Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space

by Jules Verne

  CHAPTER XXII. A FROZEN OCEAN

  The moon! She had disappeared for weeks; was she now returning? Hadshe been faithless to the earth? and had she now approached to be asatellite of the new-born world?

  "Impossible!" said Lieutenant Procope; "the earth is millions andmillions of leagues away, and it is not probable that the moon hasceased to revolve about her."

  "Why not?" remonstrated Servadac. "It would not be more strange than theother phenomena which we have lately witnessed. Why should not the moonhave fallen within the limits of Gallia's attraction, and become hersatellite?"

  "Upon that supposition," put in the count, "I should think that it wouldbe altogether unlikely that three months would elapse without our seeingher."

  "Quite incredible!" continued Procope. "And there is another thing whichtotally disproves the captain's hypothesis; the magnitude of Galliais far too insignificant for her power of attraction to carry off themoon."

  "But," persisted Servadac, "why should not the same convulsion that toreus away from the earth have torn away the moon as well? After wanderingabout as she would for a while in the solar regions, I do not see whyshe should not have attached herself to us."

  The lieutenant repeated his conviction that it was not likely.

  "But why not?" again asked Servadac impetuously.

  "Because, I tell you, the mass of Gallia is so inferior to that of themoon, that Gallia would become the moon's satellite; the moon could notpossibly become hers."

  "Assuming, however," continued Servadac, "such to be the case--"

  "I am afraid," said the lieutenant, interrupting him, "that I cannotassume anything of the sort even for a moment."

  Servadac smiled good-humoredly.

  "I confess you seem to have the best of the argument, and if Gallia hadbecome a satellite of the moon, it would not have taken three months tocatch sight of her. I suppose you are right."

  While this discussion had been going on, the satellite, or whatever itmight be, had been rising steadily above the horizon, and had reached aposition favorable for observation. Telescopes were brought, and it wasvery soon ascertained, beyond a question, that the new luminary was notthe well-known Phoebe of terrestrial nights; it had no feature in commonwith the moon. Although it was apparently much nearer to Gallia than themoon to the earth, its superficies was hardly one-tenth as large, andso feebly did it reflect the light of the remote sun, that it scarcelyemitted radiance enough to extinguish the dim luster of stars of theeighth magnitude. Like the sun, it had risen in the west, and was nowat its full. To mistake its identity with the moon was absolutelyimpossible; not even Servadac could discover a trace of the seas,chasms, craters, and mountains which have been so minutely delineatedin lunar charts, and it could not be denied that any transient hopethat had been excited as to their once again being about to enjoy thepeaceful smiles of "the queen of night" must all be resigned.

  Count Timascheff finally suggested, though somewhat doubtfully, thequestion of the probability that Gallia, in her course across the zoneof the minor planets, had carried off one of them; but whether itwas one of the 169 asteroids already included in the astronomicalcatalogues, or one previously unknown, he did not presume to determine.The idea to a certain extent was plausible, inasmuch as it has beenascertained that several of the telescopic planets are of such smalldimensions that a good walker might make a circuit of them in four andtwenty hours; consequently Gallia, being of superior volume, might besupposed capable of exercising a power of attraction upon any of theseminiature microcosms.

  The first night in Nina's Hive passed without special incident; andnext morning a regular scheme of life was definitely laid down. "My lordgovernor," as Ben Zoof until he was peremptorily forbidden delighted tocall Servadac, had a wholesome dread of idleness and its consequences,and insisted upon each member of the party undertaking some specialduty to fulfill. There was plenty to do. The domestic animals requireda great deal of attention; a supply of food had to be secured andpreserved; fishing had to be carried on while the condition of the seawould allow it; and in several places the galleries had to be furtherexcavated to render them more available for use. Occupation, then, neednever be wanting, and the daily round of labor could go on in orderlyroutine.

  A perfect concord ruled the little colony. The Russians and Spaniardsamalgamated well, and both did their best to pick up various scrapsof French, which was considered the official language of the place.Servadac himself undertook the tuition of Pablo and Nina, Ben Zoof beingtheir companion in play-hours, when he entertained them with enchantingstories in the best Parisian French, about "a lovely city at the foot ofa mountain," where he always promised one day to take them.

  The end of March came, but the cold was not intense to such a degreeas to confine any of the party to the interior of their resort; severalexcursions were made along the shore, and for a radius of three orfour miles the adjacent district was carefully explored. Investigation,however, always ended in the same result; turn their course in whateverdirection they would, they found that the country retained everywhereits desert character, rocky, barren, and without a trace of vegetation.Here and there a slight layer of snow, or a thin coating of ice arisingfrom atmospheric condensation indicated the existence of superficialmoisture, but it would require a period indefinitely long, exceedinghuman reckoning, before that moisture could collect into a stream androll downwards over the stony strata to the sea. It seemed at presentout of their power to determine whether the land upon which they wereso happily settled was an island or a continent, and till the cold wasabated they feared to undertake any lengthened expedition to ascertainthe actual extent of the strange concrete of metallic crystallization.

