Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space

CHAPTER XIX

GAL­LIA’S GOV­ER­NOR GEN­ER­AL

The Spaniards who had ar­rived on board the _Hansa_ con­sist­ed of nine men and a lad of twelve years of age, named Pablo. They all re­ceived Cap­tain Ser­vadac, whom Ben Zoof in­tro­duced as the gov­er­nor gen­er­al, with due re­spect, and re­turned quick­ly to their sep­arate tasks. The cap­tain and his friends, fol­lowed at some dis­tance by the ea­ger Jew, soon left the glade and di­rect­ed their steps to­wards the coast where the _Hansa_ was moored.

As they went they dis­cussed their sit­ua­tion. As far as they had as­cer­tained, ex­cept Gour­bi Is­land, the sole sur­viv­ing frag­ments of the Old World were four small is­lands: the bit of Gibral­tar oc­cu­pied by the En­glish­men; Ceu­ta, which had just been left by the Spaniards; Madale­na, where they had picked up the lit­tle Ital­ian girl; and the site of the tomb of Saint Louis on the coast of Tu­nis. Around these there was stretched out the full ex­tent of the Gal­lian Sea, which ap­par­ent­ly com­prised about one-​half of the Mediter­ranean, the whole be­ing en­com­passed by a bar­ri­er like a frame­work of pre­cip­itous cliffs, of an ori­gin and a sub­stance alike un­known.

Of all these spots on­ly two were known to be in­hab­it­ed: Gibral­tar, where the thir­teen En­glish­men were am­ply pro­vi­sioned for some years to come, and their own Gour­bi Is­land. Here there was a pop­ula­tion of twen­ty-​two, who would all have to sub­sist up­on the nat­ural prod­ucts of the soil. It was in­deed not to be for­got­ten that, per­chance, up­on some re­mote and undis­cov­ered isle there might be the soli­tary writ­er of the mys­te­ri­ous pa­pers which they had found, and if so, that would raise the cen­sus of their new as­ter­oid to an ag­gre­gate of thir­ty-​six.

Even up­on the sup­po­si­tion that at some fu­ture date the whole pop­ula­tion should be com­pelled to unite and find a res­idence up­on Gour­bi Is­land, there did not ap­pear any rea­son to ques­tion but that eight hun­dred acres of rich soil, un­der good man­age­ment, would yield them all an am­ple sus­te­nance. The on­ly crit­ical mat­ter was how long the cold sea­son would last; ev­ery hope de­pend­ed up­on the land again be­com­ing pro­duc­tive; at present, it seemed im­pos­si­ble to de­ter­mine, even if Gal­lia’s or­bit were re­al­ly el­lip­tic, when she would reach her aphe­lion, and it was con­se­quent­ly nec­es­sary that the Gal­lians for the time be­ing should reck­on on noth­ing be­yond their ac­tu­al and present re­sources.

These re­sources were, first, the pro­vi­sions of the _Do­bry­na_, con­sist­ing of pre­served meat, sug­ar, wine, brandy, and oth­er stores suf­fi­cient for about two months; sec­ond­ly, the valu­able car­go of the _Hansa_, which, soon­er or lat­er, the own­er, whether he would or not, must be com­pelled to sur­ren­der for the com­mon ben­efit; and last­ly, the pro­duce of the is­land, an­imal and veg­etable, which with prop­er econ­omy might be made to last for a con­sid­er­able pe­ri­od.

In the course of the con­ver­sa­tion, Count Timascheff took an op­por­tu­ni­ty of say­ing that, as Cap­tain Ser­vadac had al­ready been pre­sent­ed to the Spaniards as gov­er­nor of the is­land, he thought it ad­vis­able that he should re­al­ly as­sume that po­si­tion.

“Ev­ery body of men,” he ob­served, “must have a head, and you, as a French­man, should, I think, take the com­mand of this frag­ment of a French colony. My men, I can an­swer for it, are quite pre­pared to rec­og­nize you as their su­pe­ri­or of­fi­cer.”

