Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space
the grim cavern like the sweet notes of a bird; her gay Italian songs
broke the monotony of the depressing silence; and almost unconscious as
the half-dormant population of Gallia were of her influence, they still
would have missed her bright presence sorely. The months still glided
on; how, it seemed impossible for the inhabitants of the living tomb to
say. There was a dead level of dullness.
At the beginning of June the general torpor appeared slightly to relax
its hold upon its victims. This partial revival was probably due to the
somewhat increased influence of the sun, still far, far away. During
the first half of the Gallian year, Lieutenant Procope had taken careful
note of Rosette’s monthly announcements of the comet’s progress, and he
was able now, without reference to the professor, to calculate the rate
of advance on its way back towards the sun. He found that Gallia had
re-crossed the orbit of Jupiter, but was still at the enormous distance
of 197,000,000 leagues from the sun, and he reckoned that in about four
months it would have entered the zone of the telescopic planets.
Gradually, but uninterruptedly, life and spirits continued to revive,
and by the end of the month Servadac and his little colony had regained
most of their ordinary physical and mental energies. Ben Zoof, in
particular, roused himself with redoubled vigor, like a giant refreshed
from his slumbers. The visits, consequently, to the long-neglected
galleries of Nina’s Hive became more and more frequent.
One day an excursion was made to the shore. It was still bitterly cold,
but the atmosphere had lost nothing of its former stillness, and not a
cloud was visible from horizon to zenith. The old footmarks were all as
distinct as on the day in which they had been imprinted, and the only
portion of the shore where any change was apparent was in the little
creek. Here the elevation of the ice had gone on increasing, until the
schooner and the tartan had been uplifted to a height of 150 feet, not
only rendering them quite inaccessible, but exposing them to all but
certain destruction in the event of a thaw.
Isaac Hakkabut, immovable from the personal oversight of his property
in the cavern, had not accompanied the party, and consequently was in
blissful ignorance of the fate that threatened his vessel. “A good thing
the old fellow wasn’t there to see,” observed Ben Zoof; “he would have
screamed like a peacock. What a misfortune it is,” he added, speaking to
himself, “to have a peacock’s voice, without its plumage!”
During the months of July and August, Gallia advanced 164,000,000
leagues along her orbit. At night the cold was still intense, but in
the daytime the sun, here full upon the equator, caused an appreciable
difference of 20 degrees in the temperature. Like birds, the population
spent whole days exposed to its grateful warmth, rarely returning till
nightfall to the shade of their gloomy home.
This spring-time, if such it may be called, had a most enlivening
influence upon all. Hope and courage revived as day by day the sun’s
disc expanded in the heavens, and every evening the earth assumed a
greater magnitude amongst the fixed stars. It was distant yet, but the
goal was cheeringly in view.
“I can’t believe that yonder little speck of light contains my mountain
of Montmartre,” said Ben Zoof, one night, after he had been gazing long
and steadily at the far-off world.
“You will, I hope, some day find out that it does,” answered his master.
“I hope so,” said the orderly, without moving his eye from the distant
sphere. After meditating a while, he spoke again. “I suppose Professor
Rosette couldn’t make his comet go straight back, could he?”
“Hush!” cried Servadac.
Ben Zoof understood the correction.
“No,” continued the captain; “it is not for man to disturb the order of
the universe. That belongs to a Higher Power than ours!”
CHAPTER XIV. THE PROFESSOR PERPLEXED
Another month passed away, and it was now September, but it was still
impossible to leave the warmth of the subterranean retreat for the
more airy and commodious quarters of the Hive, where “the bees” would
certainly have been frozen to death in their cells. It was altogether
quite as much a matter of congratulation as of regret that the volcano
showed no symptoms of resuming its activity; for although a return of
the eruption might have rendered their former resort again habitable,
any sudden outbreak would have been disastrous to them where they were,
the crater being the sole outlet by which the burning lava could escape.
“A wretched time we have had for the last seven months,” said the
orderly one day to his master; “but what a comfort little Nina has been
to us all!”
“Yes, indeed,” replied Servadac; “she is a charming little creature. I
hardly know how we should have got on without her.”
“What is to become of her when we arrive back at the earth?”
“Not much fear, Ben Zoof, but that she will be well taken care of.
Perhaps you and I had better adopt her.”
“Ay, yes,” assented the orderly. “You can be her father, and I can be
her mother.”
Servadac laughed. “Then you and I shall be man and wife.”
“We have been as good as that for a long time,” observed Ben Zoof,
gravely.
By the beginning of October, the temperature had so far moderated that
it could scarcely be said to be intolerable. The comet’s distance was
scarcely three times as great from the sun as the earth from the sun, so
that the thermometer rarely sunk beyond 35 degrees below zero. The whole
party began to make almost daily visits to the Hive, and frequently
proceeded to the shore, where they resumed their skating exercise,
rejoicing in their recovered freedom like prisoners liberated from a
dungeon. Whilst the rest were enjoying their recreation, Servadac and
the count would hold long conversations with Lieutenant Procope about
their present position and future prospects, discussing all manner of
speculations as to the results of the anticipated collision with
the earth, and wondering whether any measures could be devised for
mitigating the violence of a shock which might be terrible in its
consequences, even if it did not entail a total annihilation of
themselves.
