Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space

by Jules Verne

  CHAPTER VII. BEN ZOOF WATCHES IN VAIN

  In a few minutes the governor general and his population were asleep.The gourbi being in ruins, they were obliged to put up with the bestaccommodation they could find in the adjacent erection. It must be ownedthat the captain's slumbers were by no means sound; he was agitated bythe consciousness that he had hitherto been unable to account for hisstrange experiences by any reasonable theory. Though far from beingadvanced in the knowledge of natural philosophy, he had been instructed,to a certain degree, in its elementary principles; and, by an effortof memory, he managed to recall some general laws which he had almostforgotten. He could understand that an altered inclination of theearth's axis with regard to the ecliptic would introduce a change ofposition in the cardinal points, and bring about a displacement ofthe sea; but the hypothesis entirely failed to account, either for theshortening of the days, or for the diminution in the pressure of theatmosphere. He felt that his judgment was utterly baffled; his onlyremaining hope was that the chain of marvels was not yet complete, andthat something farther might throw some light upon the mystery.

  Ben Zoof's first care on the following morning was to provide agood breakfast. To use his own phrase, he was as hungry as thewhole population of three million Algerians, of whom he was therepresentative, and he must have enough to eat. The catastrophe whichhad overwhelmed the country had left a dozen eggs uninjured, and uponthese, with a good dish of his famous couscous, he hoped that he and hismaster might have a sufficiently substantial meal. The stove was readyfor use, the copper skillet was as bright as hands could make it, andthe beads of condensed steam upon the surface of a large stone al-carazagave evidence that it was supplied with water. Ben Zoof at once lighteda fire, singing all the time, according to his wont, a snatch of an oldmilitary refrain.

  Ever on the lookout for fresh phenomena, Captain Servadac watched thepreparations with a curious eye. It struck him that perhaps the air,in its strangely modified condition, would fail to supply sufficientoxygen, and that the stove, in consequence, might not fulfill itsfunction. But no; the fire was lighted just as usual, and fanned intovigor by Ben Zoof applying his mouth in lieu of bellows, and a brightflame started up from the midst of the twigs and coal. The skillet wasduly set upon the stove, and Ben Zoof was prepared to wait awhile forthe water to boil. Taking up the eggs, he was surprised to notice thatthey hardly weighed more than they would if they had been mere shells;but he was still more surprised when he saw that before the water hadbeen two minutes over the fire it was at full boil.

  "By jingo!" he exclaimed, "a precious hot fire!"

  Servadac reflected. "It cannot be that the fire is hotter," he said,"the peculiarity must be in the water." And taking down a centigradethermometer, which hung upon the wall, he plunged it into the skillet.Instead of 100 degrees, the instrument registered only 66 degrees.

  "Take my advice, Ben Zoof," he said; "leave your eggs in the saucepan agood quarter of an hour."

  "Boil them hard! That will never do," objected the orderly.

  "You will not find them hard, my good fellow. Trust me, we shall be ableto dip our sippets into the yolks easily enough."

  The captain was quite right in his conjecture, that this new phenomenonwas caused by a diminution in the pressure of the atmosphere. Waterboiling at a temperature of 66 degrees was itself an evidence that thecolumn of air above the earth's surface had become reduced by one-thirdof its altitude. The identical phenomenon would have occurred atthe summit of a mountain 35,000 feet high; and had Servadac been inpossession of a barometer, he would have immediately discovered the factthat only now for the first time, as the result of experiment, revealeditself to him--a fact, moreover, which accounted for the compression ofthe blood-vessels which both he and Ben Zoof had experienced, as wellas for the attenuation of their voices and their accelerated breathing."And yet," he argued with himself, "if our encampment has been projectedto so great an elevation, how is it that the sea remains at its properlevel?"

  Once again Hector Servadac, though capable of tracing consequences, felthimself totally at a loss to comprehend their cause; hence his agitationand bewilderment!

