Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space

CHAPTER X

A SEARCH FOR AL­GE­RIA

The _Do­bry­na_, a strong craft of 200 tons bur­den, had been built in the fa­mous ship­build­ing yards in the Isle of Wight. Her sea go­ing qual­ities were ex­cel­lent, and would have am­ply suf­ficed for a cir­cum­nav­iga­tion of the globe. Count Timascheff was him­self no sailor, but had the great­est con­fi­dence in leav­ing the com­mand of his yacht in the hands of Lieu­tenant Pro­cope, a man of about thir­ty years of age, and an ex­cel­lent sea­man. Born on the count’s es­tates, the son of a serf who had been eman­ci­pat­ed long be­fore the fa­mous edict of the Em­per­or Alexan­der, Pro­cope was sin­cere­ly at­tached, by a tie of grat­itude as well as of du­ty and af­fec­tion, to his pa­tron’s ser­vice. Af­ter an ap­pren­tice­ship on a mer­chant ship he had en­tered the im­pe­ri­al navy, and had al­ready reached the rank of lieu­tenant when the count ap­point­ed him to the charge of his own pri­vate yacht, in which he was ac­cus­tomed to spend by far the greater part of his time, through­out the win­ter gen­er­al­ly cruis­ing in the Mediter­ranean, whilst in the sum­mer he vis­it­ed more north­ern wa­ters.

The ship could not have been in bet­ter hands. The lieu­tenant was well in­formed in many mat­ters out­side the pale of his pro­fes­sion, and his at­tain­ments were alike cred­itable to him­self and to the lib­er­al friend who had giv­en him his ed­uca­tion. He had an ex­cel­lent crew, con­sist­ing of Tiglew the en­gi­neer, four sailors named Niegoch, Tol­stoy, Etkef, and Panof­ka, and Mochel the cook. These men, with­out ex­cep­tion, were all sons of the count’s ten­ants, and so tena­cious­ly, even out at sea, did they cling to their old tra­di­tions, that it mat­tered lit­tle to them what phys­ical dis­or­ga­ni­za­tion en­sued, so long as they felt they were shar­ing the ex­pe­ri­ences of their lord and mas­ter. The late as­tound­ing events, how­ev­er, had ren­dered Pro­cope man­ifest­ly un­easy, and not the less so from his con­scious­ness that the count se­cret­ly par­took of his own anx­iety.

Steam up and can­vas spread, the schooner start­ed east­wards. With a fa­vor­able wind she would cer­tain­ly have made eleven knots an hour had not the high waves some­what im­ped­ed her progress. Al­though on­ly a mod­er­ate breeze was blow­ing, the sea was rough, a cir­cum­stance to be ac­count­ed for on­ly by the diminu­tion in the force of the earth’s at­trac­tion ren­der­ing the liq­uid par­ti­cles so buoy­ant, that by the mere ef­fect of os­cil­la­tion they were car­ried to a height that was quite un­prece­dent­ed. M. Ara­go has fixed twen­ty-​five or twen­ty-​six feet as the max­imum el­eva­tion ev­er at­tained by the high­est waves, and his as­ton­ish­ment would have been very great to see them ris­ing fifty or even six­ty feet. Nor did these waves in the usu­al way par­tial­ly un­furl them­selves and re­bound against the sides of the ves­sel; they might rather be de­scribed as long un­du­la­tions car­ry­ing the schooner (its weight di­min­ished from the same cause as that of the wa­ter) al­ter­nate­ly to such heights and depths, that if Cap­tain Ser­vadac had been sub­ject to sea­sick­ness he must have found him­self in sor­ry plight. As the pitch­ing, how­ev­er, was the re­sult of a long uni­form swell, the yacht did not la­bor much hard­er than she would against the or­di­nary short strong waves of the Mediter­ranean; the main in­con­ve­nience that was ex­pe­ri­enced was the diminu­tion in her prop­er rate of speed.

For a few miles she fol­lowed the line hith­er­to pre­sum­ably oc­cu­pied by the coast of Al­ge­ria; but no land ap­peared to the south. The changed po­si­tions of the plan­ets ren­dered them of no avail for pur­pos­es of nau­ti­cal ob­ser­va­tion, nor could Lieu­tenant Pro­cope cal­cu­late his lat­itude and lon­gi­tude by the al­ti­tude of the sun, as his reck­on­ings would be use­less when ap­plied to charts that had been con­struct­ed for the old or­der of things; but nev­er­the­less, by means of the log, which gave him the rate of progress, and by the com­pass which in­di­cat­ed the di­rec­tion in which they were sail­ing, he was able to form an es­ti­mate of his po­si­tion that was suf­fi­cient­ly free from er­ror for his im­me­di­ate need.

