Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space

CHAPTER I

A CHAL­LENGE

Noth­ing, sir, can in­duce me to sur­ren­der my claim.”

“I am sor­ry, count, but in such a mat­ter your views can­not mod­ify mine.”

“But al­low me to point out that my se­nior­ity un­ques­tion­ably gives me a pri­or right.”

“Mere se­nior­ity, I as­sert, in an af­fair of this kind, can­not pos­si­bly en­ti­tle you to any pri­or claim what­ev­er.”

“Then, cap­tain, no al­ter­na­tive is left but for me to com­pel you to yield at the sword’s point.”

“As you please, count; but nei­ther sword nor pis­tol can force me to forego my pre­ten­sions. Here is my card.”

“And mine.”

This rapid al­ter­ca­tion was thus brought to an end by the for­mal in­ter­change of the names of the dis­putants. On one of the cards was in­scribed: _Cap­tain Hec­tor Ser­vadac, Staff Of­fi­cer, Mosta­ganem._

On the oth­er was the ti­tle: _Count Was­sili Timascheff, On board the Schooner “Do­bry­na.”_

It did not take long to ar­range that sec­onds should be ap­point­ed, who would meet in Mosta­ganem at two o’clock that day; and the cap­tain and the count were on the point of part­ing from each oth­er, with a salute of punc­til­ious cour­tesy, when Timascheff, as if struck by a sud­den thought, said abrupt­ly: “Per­haps it would be bet­ter, cap­tain, not to al­low the re­al cause of this to tran­spire?”

“Far bet­ter,” replied Ser­vadac; “it is un­de­sir­able in ev­ery way for any names to be men­tioned.”

“In that case, how­ev­er,” con­tin­ued the count, “it will be nec­es­sary to as­sign an os­ten­si­ble pre­text of some kind. Shall we al­lege a mu­si­cal dis­pute? a con­tention in which I feel bound to de­fend Wag­ner, while you are the zeal­ous cham­pi­on of Rossi­ni?”

“I am quite con­tent,” an­swered Ser­vadac, with a smile; and with an­oth­er low bow they part­ed.

The scene, as here de­pict­ed, took place up­on the ex­trem­ity of a lit­tle cape on the Al­ge­ri­an coast, be­tween Mosta­ganem and Tenes, about two miles from the mouth of the She­lif. The head­land rose more than six­ty feet above the sea-​lev­el, and the azure wa­ters of the Mediter­ranean, as they soft­ly kissed the strand, were tinged with the red­dish hue of the fer­rif­er­ous rocks that formed its base. It was the 31st of De­cem­ber. The noon­tide sun, which usu­al­ly il­lu­mi­nat­ed the var­ious pro­jec­tions of the coast with a daz­zling bright­ness, was hid­den by a dense mass of cloud, and the fog, which for some un­ac­count­able cause, had hung for the last two months over near­ly ev­ery re­gion in the world, caus­ing se­ri­ous in­ter­rup­tion to traf­fic be­tween con­ti­nent and con­ti­nent, spread its drea­ry veil across land and sea.

Af­ter tak­ing leave of the staff-​of­fi­cer, Count Was­sili Timascheff wend­ed his way down to a small creek, and took his seat in the stern of a light four-​oar that had been await­ing his re­turn; this was im­me­di­ate­ly pushed off from shore, and was soon along­side a plea­sure-​yacht, that was ly­ing to, not many ca­ble lengths away.

At a sign from Ser­vadac, an or­der­ly, who had been stand­ing at a re­spect­ful dis­tance, led for­ward a mag­nif­icent Ara­bi­an horse; the cap­tain vault­ed in­to the sad­dle, and fol­lowed by his at­ten­dant, well mount­ed as him­self, start­ed off to­wards Mosta­ganem. It was half-​past twelve when the two rid­ers crossed the bridge that had been re­cent­ly erect­ed over the She­lif, and a quar­ter of an hour lat­er their steeds, flecked with foam, dashed through the Mas­cara Gate, which was one of five en­trances opened in the em­bat­tled wall that en­cir­cled the town.

At that date, Mosta­ganem con­tained about fif­teen thou­sand in­hab­itants, three thou­sand of whom were French. Be­sides be­ing one of the prin­ci­pal dis­trict towns of the province of Oran, it was al­so a mil­itary sta­tion. Mosta­ganem re­joiced in a well-​shel­tered har­bor, which en­abled her to uti­lize all the rich prod­ucts of the Mi­na and the Low­er She­lif. It was the ex­is­tence of so good a har­bor amidst the ex­posed cliffs of this coast that had in­duced the own­er of the _Do­bry­na_ to win­ter in these parts, and for two months the Rus­sian stan­dard had been seen float­ing from her yard, whilst on her mast-​head was hoist­ed the pen­nant of the French Yacht Club, with the dis­tinc­tive let­ters M. C. W. T., the ini­tials of Count Timascheff.

Hav­ing en­tered the town, Cap­tain Ser­vadac made his way to­wards Mat­more, the mil­itary quar­ter, and was not long in find­ing two friends on whom he might re­ly–a ma­jor of the 2nd Fusileers, and a cap­tain of the 8th Ar­tillery. The two of­fi­cers lis­tened grave­ly enough to Ser­vadac’s re­quest that they would act as his sec­onds in an af­fair of hon­or, but could not re­sist a smile on hear­ing that the dis­pute be­tween him and the count had orig­inat­ed in a mu­si­cal dis­cus­sion. Sure­ly, they sug­gest­ed, the mat­ter might be eas­ily ar­ranged; a few slight con­ces­sions on ei­ther side, and all might be am­ica­bly ad­just­ed. But no rep­re­sen­ta­tions on their part were of any avail. Hec­tor Ser­vadac was in­flex­ible.

