Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space

CHAPTER XIV

SEN­SI­TIVE NA­TION­AL­ITY

When the schooner had ap­proached the is­land, the En­glish­men were able to make out the name “_Do­bry­na_” paint­ed on the aft-​board. A sin­uous ir­reg­ular­ity of the coast had formed a kind of cove, which, though hard­ly spa­cious enough for a few fish­ing-​smacks, would af­ford the yacht a tem­po­rary an­chor­age, so long as the wind did not blow vi­olent­ly from ei­ther west or south. In­to this cove the _Do­bry­na_ was du­ly sig­naled, and as soon as she was safe­ly moored, she low­ered her four-​oar, and Count Timascheff and Cap­tain Ser­vadac made their way at once to land.

Colonel He­neage Finch Mur­phy and Ma­jor Sir John Tem­ple Oliphant stood, grave and prim, for­mal­ly await­ing the ar­rival of their vis­itors. Cap­tain Ser­vadac, with the un­con­trolled vi­vac­ity nat­ural to a French­man, was the first to speak.

“A joy­ful sight, gen­tle­men!” he ex­claimed. “It will give us un­bound­ed plea­sure to shake hands again with some of our fel­low-​crea­tures. You, no doubt, have es­caped the same dis­as­ter as our­selves.”

But the En­glish of­fi­cers, nei­ther by word nor ges­ture, made the slight­est ac­knowl­edg­ment of this fa­mil­iar greet­ing.

“What news can you give us of France, Eng­land, or Rus­sia?” con­tin­ued Ser­vadac, per­fect­ly un­con­scious of the stol­id rigid­ity with which his ad­vances were re­ceived. “We are anx­ious to hear any­thing you can tell us. Have you had com­mu­ni­ca­tions with Eu­rope? Have you–“

“To whom have we the hon­or of speak­ing?” at last in­ter­posed Colonel Mur­phy, in the cold­est and most mea­sured tone, and draw­ing him­self up to his full height.

“Ah! how stupid! I for­got,” said Ser­vadac, with the slight­est pos­si­ble shrug of the shoul­ders; “we have not been in­tro­duced.”

Then, with a wave of his hand to­wards his com­pan­ion, who mean­while had ex­hib­it­ed a re­serve hard­ly less than that of the British of­fi­cers, he said:

“Al­low me to in­tro­duce you to Count Was­sili Timascheff.”

” Ma­jor Sir John Tem­ple Oliphant,” replied the colonel.

The Rus­sian and the En­glish­man mu­tu­al­ly ex­changed the stiffest of bows.

“I have the plea­sure of in­tro­duc­ing Cap­tain Ser­vadac,” said the count in his turn.

“And this is Colonel He­neage Finch Mur­phy,” was the ma­jor’s grave re­join­der.

More bows were in­ter­changed and the cer­emo­ny brought to its due con­clu­sion. It need hard­ly be said that the con­ver­sa­tion had been car­ried on in French, a lan­guage which is gen­er­al­ly known both by Rus­sians and En­glish­men– a cir­cum­stance that is prob­ably in some mea­sure to be ac­count­ed for by the re­fusal of French­men to learn ei­ther Rus­sian or En­glish.

The for­mal pre­lim­inar­ies of eti­quette be­ing thus com­plete, there was no longer any ob­sta­cle to a freer in­ter­course. The colonel, sign­ing to his guests to fol­low, led the way to the apart­ment oc­cu­pied joint­ly by him­self and the ma­jor, which, al­though on­ly a kind of case­mate hol­lowed in the rock, nev­er­the­less wore a gen­er­al air of com­fort. Ma­jor Oliphant ac­com­pa­nied them, and all four hav­ing tak­en their seats, the con­ver­sa­tion was com­menced.

Ir­ri­tat­ed and dis­gust­ed at all the cold for­mal­ities, Hec­tor Ser­vadac re­solved to leave all the talk­ing to the count; and he, quite aware that the En­glish­men would ad­here to the fic­tion that they could be sup­posed to know noth­ing that had tran­spired pre­vi­ous to the in­tro­duc­tion felt him­self obliged to re­ca­pit­ulate mat­ters from the very be­gin­ning.

“You must be aware, gen­tle­men,” be­gan the count, “that a most sin­gu­lar catas­tro­phe oc­curred on the 1st of Jan­uary last. Its cause, its lim­its we have ut­ter­ly failed to dis­cov­er, but from the ap­pear­ance of the is­land on which we find you here, you have ev­ident­ly ex­pe­ri­enced its dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences.”