  After their prolonged immersion in the boiling water, the eggs werefound to be only just sufficiently cooked; the couscous was very much inthe same condition; and Ben Zoof came to the conclusion that in futurehe must be careful to commence his culinary operations an hour earlier.He was rejoiced at last to help his master, who, in spite of hisperplexed preoccupation, seemed to have a very fair appetite forbreakfast.

  "Well, captain?" said Ben Zoof presently, such being his ordinary way ofopening conversation.

  "Well, Ben Zoof?" was the captain's invariable response to his servant'sformula.

  "What are we to do now, sir?"

  "We can only for the present wait patiently where we are. We areencamped upon an island, and therefore we can only be rescued by sea."

  "But do you suppose that any of our friends are still alive?" asked BenZoof.

  "Oh, I think we must indulge the hope that this catastrophe has notextended far. We must trust that it has limited its mischief to somesmall portion of the Algerian coast, and that our friends are all aliveand well. No doubt the governor general will be anxious to investigatethe full extent of the damage, and will send a vessel from Algiers toexplore. It is not likely that we shall be forgotten. What, then, youhave to do, Ben Zoof, is to keep a sharp lookout, and to be ready, incase 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 insearch 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 thehorizon unintermittently with his telescope. His watching was in vain.No ship appeared upon the desert sea. "By the name of a Kabyle!" hebroke out impatiently, "his Excellency is grossly negligent!"

  Although the days and nights had become reduced from twenty-four hoursto twelve, Captain Servadac would not accept the new condition ofthings, but resolved to adhere to the computations of the old calendar.Notwithstanding, therefore, that the sun had risen and set twelve timessince the commencement of the new year, he persisted in calling thefollowing day the 6th of January. His watch enabled him to keep anaccurate account of the passing hours.

  In the course of his life, Ben Zoof had read a few books. Afterpondering one day, he said: "It seems to me, captain, that you haveturned into Robinson Crusoe, and that I am your man Friday. I hope Ihave not become a negro."

  "No," replied the captain. "Your complexion isn't the fairest in theworld, but you are not black yet."

  "Well, I had much sooner be a white Friday than a black one," rejoinedBen Zoof.

  Still no ship appeared; and Captain Servadac, after the example of allprevious Crusoes, began to consider it advisable to investigate theresources of his domain. The new territory of which he had become themonarch he named Gourbi Island. It had a superficial area of aboutnine hundred square miles. Bullocks, cows, goats, and sheep existed inconsiderable numbers; and as there seemed already to be an abundanceof game, it was hardly likely that a future supply would fail them. Thecondition of the cereals was such as to promise a fine ingathering ofwheat, maize, and rice; so that for the governor and his population,with their two horses, not only was there ample provision, but even ifother human inhabitants besides themselves should yet be discovered,there was not the remotest prospect of any of them perishing bystarvation.

  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, severalheavy storms broke over the island. In spite, however, of the continualdownfall, the heavens still remained veiled in cloud. Servadac,moreover, did not fail to observe that for the season the temperaturewas unusually high; and, as a matter still more surprising, that it ke
ptsteadily increasing, as though the earth were gradually and continuouslyapproximating to the sun. In proportion to the rise of temperature, thelight also assumed greater intensity; and if it had not been forthe screen of vapor interposed between the sky and the island, theirradiation which would have illumined all terrestrial objects wouldhave been vivid beyond all precedent.

  But neither sun, moon, nor star ever appeared; and Servadac's irritationand annoyance at being unable to identify any one point of the firmamentmay be more readily imagined than described. On one occasion Ben Zoofendeavored to mitigate his master's impatience by exhorting him toassume the resignation, even if he did not feel the indifference, whichhe himself experienced; but his advice was received with so angry arebuff that he retired in all haste, abashed, to resume his watchman'sduty, which he performed with exemplary perseverance. Day and night,with the shortest possible intervals of rest, despite wind, rain, andstorm, he mounted guard upon the cliff--but all in vain. Not a speckappeared upon the desolate horizon. To say the truth, no vessel couldhave stood against the weather. The hurricane raged with tremendousfury, and the waves rose to a height that seemed to defy calculation.Never, even in the second era of creation, when, under the influence ofinternal heat, the waters rose in vapor to descend in deluge back uponthe world, could meteorological phenomena have been developed with moreimpressive intensity.

