Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space

by Jules Verne

  CHAPTER XX. A LIGHT ON THE HORIZON

  On the following day, without giving himself any further concern aboutthe Jew's incredulity, the captain gave orders for the _Hansa_ to beshifted round to the harbor of the Shelif. Hakkabut raised no objection,not only because he was aware that the move insured the immediate safetyof his tartan, but because he was secretly entertaining the hope thathe might entice away two or three of the _Dobryna's_ crew and make hisescape to Algiers or some other port.

  Operations now commenced for preparing proper winter quarters. Spaniardsand Russians alike joined heartily in the work, the diminution ofatmospheric pressure and of the force of attraction contributing suchan increase to their muscular force as materially facilitated all theirlabors.

  The first business was to accommodate the building adjacent to thegourbi to the wants of the little colony. Here for the present theSpaniards were lodged, the Russians retaining their berths upon theyacht, while the Jew was permitted to pass his nights upon the _Hansa_.This arrangement, however, could be only temporary. The time could notbe far distant when ships' sides and ordinary walls would fail togive an adequate protection from the severity of the cold that mustbe expected; the stock of fuel was too limited to keep up a permanentsupply of heat in their present quarters, and consequently they mustbe driven to seek some other refuge, the internal temperature of whichwould 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 similarto "silos," such as are used as receptacles for grain. They presumedthat when the surface of Gallia should be covered by a thick layer ofice, which is a bad conductor of heat, a sufficient amount of warmthfor 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 troglodyteexistence.

  In one respect they congratulated themselves that they should be betteroff than many of the whalers in the polar seas, for as it is impossibleto get below the surface of a frozen ocean, these adventurers have toseek refuge in huts of wood and snow erected on their ships, which atbest can give but slight protection from extreme cold; but here, with asolid subsoil, the Gallians might hope to dig down a hundred feet or soand secure for themselves a shelter that would enable them to brave thehardest severity of climate.

  The order, then, was at once given. The work was commenced. A stock ofshovels, mattocks, and pick-axes was brought from the gourbi, and withBen Zoof as overseer, both Spanish majos and Russian sailors set to workwith a will.

  It was not long, however, before a discovery, more unexpected thanagreeable, suddenly arrested their labors. The spot chosen for theexcavation was a little to the right of the gourbi, on a slightelevation of the soil. For the first day everything went on prosperouslyenough; but at a depth of eight feet below the surface, the navvies camein contact with a hard surface, upon which all their tools failed tomake the slightest impression. Servadac and the count were at onceapprised of the fact, and had little difficulty in recognizing thesubstance that had revealed itself as the very same which composed theshores as well as the subsoil of the Gallian sea. It evidently formedthe universal substructure of the new asteroid. Means for hollowing itfailed them utterly. Harder and more resisting than granite, it couldnot be blasted by ordinary powder; dynamite alone could suffice to rendit.

  The disappointment was very great. Unless some means of protection werespeedily devised, death seemed to be staring them in the face. Were thefigures in the mysterious documents correct? If so, Gallia must now bea hundred millions of leagues from the sun, nearly three times thedistance of the earth at the remotest section of her orbit. Theintensity of the solar light and heat, too, was very seriouslydiminishing, although Gourbi Island (being on the equator of an orbwhich had its axes always perpendicular to the plane in which itrevolved) enjoyed a position that gave it a permanent summer. But noadvantage of this kind could compensate for the remoteness of the sun.The temperature fell steadily; already, to the discomfiture of thelittle Italian girl, nurtured in sunshine, ice was beginning to form inthe crevices of the rocks, and manifestly the time was impending whenthe sea itself would freeze.

  Some shelter must be found before the temperature should fall to 60degrees below zero. Otherwise death was inevitable. Hitherto, for thelast few days, the thermometer had been registering an average of about6 degrees below zero, and it had become matter of experience that thestove, although replenished with all the wood that was available, wasaltogether inadequate to effect any sensible mitigation of the severityof the cold. Nor could any amount of fuel be enough. It was certainthat ere long the very mercury and spirit in the thermometers would becongealed. Some other resort must assuredly be soon found, or they mustperish. That was clear.

  The idea of betaking themselves to the _Dobryna_ and _Hansa_ could notfor a moment be seriously entertained; not only did the structure of thevessels make them utterly insufficient to give substantial shelter,but they were totally unfitted to be trusted as to their stability whenexposed to the enormous pressure of the accumulated ice.