There was no visitor to the Hive more regular than Rosette. He
had already directed his telescope to be moved back to his former
observatory, where, as much as the cold would permit him, he persisted
in making his all-absorbing studies of the heavens.
The result of these studies no one ventured to inquire; but it became
generally noticed that something was very seriously disturbing
the professor’s equanimity. Not only would he be seen toiling more
frequently up the arduous way that lay between his nook below and his
telescope above, but he would be heard muttering in an angry tone that
indicated considerable agitation.
One day, as he was hurrying down to his study, he met Ben Zoof, who,
secretly entertaining a feeling of delight at the professor’s manifest
discomfiture, made some casual remark about things not being very
straight. The way in which his advance was received the good orderly
never divulged, but henceforward he maintained the firm conviction that
there was something very much amiss up in the sky.
To Servadac and his friends this continual disquietude and ill-humor on
the part of the professor occasioned no little anxiety. From what, they
asked, could his dissatisfaction arise? They could only conjecture that
he had discovered some flaw in his reckonings; and if this were so,
might there not be reason to apprehend that their anticipations of
coming into contact with the earth, at the settled time, might all be
falsified?
Day followed day, and still there was no cessation of the professor’s
discomposure. He was the most miserable of mortals. If really his
calculations and his observations were at variance, this, in a man of
his irritable temperament, would account for his perpetual perturbation.
But he entered into no explanation; he only climbed up to his telescope,
looking haggard and distressed, and when compelled by the frost to
retire, he would make his way back to his study more furious than ever.
At times he was heard giving vent to his vexation. “Confound it! what
does it mean? what is she doing? All behind! Is Newton a fool? Is the
law of universal gravitation the law of universal nonsense?” And the
little man would seize his head in both his hands, and tear away at the
scanty locks which he could ill afford to lose.
Enough was overheard to confirm the suspicion that there was some
irreconcilable discrepancy between the results of his computation and
what he had actually observed; and yet, if he had been called upon to
say, he would have sooner insisted that there was derangement in
the laws of celestial mechanism, than have owned there was the least
probability of error in any of his own calculations. Assuredly, if the
poor professor had had any flesh to lose he would have withered away to
a shadow.
But this state of things was before long to come to an end. On the 12th,
Ben Zoof, who was hanging about outside the great hall of the cavern,
heard the professor inside utter a loud cry. Hurrying in to ascertain
the cause, he found Rosette in a state of perfect frenzy, in which
ecstasy and rage seemed to be struggling for the predominance.
“Eureka! Eureka!” yelled the excited astronomer.
“What, in the name of peace, do you mean?” bawled Ben Zoof, in
open-mouthed amazement.
“Eureka!” again shrieked the little man.
“How? What? Where?” roared the bewildered orderly.
“Eureka! I say,” repeated Rosette; “and if you don’t understand me, you
may go to the devil!”
Without availing himself of this polite invitation, Ben Zoof betook
himself to his master. “Something has happened to the professor,”
he said; “he is rushing about like a madman, screeching and yelling
‘Eureka!’”
“Eureka?” exclaimed Servadac. “That means he has made a discovery;” and,
full of anxiety, he hurried off to meet the professor.
But, however great was his desire to ascertain what this discovery
implied, his curiosity was not yet destined to be gratified. The
professor kept muttering in incoherent phrases: “Rascal! he shall pay
for it yet. I will be even with him! Cheat! Thrown me out!” But he did
not vouchsafe any reply to Servadac’s inquiries, and withdrew to his
study.
From that day Rosette, for some reason at present incomprehensible,
quite altered his behavior to Isaac Hakkabut, a man for whom he had
always hitherto evinced the greatest repugnance and contempt. All at
once he began to show a remarkable interest in the Jew and his affairs,
paying several visits to the dark little storehouse, making inquiries as
to the state of business and expressing some solicitude about the state
of the exchequer.
The wily Jew was taken somewhat by surprise, but came to an immediate
conclusion that the professor was contemplating borrowing some money; he
was consequently very cautious in all his replies.
It was not Hakkabut’s habit ever to advance a loan except at an
extravagant rate of interest, or without demanding far more than an
adequate security. Count Timascheff, a Russian nobleman, was evidently
rich; to him perhaps, for a proper consideration, a loan might be made:
Captain Servadac was a Gascon, and Gascons are proverbially poor; it
would never do to lend any money to him; but here was a professor,
a mere man of science, with circumscribed means; did _he_ expect to
borrow? Certainly Isaac would as soon think of flying, as of lending
money to him. Such were the thoughts that made him receive all Rosette’s
approaches with a careful reservation.
It was not long, however, before Hakkabut was to be called upon to apply