Hap­pi­ly the re­cent phe­nom­ena had no ef­fect up­on the com­pass; the mag­net­ic nee­dle, which in these re­gions had point­ed about 22 de­grees from the north pole, had nev­er de­vi­at­ed in the least–a proof that, al­though east and west had ap­par­ent­ly changed places, north and south con­tin­ued to re­tain their nor­mal po­si­tion as car­di­nal points. The log and the com­pass, there­fore, were able to be called up­on to do the work of the sex­tant, which had be­come ut­ter­ly use­less.

On the first morn­ing of the cruise Lieu­tenant Pro­cope, who, like most Rus­sians, spoke French flu­ent­ly, was ex­plain­ing these pe­cu­liar­ities to Cap­tain Ser­vadac; the count was present, and the con­ver­sa­tion per­pet­ual­ly re­curred, as nat­ural­ly it would, to the phe­nom­ena which re­mained so in­ex­pli­ca­ble to them all.

“It is very ev­ident,” said the lieu­tenant, “that ev­er since the 1st of Jan­uary the earth has been mov­ing in a new or­bit, and from some un­known cause has drawn near­er to the sun.”

“No doubt about that,” said Ser­vadac; “and I sup­pose that, hav­ing crossed the or­bit of Venus, we have a good chance of run­ning in­to the or­bit of Mer­cury.”

“And fin­ish up by a col­li­sion with the sun!” added the count.

“There is no fear of that, sir. The earth has un­doubt­ed­ly en­tered up­on a new or­bit, but she is not in­cur­ring any prob­able risk of be­ing pre­cip­itat­ed on­to the sun.”

“Can you sat­is­fy us of that?” asked the count.

“I can, sir. I can give you a proof which I think you will own is con­clu­sive. If, as you sup­pose, the earth is be­ing drawn on so as to be pre­cip­itat­ed against the sun, the great cen­ter of at­trac­tion of our sys­tem, it could on­ly be be­cause the cen­trifu­gal and cen­tripetal forces that cause the plan­ets to ro­tate in their sev­er­al or­bits had been en­tire­ly sus­pend­ed: in that case, in­deed, the earth would rush on­wards to­wards the sun, and in six­ty-​four days and a half the catas­tro­phe you dread would in­evitably hap­pen.”

“And what demon­stra­tion do you of­fer,” asked Ser­vadac ea­ger­ly, “that it will not hap­pen?”

“Sim­ply this, cap­tain: that since the earth en­tered her new or­bit half the six­ty-​four days has al­ready elapsed, and yet it is on­ly just re­cent­ly that she has crossed the or­bit of Venus, hard­ly one-​third of the dis­tance to be tra­versed to reach the sun.”

The lieu­tenant paused to al­low time for re­flec­tion, and added: “More­over, I have ev­ery rea­son to be­lieve that we are not so near the sun as we have been. The tem­per­ature has been grad­ual­ly di­min­ish­ing; the heat up­on Gour­bi Is­land is not greater now than we might or­di­nar­ily ex­pect to find in Al­ge­ria. At the same time, we have the prob­lem still un­solved that the Mediter­ranean has ev­ident­ly been trans­port­ed to the equa­to­ri­al zone.”

Both the count and the cap­tain ex­pressed them­selves re­as­sured by his rep­re­sen­ta­tions, and ob­served that they must now do all in their pow­er to dis­cov­er what had be­come of the vast con­ti­nent of Africa, of which, they were hith­er­to fail­ing so com­plete­ly to find a ves­tige.

Twen­ty-​four hours af­ter leav­ing the is­land, the _Do­bry­na_ had passed over the sites where Tenes, Cher­chil, Koleah, and Si­di-​Fer­uch once had been, but of these towns not one ap­peared with­in range of the tele­scope. Ocean reigned supreme. Lieu­tenant Pro­cope was ab­so­lute­ly cer­tain that he had not mis­tak­en his di­rec­tion; the com­pass showed that the wind had nev­er shift­ed from the west, and this, with the rate of speed as es­ti­mat­ed by the log, com­bined to as­sure him that at this date, the 2d of Febru­ary, the schooner was in lat. 36 de­grees 49 min N. and long. 3 de­grees 25 min E., the very spot which ought to have been oc­cu­pied by the Al­ge­ri­an cap­ital. But Al­giers, like all the oth­er coast-​towns, had ap­par­ent­ly been ab­sorbed in­to the bow­els of the earth.