  But by the night of the 13th the tempest appeared to have spent itsfury; 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 hisroof, hastened to join Ben Zoof at his post upon the cliff. Now, hethought, there might be a chance of solving his perplexity; perhaps nowthe huge disc, of which he had had an imperfect glimpse on the night ofthe 31st of December, might again reveal itself; at any rate, he hopedfor an opportunity of observing the constellations in a clear firmamentabove.

  The night was magnificent. Not a cloud dimmed the luster of the stars,which spangled the heavens in surpassing brilliancy, and several nebulaewhich hitherto no astronomer had been able to discern without the aid ofa telescope were clearly visible to the naked eye.

  By a natural impulse, Servadac's first thought was to observe theposition of the pole-star. It was in sight, but so near to the horizonas to suggest the utter impossibility of its being any longer thecentral pivot of the sidereal system; it occupied a position throughwhich it was out of the question that the axis of the earth indefinitelyprolonged could ever pass. In his impression he was more thoroughlyconfirmed when, an hour later, he noticed that the star had approachedstill nearer the horizon, as though it had belonged to one of thezodiacal constellations.

  The pole-star being manifestly thus displaced, it remained to bediscovered whether any other of the celestial bodies had become afixed center around which the constellations made their apparent dailyrevolutions. To the solution of this problem Servadac applied himselfwith the most thoughtful diligence. After patient observation, hesatisfied himself that the required conditions were answered by acertain star that was stationary not far from the horizon. Thiswas Vega, in the constellation Lyra, a star which, according to theprecession of the equinoxes, will take the place of our pole-star 12,000years hence. The most daring imagination could not suppose that a periodof 12,000 years had been crowded into the space of a fortnight; andtherefore the captain came, as to an easier conclusion, to the opinionthat the earth's axis had been suddenly and immensely shifted; andfrom the fact that the axis, if produced, would pass through a pointso little removed above the horizon, he deduced the inference that theMediterranean must have been transported to the equator.

  Lost in bewildering maze of thought, he gazed long and intently upon theheavens. His eyes wandered from where the tail of the Great Bear, now azodiacal constellation, was scarcely visible above the waters, to wherethe stars of the southern hemisphere were just breaking on his view. Acry from Ben Zoof recalled him to himself.

  "The moon!" shouted the orderly, as though overjoyed at once againbeholding what the poet has called:

  "The kind companion of terrestrial night;"

  and he pointed to a disc that was rising at a spot precisely oppositethe 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'senthusiasm. If this were actually the moon, her distance from theearth must have been increased by some millions of miles. He was ratherdisposed to suspect that it was not the earth's satellite at all,but some planet with its apparent magnitude greatly enlarged by itsapproximation to the earth. Taking up the powerful field-glass whichhe was accustomed to use in his surveying operations, he proceeded toinvestigate more carefully the luminous orb. But he failed to traceany of the lineaments, supposed to resemble a human face, that mark thelunar surface; he failed to decipher any indications of hill and plain;nor could he make out the aureole of light which emanates from whatastronomers have designated Mount Tycho. "It is not the moon," he saidslowly.

  "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 firstimpression.

  "Because there is a small satellite in attendance." And the captain drewhis servant's attention to a bright speck, apparently about the size ofone of Jupiter's satellites seen through a moderate telescope, that wasclearly visible just within the focus of his glass.

  Here, then, was a fresh mystery. The orbit of this planet was assuredlyinterior to the orbit of the earth, because it accompanied the sunin its apparent motion; yet it was neither Mercury nor Venus, becauseneither 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 norMercury, it must be the moon; but if it is the moon, whence, in the nameof all the gods, has she picked up another moon for herself?"

  The captain was in dire perplexity.