  Neither Servadac, nor the count, nor Lieutenant Procope were men tobe easily disheartened, but it could not be concealed that they feltthemselves in circumstances by which they were equally harassed andperplexed. The sole expedient that their united counsel could suggestwas to obtain a refuge below ground, and _that_ was denied them by thestrange and impenetrable substratum of the soil; yet hour by hour thesun's disc was lessening in its dimensions, and although at midday somefaint radiance and glow were to be distinguished, during the night thepainfulness of the cold was becoming almost intolerable.

  Mounted upon Zephyr and Galette, the captain and the count scoured theisland in search of some available retreat. Scarcely a yard of groundwas left unexplored, the horses clearing every obstacle as if they were,like Pegasus, furnished with wings. But all in vain. Soundings were madeagain and again, but invariably with the same result; the rock, hard asadamant, never failed to reveal itself within a few feet of the surfaceof the ground.

  The excavation of any silo being thus manifestly hopeless, there seemednothing to be done except to try and render the buildings alongside thegourbi impervious to frost. To contribute to the supply of fuel, orderswere given to collect every scrap of wood, dry or green, that the islandproduced; and this involved the necessity of felling the numeroustrees that were scattered over the plain. But toil as they might at theaccumulation of firewood, Captain Servadac and his companions could notresist the conviction that the consumption of a very short period wouldexhaust the total stock. And what would happen then?

  Studious if possible to conceal his real misgivings, and anxious thatthe rest of the party should be affected as little as might be by hisown uneasiness, Servadac would wander alone about the island, rackinghis brain for an idea that would point the way out of the seriousdifficulty. But still all in vain.

  One day he suddenly came upon Ben Zoof, and asked him whether he had noplan to propose. The orderly shook his head, but after a few moments'pondering, said: "Ah! master, if only we were at Montmartre, we wouldget shelter in the charming stone-quarries."

  "Idiot!" replied the captain, angrily, "if we were at Montmartre, youdon't suppose that we should need to live in stone-quarries?"

  But the means of preservation which human ingenuity had failed to securewere at hand from the felicitous provision of Nature herself. It was onthe 10th of March that the captain and Lieutenant Procope started offonce more to investigate the northwest corner of the island; on theirway their conversation naturally was engrossed by the subject ofthe dire necessities which only too manifestly were awaiting them. Adiscussion more than usually animated arose between them, for the twomen were not altogether of the same mind as to the measures that oughtto be adopted in order to open the fairest chance of avoiding a fatalclimax to their exposure; the captain persisted that an entirelynew abode must be sought, while th
e lieutenant was equally bent upondevising a method of some sort by which their present quarters mightbe rendered sufficiently warm. All at once, in the very heat of hisargument, Procope paused; he passed his hand across his eyes, as if todispel a mist, and stood, with a fixed gaze centered on a point towardsthe south. "What is that?" he said, with a kind of hesitation. "No, I amnot 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 inits direction, until Servadac also distinctly saw the bright speck inthe distance.

  It increased in clearness in the gathering shades of evening. "Can it bea ship?" asked the captain.

  "If so, it must be in flames; otherwise we should not be able to see itso far off," replied Procope.

  "It does not move," said Servadac; "and unless I am greatly deceived, Ican hear a kind of reverberation in the air."

  For some seconds the two men stood straining eyes and ears in raptattention. Suddenly an idea struck Servadac's mind. "The volcano!" hecried; "may it not be the volcano that we saw, whilst we were on boardthe _Dobryna?_"

  The lieutenant agreed that it was very probable.

  "Heaven be praised!" ejaculated the captain, and he went on in the tonesof a keen excitement: "Nature has provided us with our winter quarters;the stream of burning lava that is flowing there is the gift of abounteous Providence; it will provide us all the warmth we need. No timeto 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 andbowels of our own Gallia!"

  Whilst the captain was indulging in his expressions of enthusiasm,Procope was endeavoring to collect his thoughts. Distinctly heremembered the long promontory which had barred the _Dobryna's_ progresswhile coasting the southern confines of the sea, and which had obligedher to ascend northwards as far as the former latitude of Oran; heremembered also that at the extremity of the promontory there was arocky headland crowned with smoke; and now he was convinced that he wasright in identifying the position, and in believing that the smoke hadgiven place to an eruption of flame.