The En­glish­men, in si­lence, bowed as­sent.

“Cap­tain Ser­vadac, who ac­com­pa­nies me,” con­tin­ued the count, “has been most severe­ly tried by the dis­as­ter. En­gaged as he was in an im­por­tant mis­sion as a staff-​of­fi­cer in Al­ge­ria–“

“A French colony, I be­lieve,” in­ter­posed Ma­jor Oliphant, half shut­ting his eyes with an ex­pres­sion of supreme in­dif­fer­ence.

Ser­vadac was on the point of mak­ing some cut­ting re­tort, but Count Timascheff, with­out al­low­ing the in­ter­rup­tion to be no­ticed, calm­ly con­tin­ued his nar­ra­tive:

“It was near the mouth of the She­lif that a por­tion of Africa, on that event­ful night, was trans­formed in­to an is­land which alone sur­vived; the rest of the vast con­ti­nent dis­ap­peared as com­plete­ly as if it had nev­er been.”

The an­nounce­ment seemed by no means startling to the phleg­mat­ic colonel.

“In­deed!” was all he said.

“And where were you?” asked Ma­jor Oliphant.

“I was out at sea, cruis­ing in my yacht; hard by; and I look up­on it as a mir­acle, and noth­ing less, that I and my crew es­caped with our lives.”

“I con­grat­ulate you on your luck,” replied the ma­jor.

The count re­sumed: “It was about a month af­ter the great dis­rup­tion that I was sail­ing–my en­gine hav­ing sus­tained some dam­age in the shock– along the Al­ge­ri­an coast, and had the plea­sure of meet­ing with my pre­vi­ous ac­quain­tance, Cap­tain Ser­vadac, who was res­ident up­on the is­land with his or­der­ly, Ben Zoof.”

“Ben who?” in­quired the ma­jor.

“Zoof! Ben Zoof!” ejac­ulat­ed Ser­vadac, who could scarce­ly shout loud enough to re­lieve his pent-​up feel­ings.

Ig­nor­ing this ebul­li­tion of the cap­tain’s spleen, the count went on to say: “Cap­tain Ser­vadac was nat­ural­ly most anx­ious to get what news he could. Ac­cord­ing­ly, he left his ser­vant on the is­land in charge of his hors­es, and came on board the _Do­bry­na_ with me. We were quite at a loss to know where we should steer, but de­cid­ed to di­rect our course to what pre­vi­ous­ly had been the east, in or­der that we might, if pos­si­ble, dis­cov­er the colony of Al­ge­ria; but of Al­ge­ria not a trace re­mained.”

The colonel curled his lip, in­sin­uat­ing on­ly too plain­ly that to him it was by no means sur­pris­ing that a French colony should be want­ing in the el­ement of sta­bil­ity. Ser­vadac ob­served the su­per­cil­ious look, and half rose to his feet, but, smoth­er­ing his re­sent­ment, took his seat again with­out speak­ing.

“The dev­as­ta­tion, gen­tle­men,” said the count, who per­sis­tent­ly re­fused to rec­og­nize the French­man’s ir­ri­ta­tion, “ev­ery­where was ter­ri­ble and com­plete. Not on­ly was Al­ge­ria lost, but there was no trace of Tu­nis, ex­cept one soli­tary rock, which was crowned by an an­cient tomb of one of the kings of France–“

“Louis the Ninth, I pre­sume,” ob­served the colonel.

“Saint Louis,” blurt­ed out Ser­vadac, sav­age­ly.

Colonel Mur­phy slight­ly smiled.

Proof against all in­ter­rup­tion, Count Timascheff, as if he had not heard it, went on with­out paus­ing. He re­lat­ed how the schooner had pushed her way on­wards to the south, and had reached the Gulf of Cabes; and how she had as­cer­tained for cer­tain that the Sa­hara Sea had no longer an ex­is­tence.

The smile of dis­dain again crossed the colonel’s face; he could not con­ceal his opin­ion that such a des­tiny for the work of a French­man could be no mat­ter of sur­prise.

“Our next dis­cov­ery,” con­tin­ued the count, “was that a new coast had been up­heaved right along in front of the coast of Tripoli, the ge­olog­ical for­ma­tion of which was al­to­geth­er strange, and which ex­tend­ed to the north as far as the prop­er place of Mal­ta.”