“Most un­hesi­tat­ing­ly,” replied Ser­vadac, “I ac­cept the post with all its re­spon­si­bil­ities. We un­der­stand each oth­er so well that I feel sure we shall try and work to­geth­er for the com­mon good; and even if it be our fate nev­er again to be­hold our fel­low crea­tures, I have no mis­giv­ings but that we shall be able to cope with what­ev­er dif­fi­cul­ties may be be­fore us.”

As he spoke, he held out his hand. The count took it, at the same time mak­ing a slight bow. It was the first time since their meet­ing that the two men had shak­en hands; on the oth­er hand, not a sin­gle word about their for­mer ri­val­ry had ev­er es­caped their lips; per­haps that was all for­got­ten now.

The si­lence of a few mo­ments was bro­ken by Ser­vadac say­ing, “Do you not think we ought to ex­plain our sit­ua­tion to the Spaniards?”

“No, no, your Ex­cel­len­cy,” burst in Ben Zoof, em­phat­ical­ly; “the fel­lows are chick­en-​heart­ed enough al­ready; on­ly tell them what has hap­pened, and in sheer de­spon­den­cy they will not do an­oth­er stroke of work.”

“Be­sides,” said Lieu­tenant Pro­cope, who took very much the same view as the or­der­ly, “they are so mis­er­ably ig­no­rant they would be sure to mis­un­der­stand you.”

“Un­der­stand or mis­un­der­stand,” replied Ser­vadac, “I do not think it mat­ters. They would not care. They are all fa­tal­ists. On­ly give them a gui­tar and their cas­tanets, and they will soon for­get all care and anx­iety. For my own part, I must ad­here to my be­lief that it will be ad­vis­able to tell them ev­ery­thing. Have you any opin­ion to of­fer, count?”

“My own opin­ion, cap­tain, co­in­cides en­tire­ly with yours.

I have fol­lowed the plan of ex­plain­ing all I could to my men on board the _Do­bry­na_, and no in­con­ve­nience has arisen.”

“Well, then, so let it be,” said the cap­tain; adding, “It is not like­ly that these Spaniards are so ig­no­rant as not to have no­ticed the change in the length of the days; nei­ther can they be un­aware of the phys­ical changes that have tran­spired. They shall cer­tain­ly be told that we are be­ing car­ried away in­to un­known re­gions of space, and that this is­land is near­ly all that re­mains of the Old World.”

“Ha! ha!” laughed Ben Zoof, aloud; “it will be fine sport to watch the old Jew’s face, when he is made to com­pre­hend that he is fly­ing away mil­lions and mil­lions of leagues from all his debtors.”

Isaac Hakkabut was about fifty yards be­hind, and was con­se­quent­ly un­able to over­hear the con­ver­sa­tion. He went sham­bling along, half whim­per­ing and not un­fre­quent­ly in­vok­ing the God of Is­rael; but ev­ery now and then a cun­ning light gleamed from his eyes, and his lips be­came com­pressed with a grim sig­nif­icance.

None of the re­cent phe­nom­ena had es­caped his no­tice, and more than once he had at­tempt­ed to en­tice Ben Zoof in­to con­ver­sa­tion up­on the sub­ject; but the or­der­ly made no se­cret of his an­tipa­thy to him, and gen­er­al­ly replied to his ad­vances ei­ther by satire or by ban­ter. He told him that he had ev­ery­thing to gain un­der the new sys­tem of nights and days, for, in­stead of liv­ing the Jew’s or­di­nary life of a cen­tu­ry, he would reach to the age of two cen­turies; and he con­grat­ulat­ed him up­on the cir­cum­stance of things hav­ing be­come so light, be­cause it would pre­vent him feel­ing the bur­den of his years. At an­oth­er time he would de­clare that, to an old usurer like him, it could not mat­ter in the least what had be­come of the moon, as he could not pos­si­bly have ad­vanced any mon­ey up­on her. And when Isaac, un­daunt­ed by his jeers, per­se­vered in be­set­ting him with ques­tions, he tried to si­lence him by say­ing, “On­ly wait till the gov­er­nor gen­er­al comes; he is a shrewd fel­low, and will tell you all about it.”

“But will he pro­tect my prop­er­ty?” poor Isaac would ask tremu­lous­ly.