  When Servadac gave him a chance of speaking, he said, "The more Iconsider it, captain, the more I am satisfied that your conjecture iscorrect. Beyond a doubt, what we see is the volcano, and to-morrow wewill not fail to visit it."

  On returning to the gourbi, they communicated their discovery to CountTimascheff only, deeming any further publication of it to be premature.The count at once placed his yacht at their disposal, and expressed hisintention of accompanying them.

  "The yacht, I think," said Procope, "had better remain where she is;the weather is beautifully calm, and the steam-launch will answer ourpurpose better; at any rate, it will convey us much closer to shore thanthe schooner."

  The count replied that the lieutenant was by all means to use his owndiscretion, and they all retired for the night.

  Like many other modern pleasure-yachts, the _Dobryna_, in addition toher four-oar, was fitted with a fast-going little steam-launch, itsscrew being propelled, on the Oriolle system, by means of a boiler,small but very effective. Early next morning, this handy little craftwas sufficiently freighted with coal (of which there was still about tentons on board the _Dobryna_), and manned by nobody except the captain,the count, and the lieutenant, left the harbor of the Shelif, much tothe bewilderment of Ben Zoof, who had not yet been admitted into thesecret. The orderly, however, consoled himself with the reflectionthat he had been temporarily invested with the full powers of governorgeneral, an office of which he was not a little proud.

  The eighteen miles between the island and the headland were made insomething less than three hours. The volcanic eruption was manifestlyvery considerable, the entire summit of the promontory being envelopedin flames. To produce so large a combustion either the oxygen ofGallia's atmosphere had been brought into contact with the explosivegases contained beneath her soil, or perhaps, still more probable, thevolcano, like those in the moon, was fed by an internal supply of oxygenof her own.

  It took more than half an hour to settle on a suitable landing-place.At length, a small semi-circular creek was discovered among the rocks,which appeared advantageous, because, if circumstances should sorequire, it would form a safe anchorage for both the _Dobryna_ and the_Hansa_.

  The launch securely moored, the passengers landed on the side of thepromontory opposite to that on which a torrent of burning lava wasdescending to the sea. With much satisfaction they experienced, as theyapproached the mountain, a sensible difference in the temperature, andtheir spirits could not do otherwise than rise at the prospect of havingtheir hopes confirmed, that a deliverance from the threatened calamityhad so opportunely been found. On they went, up the steep acclivity,scrambling over its rugged projections, scaling the irregularities ofits gigantic strata, bounding from point to point with the agility ofchamois, but never alighting on anything except on the accumulation ofthe same hexagonal prisms with which they had now become so familiar.

  Their exertions were happily rewarded. Behind a huge pyramidal rock theyfound a hole in the mountain-side, like the mouth of a great tunnel.Climbing up to this orifice, which was more than sixty feet above thelevel of the sea, they ascertained that it opened into a long darkgallery. They entered and groped their way cautiously along the sides.A continuous rumbling, that increased as they advanced, made them awarethat they must be approaching the central funnel of the volcano; theironly fear was lest some insuperable wall of rock should suddenly bartheir further progress.

  Servadac was some distance ahead.

  "Come on!" he cried cheerily, his voice ringing through the darkness,"come on! Our fire is lighted! no stint of fuel! Nature provides that!Let us make haste and warm ourselves!"

  Inspired by his confidence, the count and the lieutenant advancedbravely along the unseen and winding path. The temperature was now atleast fifteen degrees above zero, and the walls of the gallery werebeginning to feel quite warm to the touch, an indication, not to beoverlooked, that the substance of which the rock was composed wasmetallic in its nature, and capable of conducting heat.

  "Follow me!" shouted Servadac again; "we shall soon find a regularstove!"

  Onwards they made their way, until at last a sharp turn brought theminto a sudden flood of light. The tunnel had opened into a vast cavern,and the gloom was exchanged for an illumination that was perfectlydazzling. Although the temperature was high, it was not in any wayintolerable.

  One glance was sufficient to satisfy the explorers that the gratefullight and heat of this huge excavation were to be attributed to atorrent of lava that was rolling downwards to the sea, completelysubtending the aperture of the cave. Not inaptly might the scene becompared to the celebrated Grotto of the Winds at the rear of thecentral fall of Niagara, only with the exception that here, instead ofa curtain of rushing water, it was a curtain of roaring flame that hungbefore the cavern's mouth.

  "Heaven be praised!" cried Servadac, with glad emotion; "here is allthat we hoped for, and more besides!"