“And Mal­ta,” cried Ser­vadac, un­able to con­trol him­self any longer; “Mal­ta–town, forts, sol­diers, gov­er­nor, and all–has van­ished just like Al­ge­ria.”

For a mo­ment a cloud rest­ed up­on the colonel’s brow, on­ly to give place to an ex­pres­sion of de­cid­ed in­creduli­ty.

“The state­ment seems high­ly in­cred­ible,” he said.

“In­cred­ible?” re­peat­ed Ser­vadac. “Why is it that you doubt my word?”

The cap­tain’s ris­ing wrath did not pre­vent the colonel from re­ply­ing cool­ly, “Be­cause Mal­ta be­longs to Eng­land.”

“I can’t help that,” an­swered Ser­vadac, sharply; “it has gone just as ut­ter­ly as if it had be­longed to Chi­na.”

Colonel Mur­phy turned de­lib­er­ate­ly away from Ser­vadac, and ap­pealed to the count: “Do you not think you may have made some er­ror, count, in reck­on­ing the bear­ings of your yacht?”

“No, colonel, I am quite cer­tain of my reck­on­ings; and not on­ly can I tes­ti­fy that Mal­ta has dis­ap­peared, but I can af­firm that a large sec­tion of the Mediter­ranean has been closed in by a new con­ti­nent. Af­ter the most anx­ious in­ves­ti­ga­tion, we could dis­cov­er on­ly one nar­row open­ing in all the coast, and it is by fol­low­ing that lit­tle chan­nel that we have made our way hith­er. Eng­land, I fear, has suf­fered grievous­ly by the late catas­tro­phe. Not on­ly has Mal­ta been en­tire­ly lost, but of the Io­ni­an Is­lands that were un­der Eng­land’s pro­tec­tion, there seems to be but lit­tle left.”

“Ay, you may de­pend up­on it,” said Ser­vadac, break­ing in up­on the con­ver­sa­tion petu­lant­ly, “your grand res­ident lord high com­mis­sion­er has not much to con­grat­ulate him­self about in the con­di­tion of Cor­fu.”

The En­glish­men were mys­ti­fied.

“Cor­fu, did you say?” asked Ma­jor Oliphant.

“Yes, Cor­fu; I said Cor­fu,” replied Ser­vadac, with a sort of ma­li­cious tri­umph.

The of­fi­cers were speech­less with as­ton­ish­ment.

The si­lence of be­wil­der­ment was bro­ken at length by Count Timascheff mak­ing in­quiry whether noth­ing had been heard from Eng­land, ei­ther by tele­graph or by any pass­ing ship.

“No,” said the colonel; “not a ship has passed; and the ca­ble is bro­ken.”

“But do not the Ital­ian tele­graphs as­sist you?” con­tin­ued the count.

“Ital­ian! I do not com­pre­hend you. You must mean the Span­ish, sure­ly.”

“How?” de­mand­ed Timascheff.

“Con­found it!” cried the im­pa­tient Ser­vadac. “What mat­ters whether it be Span­ish or Ital­ian? Tell us, have you had no com­mu­ni­ca­tion at all from Eu­rope?–no news of any sort from Lon­don?”

“Hith­er­to, none what­ev­er,” replied the colonel; adding with a state­ly em­pha­sis, “but we shall be sure to have tid­ings from Eng­land be­fore long.”

“Whether Eng­land is still in ex­is­tence or not, I sup­pose,” said Ser­vadac, in a tone of irony.

The En­glish­men start­ed si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly to their feet.

“Eng­land in ex­is­tence?” the colonel cried. “Eng­land! Ten times more prob­able that France–“

“France!” shout­ed Ser­vadac in a pas­sion. “France is not an is­land that can be sub­merged; France is an in­te­gral por­tion of a sol­id con­ti­nent. France, at least, is safe.”

A scene ap­peared in­evitable, and Count Timascheff’s ef­forts to con­cil­iate the ex­cit­ed par­ties were of small avail.

“You are at home here,” said Ser­vadac, with as much calm­ness as he could com­mand; “it will be ad­vis­able, I think, for this dis­cus­sion to be car­ried on in the open air.” And hur­ried­ly he left the room. Fol­lowed im­me­di­ate­ly by the oth­ers, he led the way to a lev­el piece of ground, which he con­sid­ered he might fair­ly claim as neu­tral ter­ri­to­ry.

