Off on a Comet by Jules Verne (great books for teens txt) 📖
- Author: Jules Verne
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instead of upon the ground floor.”
“We will try and make ourselves comfortable,” said the orderly.
“Oh yes, we will be happy here,” rejoined the child; “it is nice and warm.”
Although they were as careful as they could to conceal
their misgivings from the rest, Servadac and his two friends
could not regard their present situation without distrust.
When alone, they would frequently ask each other what would become
of them all, if the volcanic heat should really be subsiding,
or if some unexpected perturbation should retard the course of
the comet, and compel them to an indefinitely prolonged residence
in their grim abode. It was scarcely likely that the comet could
supply the fuel of which ere long they would be in urgent need.
Who could expect to find coal in the bowels of Gallia,—coal, which is
the residuum of ancient forests mineralized by the lapse of ages?
Would not the lava-cinders exhumed from the extinct volcano
be their last poor resource?
“Keep up your spirits, my friends,” said Servadac; “we have plenty of time
before us at present. Let us hope that as fresh difficulties arise,
fresh ways of escape will open. Never despair!”
“True,” said the count; “it is an old saying that ‘Necessity is the mother
of invention.’ Besides, I should think it very unlikely that the internal
heat will fail us now before the summer.”
The lieutenant declared that he entertained the same hope.
As the reason of his opinion he alleged that the combustion
of the eruptive matter was most probably of quite recent origin,
because the comet before its collision with the earth had
possessed no atmosphere, and that consequently no oxygen could
have penetrated to its interior.
“Most likely you are right,” replied the count; “and so far from dreading
a failure of the internal heat, I am not quite sure that we may not be exposed
to a more terrible calamity still?”
“What?” asked Servadac.
“The calamity of the eruption breaking out suddenly again,
and taking us by surprise.”
“Heavens!” cried the captain, “we will not think of that.”
“The outbreak may happen again,” said the lieutenant, calmly; “but it will
be our fault, our own lack of vigilance, if we are taken by surprise.”
And so the conversation dropped.
The 15th of January dawned; and the comet was 220,000,000 leagues
from the sun.
Gallia had reached its aphelion.
DREARY MONTHS
Henceforth, then, with a velocity ever increasing, Gallia would
re-approach the sun.
Except the thirteen Englishmen who had been left at Gibraltar,
every living creature had taken refuge in the dark abyss
of the volcano’s crater.
And with those Englishmen, how had it fared?
“Far better than with ourselves,” was the sentiment that would
have been universally accepted in Nina’s Hive. And there was every
reason to conjecture that so it was. The party at Gibraltar,
they all agreed, would not, like themselves, have been compelled
to have recourse to a stream of lava for their supply of heat;
they, no doubt, had had abundance of fuel as well as food;
and in their solid casemate, with its substantial walls,
they would find ample shelter from the rigor of the cold.
The time would have been passed at least in comfort, and perhaps
in contentment; and Colonel Murphy and Major Oliphant would have
had leisure more than sufficient for solving the most abstruse
problems of the chessboard. All of them, too, would be happy
in the confidence that when the time should come, England would
have full meed of praise to award to the gallant soldiers
who had adhered so well and so manfully to their post.
It did, indeed, more than once occur to the minds both of
Servadac and his friends that, if their condition should become
one of extreme emergency, they might, as a last resource,
betake themselves to Gibraltar, and there seek a refuge;
but their former reception had not been of the kindest,
and they were little disposed to renew an acquaintanceship
that was marked by so little cordiality. Not in the least
that they would expect to meet with any inhospitable rebuff.
Far from that; they knew well enough that Englishmen,
whatever their faults, would be the last to abandon their
fellow-creatures in the hour of distress. Nevertheless, except the
necessity became far more urgent than it had hitherto proved,
they resolved to endeavor to remain in their present quarters.
Up till this time no casualties had diminished their original number,
but to undertake so long a journey across that unsheltered
expanse of ice could scarcely fail to result in the loss of some
of their party.
However great was the desire to find a retreat for every living thing
in the deep hollow of the crater, it was found necessary to slaughter
almost all the domestic animals before the removal of the community
from Nina’s Hive. To have stabled them all in the cavern below would
have been quite impossible, whilst to have left them in the upper
galleries would only have been to abandon them to a cruel death;
and since meat could be preserved for an indefinite time in the original
store-places, now colder than ever, the expedient of killing the animals
seemed to recommend itself as equally prudent and humane.
Naturally the captain and Ben Zoof were most anxious that their favorite
horses should be saved, and accordingly, by dint of the greatest care,
all difficulties in the way were overcome, and Zephyr and Galette
were conducted down the crater, where they were installed in a large
hole and provided with forage, which was still abundant.