“To be sure he will! He would con­fis­cate it all rather than that you should be robbed of it.”

With this Job’s com­fort the Jew had been obliged to con­tent him­self as best he could, and to await the promised ar­rival of the gov­er­nor.

When Ser­vadac and his com­pan­ions reached the shore, they found that the _Hansa_ had an­chored in an ex­posed bay, pro­tect­ed but bare­ly by a few pro­ject­ing rocks, and in such a po­si­tion that a gale ris­ing from the west would in­evitably drive her on to the land, where she must be dashed in pieces. It would be the height of fol­ly to leave her in her present moor­ings; with­out loss of time she must be brought round to the mouth of the She­lif, in im­me­di­ate prox­im­ity to the Rus­sian yacht.

The con­scious­ness that his tar­tan was the sub­ject of dis­cus­sion made the Jew give way to such ve­he­ment ejac­ula­tions of anx­iety, that Ser­vadac turned round and peremp­to­ri­ly or­dered him to de­sist from his clam­or. Leav­ing the old man un­der the surveil­lance of the count and Ben Zoof, the cap­tain and the lieu­tenant stepped in­to a small boat and were soon along­side the float­ing em­po­ri­um.

A very short in­spec­tion suf­ficed to make them aware that both the tar­tan and her car­go were in a per­fect state of preser­va­tion. In the hold were sug­ar-​loaves by hun­dreds, chests of tea, bags of cof­fee, hogsheads of to­bac­co, pipes of wine, casks of brandy, bar­rels of dried her­rings, bales of cot­ton, cloth­ing of ev­ery kind, shoes of all sizes, caps of var­ious shape, tools, house­hold uten­sils, chi­na and earth­en­ware, reams of pa­per, bot­tles of ink, box­es of lu­cifer match­es, blocks of salt, bags of pep­per and spices, a stock of huge Dutch cheeses, and a col­lec­tion of al­manacs and mis­cel­la­neous lit­er­ature. At a rough guess the val­ue could not be much un­der pounds 5,000 ster­ling. A new car­go had been tak­en in on­ly a few days be­fore the catas­tro­phe, and it had been Isaac Hakkabut’s in­ten­tion to cruise from Ceu­ta to Tripoli, call­ing wher­ev­er he had rea­son to be­lieve there was like­ly to be a mar­ket for any of his com­modi­ties.

“A fine haul, lieu­tenant,” said the cap­tain.

“Yes, in­deed,” said the lieu­tenant; “but what if the own­er re­fus­es to part with it?”

“No fear; no fear,” replied the cap­tain. “As soon as ev­er the old ras­cal finds that there are no more Arabs or Al­ge­ri­ans for him to fleece, he will be ready enough to trans­act a lit­tle busi­ness with us. We will pay him by bills of ac­cep­tance on some of his old friends in the Old World.”

“But why should he want any pay­ment?” in­quired the lieu­tenant. “Un­der the cir­cum­stances, he must know that you have a right to make a req­ui­si­tion of his goods.”

“No, no,” quick­ly re­joined Ser­vadac; “we will not do that. Just be­cause the fel­low is a Ger­man we shall not be jus­ti­fied in treat­ing him in Ger­man fash­ion. We will trans­act our busi­ness in a busi­ness way. On­ly let him once re­al­ize that he is on a new globe, with no prospect of get­ting back to the old one, and he will be ready enough to come to terms with us.”

“Per­haps you are right,” replied the lieu­tenant; “I hope you are. But any­how, it will not do to leave the tar­tan here; not on­ly would she be in dan­ger in the event of a storm, but it is very ques­tion­able whether she could re­sist the pres­sure of the ice, if the wa­ter were to freeze.”

“Quite true, Pro­cope; and ac­cord­ing­ly I give you the com­mis­sion to see that your crew bring her round to the She­lif as soon as may be.”

“To-​mor­row morn­ing it shall be done,” an­swered the lieu­tenant, prompt­ly.

Up­on re­turn­ing to the shore, it was ar­ranged that the whole of the lit­tle colony should forth­with as­sem­ble at the gour­bi. The Spaniards were sum­moned and Isaac, al­though he could on­ly with re­luc­tance take his wist­ful gaze from his tar­tan, obeyed the gov­er­nor’s or­ders to fol­low.