“No con­ces­sion is pos­si­ble,” he replied, res­olute­ly. “Rossi­ni has been deeply in­jured, and I can­not suf­fer the in­jury to be un­avenged. Wag­ner is a fool. I shall keep my word. I am quite firm.”

“Be it so, then,” replied one of the of­fi­cers; “and af­ter all, you know, a sword-​cut need not be a very se­ri­ous af­fair.”

“Cer­tain­ly not,” re­joined Ser­vadac; “and es­pe­cial­ly in my case, when I have not the slight­est in­ten­tion of be­ing wound­ed at all.”

In­cred­ulous as they nat­ural­ly were as to the as­signed cause of the quar­rel, Ser­vadac’s friends had no al­ter­na­tive but to ac­cept his ex­pla­na­tion, and with­out far­ther par­ley they start­ed for the staff of­fice, where, at two o’clock pre­cise­ly, they were to meet the sec­onds of Count Timascheff. Two hours lat­er they had re­turned. All the pre­lim­inar­ies had been ar­ranged; the count, who like many Rus­sians abroad was an aide-​de-​camp of the Czar, had of course pro­posed swords as the most ap­pro­pri­ate weapons, and the du­el was to take place on the fol­low­ing morn­ing, the first of Jan­uary, at nine o’clock, up­on the cliff at a spot about a mile and a half from the mouth of the She­lif. With the as­sur­ance that they would not fail to keep their ap­point­ment with mil­itary punc­tu­al­ity, the two of­fi­cers cor­dial­ly wrung their friend’s hand and re­tired to the Zul­ma Cafe for a game at pi­quet. Cap­tain Ser­vadac at once re­traced his steps and left the town.

For the last fort­night Ser­vadac had not been oc­cu­py­ing his prop­er lodg­ings in the mil­itary quar­ters; hav­ing been ap­point­ed to make a lo­cal levy, he had been liv­ing in a gour­bi, or na­tive hut, on the Mosta­ganem coast, be­tween four and five miles from the She­lif. His or­der­ly was his sole com­pan­ion, and by any oth­er man than the cap­tain the en­forced ex­ile would have been es­teemed lit­tle short of a se­vere penance.

On his way to the gour­bi, his men­tal oc­cu­pa­tion was a very la­bo­ri­ous ef­fort to put to­geth­er what he was pleased to call a ron­do, up­on a mod­el of ver­si­fi­ca­tion all but ob­so­lete. This ron­do, it is un­nec­es­sary to con­ceal, was to be an ode ad­dressed to a young wid­ow by whom he had been cap­ti­vat­ed, and whom he was anx­ious to mar­ry, and the tenor of his muse was in­tend­ed to prove that when once a man has found an ob­ject in all re­spects wor­thy of his af­fec­tions, he should love her “in all sim­plic­ity.” Whether the apho­rism were uni­ver­sal­ly true was not very ma­te­ri­al to the gal­lant cap­tain, whose sole am­bi­tion at present was to con­struct a rounde­lay of which this should be the pre­vail­ing sen­ti­ment. He in­dulged the fan­cy that he might suc­ceed in pro­duc­ing a com­po­si­tion which would have a fine ef­fect here in Al­ge­ria, where po­et­ry in that form was all but un­known.

“I know well enough,” he said re­peat­ed­ly to him­self, “what I want to say. I want to tell her that I love her sin­cere­ly, and wish to mar­ry her; but, con­found it! the words won’t rhyme. Plague on it! Does noth­ing rhyme with ’sim­plic­ity’? Ah! I have it now: ‘Lovers should, whoe’er they be, Love in all sim­plic­ity.’ But what next? how am I to go on? I say, Ben Zoof,” he called aloud to his or­der­ly, who was trot­ting silent­ly close in his rear, “did you ev­er com­pose any po­et­ry?”

“No, cap­tain,” an­swered the man prompt­ly: “I have nev­er made any vers­es, but I have seen them made fast enough at a booth dur­ing the fete of Mont­martre.”

“Can you re­mem­ber them?”

“Re­mem­ber them! to be sure I can. This is the way they be­gan:

‘Come in! come in! you’ll not re­pent The en­trance mon­ey you have spent; The won­drous mir­ror in this place Re­veals your fu­ture sweet­heart’s face.’”

“Bosh!” cried Ser­vadac in dis­gust; “your vers­es are de­testable trash.”

“As good as any oth­ers, cap­tain, squeaked through a reed pipe.”

“Hold your tongue, man,” said Ser­vadac peremp­to­ri­ly; “I have made an­oth­er cou­plet. ‘Lovers should, whoe’er they be, Love in all sim­plic­ity; Lover, lov­ing hon­est­ly, Of­fer I my­self to thee.’”

Be­yond this, how­ev­er, the cap­tain’s po­et­ical ge­nius was im­po­tent to car­ry him; his far­ther ef­forts were un­avail­ing, and when at six o’clock he reached the gour­bi, the four lines still re­mained the lim­it of his com­po­si­tion.