendous fury, and the waves rose to a

height that seemed to defy calculation. Never, even in the second

era of creation, when, under the influence of internal heat,

the waters rose in vapor to descend in deluge back upon

the world, could meteorological phenomena have been developed

with more impressive intensity.

 

But by the night of the 13th the tempest appeared to have spent its fury;

the wind dropped; the rain ceased as if by a spell; and Servadac,

who for the last six days had confined himself to the shelter

of his roof, hastened to join Ben Zoof at his post upon the cliff.

Now, he thought, there might be a chance of solving his perplexity;

perhaps now the huge disc, of which he had had an imperfect glimpse

on the night of the 31st of December, might again reveal itself;

at any rate, he hoped for an opportunity of observing the constellations

in a clear firmament above.

 

The night was magnificent. Not a cloud dimmed the luster of the stars,

which spangled the heavens in surpassing brilliancy, and several nebulae

which hitherto no astronomer had been able to discern without the aid

of a telescope were clearly visible to the naked eye.

 

By a natural impulse, Servadac’s first thought was to observe

the position of the pole-star. It was in sight, but so near

to the horizon as to suggest the utter impossibility of its

being any longer the central pivot of the sidereal system;

it occupied a position through which it was out of the question

that the axis of the earth indefinitely prolonged could ever pass.

In his impression he was more thoroughly confirmed when, an hour later,

he noticed that the star had approached still nearer the horizon,

as though it had belonged to one of the zodiacal constellations.

 

The pole-star being manifestly thus displaced, it remained

to be discovered whether any other of the celestial bodies

had become a fixed center around which the constellations made

their apparent daily revolutions. To the solution of this problem

Servadac applied himself with the most thoughtful diligence.

After patient observation, he satisfied himself that the required

conditions were answered by a certain star that was stationary not

far from the horizon. This was Vega, in the constellation Lyra,

a star which, according to the precession of the equinoxes,

will take the place of our pole-star 12,000 years hence.

The most daring imagination could not suppose that a period

of 12,000 years had been crowded into the space of a fortnight;

and therefore the captain came, as to an easier conclusion,

to the opinion that the earth’s axis had been suddenly and

immensely shifted; and from the fact that the axis, if produced,

would pass through a point so little removed above the horizon,

he deduced the inference that the Mediterranean must have been

transported to the equator.

 

Lost in bewildering maze of thought, he gazed long and intently upon

the heavens. His eyes wandered from where the tail of the Great Bear,

now a zodiacal constellation, was scarcely visible above the waters,

to where the stars of the southern hemisphere were just breaking on his view.

A cry from Ben Zoof recalled him to himself.

 

“The moon!” shouted the orderly, as though overjoyed at once

again beholding what the poet has called:

 

“The kind companion of terrestrial night;”

 

and he pointed to a disc that was rising at a spot precisely

opposite the place where they would have expected to see the sun.

“The moon!” again he cried.

 

But Captain Servadac could not altogether enter into his

servant’s enthusiasm. If this were actually the moon, her distance

from the earth must have been increased by some millions of miles.

He was rather disposed to suspect that it was not the earth’s

satellite at all, but some planet with its apparent magnitude

greatly enlarged by its approximation to the earth. Taking up

the powerful field-glass which he was accustomed to use in his

surveying operations, he proceeded to investigate more carefully

the luminous orb. But he failed to trace any of the lineaments,

supposed to resemble a human face, that mark the lunar surface;

he failed to decipher any indications of hill and plain;

nor could he make out the aureole of light which emanates from

what astronomers have designated Mount Tycho. “It is not the moon,”

he said slowly.

 

“Not the moon?” cried Ben Zoof. “Why not?”

 

“It is not the moon,” again affirmed the captain.

 

“Why not?” repeated Ben Zoof, unwilling to renounce his first impression.

 

“Because there is a small satellite in attendance.”

And the captain drew his servant’s attention to a bright speck,

apparently about the size of one of Jupiter’s satellites seen

through a moderate telescope, that was clearly visible just

within the focus of his glass.

 

Here, then, was a fresh mystery. The orbit of this planet was

assuredly interior to the orbit of the earth, because it accompanied

the sun in its apparent motion; yet it was neither Mercury nor Venus,

because neither one nor the other of these has any satellite at all.

 

The captain stamped and stamped again with mingled vexation,

agitation, and bewilderment. “Confound it!” he cried,

“if this is neither Venus nor Mercury, it must be the moon;

but if it is the moon, whence, in the name of all the gods,

has she picked up another moon for herself?”

 

The captain was in dire perplexity.