An hour lat­er and the en­tire pop­ula­tion of twen­ty-​two had met in the cham­ber ad­join­ing the gour­bi. Young Pablo made his first ac­quain­tance with lit­tle Ni­na, and the child seemed high­ly de­light­ed to find a com­pan­ion so near­ly of her own age. Leav­ing the chil­dren to en­ter­tain each oth­er, Cap­tain Ser­vadac be­gan his ad­dress.

Be­fore en­ter­ing up­on fur­ther ex­pla­na­tion, he said that he count­ed up­on the cor­dial co-​op­er­ation of them all for the com­mon wel­fare.

Ne­grete in­ter­rupt­ed him by declar­ing that no promis­es or pledges could be giv­en un­til he and his coun­try­men knew how soon they could be sent back to Spain.

“To Spain, do you say?” asked Ser­vadac.

“To Spain!” echoed Isaac Hakkabut, with a hideous yell. “Do they ex­pect to go back to Spain till they have paid their debts? Your Ex­cel­len­cy, they owe me twen­ty re­als apiece for their pas­sage here; they owe me two hun­dred re­als. Are they to be al­lowed . . . ?”

“Si­lence, Morde­cai, you fool!” shout­ed Ben Zoof, who was ac­cus­tomed to call the Jew by any He­brew name that came up­per­most to his mem­ory. “Si­lence!”

Ser­vadac was dis­posed to ap­pease the old man’s anx­iety by promis­ing to see that jus­tice was ul­ti­mate­ly done; but, in a fever of fran­tic ex­cite­ment, he went on to im­plore that he might have the loan of a few sailors to car­ry his ship to Al­giers.

“I will pay you hon­est­ly; I will pay you _well_,” he cried; but his in­grained propen­si­ty for mak­ing a good bar­gain prompt­ed him to add, “pro­vid­ed you do not over­charge me.”

Ben Zoof was about again to in­ter­pose some an­gry ex­cla­ma­tion; but Ser­vadac checked him, and con­tin­ued in Span­ish: “Lis­ten to me, my friends. Some­thing very strange has hap­pened. A most won­der­ful event has cut us off from Spain, from France, from Italy, from ev­ery coun­try of Eu­rope. In fact, we have left the Old World en­tire­ly. Of the whole earth, noth­ing re­mains ex­cept this is­land on which you are now tak­ing refuge. The old globe is far, far away. Our present abode is but an in­signif­icant frag­ment that is left. I dare not tell you that there is any chance of your ev­er again see­ing your coun­try or your homes.”

He paused. The Spaniards ev­ident­ly had no con­cep­tion of his mean­ing.

Ne­grete begged him to tell them all again. He re­peat­ed all that he had said, and by in­tro­duc­ing some il­lus­tra­tions from fa­mil­iar things, he suc­ceed­ed to a cer­tain ex­tent in con­vey­ing some faint idea of the con­vul­sion that had hap­pened. The event was pre­cise­ly what he had fore­told. The com­mu­ni­ca­tion was re­ceived by all alike with the most supreme in­dif­fer­ence.

Hakkabut did not say a word. He had lis­tened with man­ifest at­ten­tion, his lips twitch­ing now and then as if sup­press­ing a smile. Ser­vadac turned to him, and asked whether he was still dis­posed to put out to sea and make for Al­giers.

The Jew gave a broad grin, which, how­ev­er, he was care­ful to con­ceal from the Spaniards. “Your Ex­cel­len­cy jests,” he said in French; and turn­ing to Count Timascheff, he added in Rus­sian: “The gov­er­nor has made up a won­der­ful tale.”

The count turned his back in dis­gust, while the Jew si­dled up to lit­tle Ni­na and mut­tered in Ital­ian. “A lot of lies, pret­ty one; a lot of lies!”

“Con­found the knave!” ex­claimed Ben Zoof; “he gab­bles ev­ery tongue un­der the sun!”

“Yes,” said Ser­vadac; “but whether he speaks French, Rus­sian, Span­ish, Ger­man, or Ital­ian, he is nei­ther more nor less than a Jew.”