Birds, subsisting only on scraps thrown out to them did not cease
to follow the population in its migration, and so numerous did they
become that multitudes of them had repeatedly to be destroyed.
The general re-arrangement of the new residence was no easy business,
and occupied so much time that the end of January arrived before
they could be said to be fairly settled. And then began a life
of dreary monotony. Then seemed to creep over everyone a kind
of moral torpor as well as physical lassitude, which Servadac,
the count, and the lieutenant did their best not only to combat
in themselves, but to counteract in the general community.
They provided a variety of intellectual pursuits; they instituted
debates in which everybody was encouraged to take part; they read aloud,
and explained extracts from the elementary manuals of science,
or from the books of adventurous travel which their library supplied;
and Russians and Spaniards, day after day, might be seen gathered
round the large table, giving their best attention to instruction
which should send them back to Mother Earth less ignorant than they
had left her.
Selfish and morose, Hakkabut could never be induced to be present
at these social gatherings. He was far too much occupied in his own
appropriated corner, either in conning his accounts, or in counting
his money. Altogether, with what he had before, he now possessed
the round sum of 150,000 francs, half of which was in sterling gold;
but nothing could give him any satisfaction while he knew that the days
were passing, and that he was denied the opportunity of putting out his
capital in advantageous investments, or securing a proper interest.
Neither did Palmyrin Rosette find leisure to take any share in
the mutual intercourse. His occupation was far too absorbing for him
to suffer it to be interrupted, and to him, living as he did perpetually
in a world of figures, the winter days seemed neither long nor wearisome.
Having ascertained every possible particular about his comet,
he was now devoting himself with equal ardor to the analysis of all
the properties of the satellite Nerina, to which he appeared to assert
the same claim of proprietorship.
In order to investigate Nerina it was indispensable that he should
make several actual observations at various points of the orbit;
and for this purpose he repeatedly made his way up to the grotto above,
where, in spite of the extreme severity of the cold, he would
persevere in the use of his telescope till he was all but paralyzed.
But what he felt more than anything was the want of some retired apartment,
where he could pursue his studies without hindrance or intrusion.
It was about the beginning of February, when the professor brought
his complaint to Captain Servadac, and begged him to assign
him a chamber, no matter how small, in which he should be free
to carry on his task in silence and without molestation.
So readily did Servadac promise to do everything in his power
to provide him with the accommodation for which he asked,
that the professor was put into such a manifest good temper
that the captain ventured to speak upon the matter that was ever
uppermost in his mind.
“I do not mean,” he began timidly, “to cast the least imputation
of inaccuracy upon any of your calculations, but would you
allow me, my dear professor, to suggest that you should revise
your estimate of the duration of Gallia’s period of revolution.
It is so important, you know, so all important; the difference
of one half minute, you know, would so certainly mar the expectation
of reunion with the earth—”
And seeing a cloud gathering on Rosette’s face, he added:
“I am sure Lieutenant Procope would be only too happy to render
you any assistance in the revision.”
“Sir,” said the professor, bridling up, “I want no assistant;
my calculations want no revision. I never make an error.
I have made my reckoning as far as Gallia is concerned.
I am now making a like estimate of the elements of Nerina.”
Conscious how impolitic it would be to press this matter further, the captain
casually remarked that he should have supposed that all the elements
of Nerina had been calculated long since by astronomers on the earth.
It was about as unlucky a speech as he could possibly have made.
The professor glared at him fiercely.
“Astounding, sir!” he exclaimed. “Yes! Nerina was a planet then;
everything that appertained to the planet was determined;
but Nerina is a moon now. And do you not think, sir, that we have
a right to know as much about our moon as those terrestrials“—
and he curled his lip as he spoke with a contemptuous
emphasis—“know of theirs?”
“I beg pardon,” said the corrected captain.
“Well then, never mind,” replied the professor, quickly appeased;
“only will you have the goodness to get me a proper place for study?”
“I will, as I promised, do all I can,” answered Servadac.
“Very good,” said the professor. “No immediate hurry;
an hour hence will do.”
But in spite of this condescension on the part of the man of science,
some hours had to elapse before any place of retreat could be discovered
likely to suit his requirements; but at length a little nook was found
in the side of the cavern just large enough to hold an armchair and a table,
and in this the astronomer was soon ensconced to his entire satisfaction.
Buried thus, nearly 900 feet below ground, the Gallians
ought to have had unbounded mental energy to furnish an
adequate reaction to the depressing monotony of their existence;
but many days would often elapse without any one of them ascending
to the surface of the soil, and had it not been for the necessity
of obtaining fresh water, it seemed almost probable that there
would never have been an effort made to leave the cavern at all.
A few excursions, it is true, were made in the downward direction.
The
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