“Now, gen­tle­men,” he be­gan haugh­ti­ly, “per­mit me to rep­re­sent that, in spite of any loss France may have sus­tained in the fate of Al­ge­ria, France is ready to an­swer any provo­ca­tion that af­fects her hon­or. Here I am the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of my coun­try, and here, on neu­tral ground–“

“Neu­tral ground?” ob­ject­ed Colonel Mur­phy; “I beg your par­don. This, Cap­tain Ser­vadac, is En­glish ter­ri­to­ry. Do you not see the En­glish flag?” and, as he spoke, he point­ed with na­tion­al pride to the British stan­dard float­ing over the top of the is­land.

“Pshaw!” cried Ser­vadac, with a con­temp­tu­ous sneer; “that flag, you know, has been hoist­ed but a few short weeks.”

“That flag has float­ed where it is for ages,” as­sert­ed the colonel.

“An im­pos­ture!” shout­ed Ser­vadac, as he stamped with rage.

Re­cov­er­ing his com­po­sure in a de­gree, he con­tin­ued: “Can you sup­pose that I am not aware that this is­land on which we find you is what re­mains of the Io­ni­an rep­re­sen­ta­tive re­pub­lic, over which you En­glish ex­er­cise the right of pro­tec­tion, but have no claim of gov­ern­ment?”

The colonel and the ma­jor looked at each oth­er in amaze­ment.

Al­though Count Timascheff se­cret­ly sym­pa­thized with Ser­vadac, he had care­ful­ly re­frained from tak­ing part in the dis­pute; but he was on the point of in­ter­fer­ing, when the colonel, in a great­ly sub­dued tone, begged to be al­lowed to speak.

“I be­gin to ap­pre­hend,” he said, “that you must be la-​bor­ing un­der some strange mis­take. There is no room for ques­tion­ing that the ter­ri­to­ry here is Eng­land’s–Eng­land’s by right of con­quest; ced­ed to Eng­land by the Treaty of Utrecht. Three times, in­deed–in 1727, 1779, and 1792– France and Spain have dis­put­ed our ti­tle, but al­ways to no pur­pose. You are, I as­sure you, at the present mo­ment, as much on En­glish soil as if you were in Lon­don, in the mid­dle of Trafal­gar Square.”

It was now the turn of the cap­tain and the count to look sur­prised. “Are we not, then, in Cor­fu?” they asked.

“You are at Gibral­tar,” replied the colonel.

Gibral­tar! The word fell like a thun­der­clap up­on their ears. Gibral­tar! the west­ern ex­trem­ity of the Mediter­ranean! Why, had they not been sail­ing per­sis­tent­ly to the east? Could they be wrong in imag­in­ing that they had reached the Io­ni­an Is­lands? What new mys­tery was this?

Count Timascheff was about to pro­ceed with a more rig­or­ous in­ves­ti­ga­tion, when the at­ten­tion of all was ar­rest­ed by a loud out­cry. Turn­ing round, they saw that the crew of the _Do­bry­na_ was in hot dis­pute with the En­glish sol­diers. A gen­er­al al­ter­ca­tion had arisen from a dis­agree­ment be­tween the sailor Panof­ka and Cor­po­ral Pim. It had tran­spired that the can­non-​ball fired in ex­per­iment from the is­land had not on­ly dam­aged one of the spars of the schooner, but had bro­ken Panof­ka’s pipe, and, more­over, had just grazed his nose, which, for a Rus­sian’s, was un­usu­al­ly long. The dis­cus­sion over this mishap led to mu­tu­al re­crim­ina­tions, till the sailors had al­most come to blows with the gar­ri­son.

Ser­vadac was just in the mood to take Panof­ka’s part, which drew from Ma­jor Oliphant the re­mark that Eng­land could not be held re­spon­si­ble for any ac­ci­den­tal in­jury done by her can­non, and if the Rus­sian’s long nose came in the way of the ball, the Rus­sian must sub­mit to the mis­chance.

This was too much for Count Timascheff, and hav­ing poured out a tor­rent of an­gry in­vec­tive against the En­glish of­fi­cers, he or­dered his crew to em­bark im­me­di­ate­ly.

“We shall meet again,” said Ser­vadac, as they pushed off from shore.

“When­ev­er you please,” was the cool re­ply.

The ge­ograph­ical mys­tery haunt­ed the minds of both the count and the cap­tain, and they felt they could nev­er rest till they had as­cer­tained what had be­come of their re­spec­tive coun­tries. They were glad to be on board again, that they might ré­sumé their voy­age of in­ves­ti­ga­tion, and in two hours were out of sight of the sole re­main­ing frag­ment of Gibral­tar.