  By ascending one day to the summit of the volcano, Captain Servadacand the count succeeded in getting a general idea of the aspect of thecountry. The mountain itself was an enormous block rising symmetricallyto a height of nearly 3,000 feet above the level of the sea, in theform of a truncated cone, of which the topmost section was crowned by awreath of smoke issuing continuously from the mouth of a narrow crater.

  Under the old condition of terrestrial things, the ascent of this steepacclivity would have been attended with much fatigue, but as the effectof the altered condition of the law of gravity, the travelers performedperpetual prodigies in the way of agility, and in little over an hourreached the edge of the crater, without more sense of exertion than ifthey had traversed a couple of miles on level ground. Gallia had itsdrawbacks, but it had some compensating advantages.

  Telescopes in hand, the explorers from the summit scanned thesurrounding view. Their anticipations had already realized what theysaw. Just as they expected, on the north, east, and west lay the GallianSea, smooth and motionless as a sheet of glass, the cold having, as itwere, congealed the atmosphere so that there was not a breath of wind.Towards the south there seemed no limit to the land, and the volcanoformed the apex of a triangle, of which the base was beyond the reach ofvision. Viewed even from this height, whence distance would do muchto soften the general asperity, the surface nevertheless seemed tobe bristling with its myriads of hexagonal lamellae, and to presentdifficulties which, to an ordinary pedestrian, would be insurmountable.

  "Oh for some wings, or else a balloon!" cried Servadac, as he gazedaround him; and then, looking down to the rock upon which they werestanding, he added, "We seem to have been transplanted to a soil strangeenough in its chemical character to bewilder the _savants_ at a museum."

  "And do you observe, captain," asked the count, "how the convexityof our little world curtails our view? See, how circumscribed is thehorizon!"

  Servadac replied that he had noticed the same circumstance from the topof the cliffs of Gourbi Island.

  "Yes," said the count; "it becomes more and more obvious that ours is avery tiny world, and that Gourbi Island is the sole productive spot uponits surface. We have had a short summer, and who knows whether weare not entering upon a winter that may last for years, perhaps forcenturies?"
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br />   "But we must not mind, count," said Servadac, smiling. "We have agreed,you know, that, come what may, we are to be philosophers."

  "Ay, true, my friend," rejoined the count; "we must be philosophersand something more; we must be grateful to the good Protector who hashitherto befriended us, and we must trust His mercy to the end."

  For a few moments they both stood in silence, and contemplated land andsea; then, having given a last glance over the dreary panorama, theyprepared to wend their way down the mountain. Before, however, theycommenced their descent, they resolved to make a closer examination ofthe crater. They were particularly struck by what seemed to them almostthe mysterious calmness with which the eruption was effected. There wasnone of the wild disorder and deafening tumult that usually accompanythe discharge of volcanic matter, but the heated lava, rising with auniform gentleness, quietly overran the limits of the crater, like theflow of water from the bosom of a peaceful lake. Instead of a boilerexposed to the action of an angry fire, the crater rather resembled abrimming basin, of which the contents were noiselessly escaping. Norwere there any igneous stones or red-hot cinders mingled with the smokethat crowned the summit; a circumstance that quite accorded with theabsence of the pumice-stones, obsidians, and other minerals of volcanicorigin with which the base of a burning mountain is generally strewn.

  Captain Servadac was of opinion that this peculiarity augured favorablyfor the continuance of the eruption. Extreme violence in physical, aswell as in moral nature, is never of long duration. The most terriblestorms, like the most violent fits of passion, are not lasting; but herethe calm flow of the liquid fire appeared to be supplied from a sourcethat was inexhaustible, in the same way as the waters of Niagara,gliding on steadily to their final plunge, would defy all effort toarrest their course.

  Before the evening of this day closed in, a most important change waseffected in the condition of the Gallian Sea by the intervention ofhuman agency. Notwithstanding the increasing cold, the sea, unruffledas it was by a breath of wind, still retained its liquid state. It is anestablished fact that water, under this condition of absolute stillness,will remain uncongealed at a temperature several degrees below zero,whilst experiment, at the same time, shows that a very slight shock willoften be sufficient to convert it into solid ice. It had occurred toServadac that if some communication could be opened with Gourbi Island,there would be a fine scope for hunting expeditions. Having thisultimate object in view, he assembled his little colony upon aprojecting rock at the extremity of the promontory, and having calledNina and Pablo out to him in front, he said: "Now, Nina, do you thinkyou could throw something into the sea?"

  "I think I could," replied the child, "but I am sure that Pablo wouldthrow it a great deal further than I can."

  "Never mind, you shall try first."

  Putting a fragment of ice into Nina's hand, he addressed himself toPablo:

  "Look out, Pablo; you shall see what a nice little fairy Nina is! Throw,Nina, throw, as hard as you can."

  Nina balanced the piece of ice two or three times in her hand, and threwit forward with all her strength.

  A sudden thrill seemed to vibrate across the motionless waters to thedistant horizon, and the Gallian Sea had become a solid sheet of ice!