Cap­tain Ser­vadac, with clenched teeth and knit­ted brow, stood stern­ly, al­most fierce­ly, re­gard­ing the bound­less waste of wa­ter. His pulse beat fast as he re­called the friends and com­rades with whom he had spent the last few years in that van­ished city. All the im­ages of his past life float­ed up­on his mem­ory; his thoughts sped away to his na­tive France, on­ly to re­turn again to won­der whether the depths of ocean would re­veal any traces of the Al­ge­ri­an metropo­lis.

“Is it not im­pos­si­ble,” he mur­mured aloud, “that any city should dis­ap­pear so com­plete­ly? Would not the lofti­est em­inences of the city at least be vis­ible? Sure­ly some por­tion of the Cas­bah must still rise above the waves? The im­pe­ri­al fort, too, was built up­on an el­eva­tion of 750 feet; it is in­cred­ible that it should be so to­tal­ly sub­merged. Un­less some ves­tiges of these are found, I shall be­gin to sus­pect that the whole of Africa has been swal­lowed in some vast abyss.”

An­oth­er cir­cum­stance was most re­mark­able. Not a ma­te­ri­al ob­ject of any kind was to be no­ticed float­ing on the sur­face of the wa­ter; not one branch of a tree had been seen drift­ing by, nor one spar be­long­ing to one of the nu­mer­ous ves­sels that a month pre­vi­ous­ly had been moored in the mag­nif­icent bay which stretched twelve miles across from Cape Mata­fuz to Point Pex­ade. Per­haps the depths might dis­close what the sur­face failed to re­veal, and Count Timascheff, anx­ious that Ser­vadac should have ev­ery fa­cil­ity af­ford­ed him for solv­ing his doubts, called for the sound­ing-​line. Forth­with, the lead was greased and low­ered. To the sur­prise of all, and es­pe­cial­ly of Lieu­tenant Pro­cope, the line in­di­cat­ed a bot­tom at a near­ly uni­form depth of from four to five fath­oms; and al­though the sound­ing was per­se­vered with con­tin­uous­ly for more than two hours over a con­sid­er­able area, the dif­fer­ences of lev­el were in­signif­icant, not cor­re­spond­ing in any de­gree to what would be ex­pect­ed over the site of a city that had been ter­raced like the seats of an am­phithe­ater. As­tound­ing as it seemed, what al­ter­na­tive was left but to sup­pose that the Al­ge­ri­an cap­ital had been com­plete­ly lev­eled by the flood?

The sea-​bot­tom was com­posed of nei­ther rock, mud, sand, nor shells; the sound­ing-​lead brought up noth­ing but a kind of metal­lic dust, which glit­tered with a strange iri­des­cence, and the na­ture of which it was im­pos­si­ble to de­ter­mine, as it was to­tal­ly un­like what had ev­er been known to be raised from the bed of the Mediter­ranean.

“You must see, lieu­tenant, I should think, that we are not so near the coast of Al­ge­ria as you imag­ined.”

The lieu­tenant shook his head. Af­ter pon­der­ing awhile, he said: “If we were far­ther away I should ex­pect to find a depth of two or three hun­dred fath­oms in­stead of five fath­oms. Five fath­oms! I con­fess I am puz­zled.”

For the next thir­ty-​six hours, un­til the 4th of Febru­ary, the sea was ex­am­ined and ex­plored with the most un­flag­ging per­se­ver­ance. Its depth re­mained in­vari­able, still four, or at most five, fath­oms; and al­though its bot­tom was as­sid­uous­ly dredged, it was on­ly to prove it bar­ren of ma­rine pro­duc­tion of any type.

The yacht made its way to lat. 36 de­grees, and by ref­er­ence to the charts it was tol­er­ably cer­tain that she was cruis­ing over the site of the Sa­hel, the ridge that had sep­arat­ed the rich plain of the Mi­tid­ja from the sea, and of which the high­est peak, Mount Bou­jereah, had reached an al­ti­tude of 1,200 feet; but even this peak, which might have been ex­pect­ed to emerge like an islet above the sur­face of the sea, was nowhere to be traced. Noth­ing was to be done but to put about, and re­turn in dis­ap­point­ment to­wards the north.

Thus the _Do­bry­na_ re­gained the wa­ters of the Mediter­ranean with­out dis­cov­er­ing a trace of the miss­ing province of Al­ge­ria.