Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space

CHAPTER XXII

A FROZEN OCEAN

The moon! She had dis­ap­peared for weeks; was she now re­turn­ing? Had she been faith­less to the earth? and had she now ap­proached to be a satel­lite of the new-​born world?

“Im­pos­si­ble!” said Lieu­tenant Pro­cope; “the earth is mil­lions and mil­lions of leagues away, and it is not prob­able that the moon has ceased to re­volve about her.”

“Why not?” re­mon­strat­ed Ser­vadac. “It would not be more strange than the oth­er phe­nom­ena which we have late­ly wit­nessed. Why should not the moon have fall­en with­in the lim­its of Gal­lia’s at­trac­tion, and be­come her satel­lite?”

“Up­on that sup­po­si­tion,” put in the count, “I should think that it would be al­to­geth­er un­like­ly that three months would elapse with­out our see­ing her.”

“Quite in­cred­ible!” con­tin­ued Pro­cope. “And there is an­oth­er thing which to­tal­ly dis­proves the cap­tain’s hy­poth­esis; the mag­ni­tude of Gal­lia is far too in­signif­icant for her pow­er of at­trac­tion to car­ry off the moon.”

“But,” per­sist­ed Ser­vadac, “why should not the same con­vul­sion that tore us away from the earth have torn away the moon as well? Af­ter wan­der­ing about as she would for a while in the so­lar re­gions, I do not see why she should not have at­tached her­self to us.”

The lieu­tenant re­peat­ed his con­vic­tion that it was not like­ly.

“But why not?” again asked Ser­vadac im­petu­ous­ly.

“Be­cause, I tell you, the mass of Gal­lia is so in­fe­ri­or to that of the moon, that Gal­lia would be­come the moon’s satel­lite; the moon could not pos­si­bly be­come hers.”

“As­sum­ing, how­ev­er,” con­tin­ued Ser­vadac, “such to be the case–“

“I am afraid,” said the lieu­tenant, in­ter­rupt­ing him, “that I can­not as­sume any­thing of the sort even for a mo­ment.”

Ser­vadac smiled good-​hu­mored­ly.

“I con­fess you seem to have the best of the ar­gu­ment, and if Gal­lia had be­come a satel­lite of the moon, it would not have tak­en three months to catch sight of her. I sup­pose you are right.”

While this dis­cus­sion had been go­ing on, the satel­lite, or what­ev­er it might be, had been ris­ing steadi­ly above the hori­zon, and had reached a po­si­tion fa­vor­able for ob­ser­va­tion. Tele­scopes were brought, and it was very soon as­cer­tained, be­yond a ques­tion, that the new lu­mi­nary was not the well-​known Phoebe of ter­res­tri­al nights; it had no fea­ture in com­mon with the moon. Al­though it was ap­par­ent­ly much near­er to Gal­lia than the moon to the earth, its su­per­fi­cies was hard­ly one-​tenth as large, and so fee­bly did it re­flect the light of the re­mote sun, that it scarce­ly emit­ted ra­di­ance enough to ex­tin­guish the dim lus­ter of stars of the eighth mag­ni­tude. Like the sun, it had risen in the west, and was now at its full. To mis­take its iden­ti­ty with the moon was ab­so­lute­ly im­pos­si­ble; not even Ser­vadac could dis­cov­er a trace of the seas, chasms, craters, and moun­tains which have been so minute­ly de­lin­eat­ed in lu­nar charts, and it could not be de­nied that any tran­sient hope that had been ex­cit­ed as to their once again be­ing about to en­joy the peace­ful smiles of “the queen of night” must all be re­signed.

Count Timascheff fi­nal­ly sug­gest­ed, though some­what doubt­ful­ly, the ques­tion of the prob­abil­ity that Gal­lia, in her course across the zone of the mi­nor plan­ets, had car­ried off one of them; but whether it was one of the 169 as­ter­oids al­ready in­clud­ed in the as­tro­nom­ical cat­alogues, or one pre­vi­ous­ly un­known, he did not pre­sume to de­ter­mine. The idea to a cer­tain ex­tent was plau­si­ble, inas­much as it has been as­cer­tained that sev­er­al of the tele­scop­ic plan­ets are of such small di­men­sions that a good walk­er might make a cir­cuit of them in four and twen­ty hours; con­se­quent­ly Gal­lia, be­ing of su­pe­ri­or vol­ume, might be sup­posed ca­pa­ble of ex­er­cis­ing a pow­er of at­trac­tion up­on any of these minia­ture mi­cro­cosms.

The first night in Ni­na’s Hive passed with­out spe­cial in­ci­dent; and next morn­ing a reg­ular scheme of life was def­inite­ly laid down. “My lord gov­er­nor,” as Ben Zoof un­til he was peremp­to­ri­ly for­bid­den de­light­ed to call Ser­vadac, had a whole­some dread of idle­ness and its con­se­quences, and in­sist­ed up­on each mem­ber of the par­ty un­der­tak­ing some spe­cial du­ty to ful­fill. There was plen­ty to do. The do­mes­tic an­imals re­quired a great deal of at­ten­tion; a sup­ply of food had to be se­cured and pre­served; fish­ing had to be car­ried on while the con­di­tion of the sea would al­low it; and in sev­er­al places the gal­leries had to be fur­ther ex­ca­vat­ed to ren­der them more avail­able for use. Oc­cu­pa­tion, then, need nev­er be want­ing, and the dai­ly round of la­bor could go on in or­der­ly rou­tine.

A per­fect con­cord ruled the lit­tle colony. The Rus­sians and Spaniards amal­ga­mat­ed well, and both did their best to pick up var­ious scraps of French, which was con­sid­ered the of­fi­cial lan­guage of the place. Ser­vadac him­self un­der­took the tu­ition of Pablo and Ni­na, Ben Zoof be­ing their com­pan­ion in play-​hours, when he en­ter­tained them with en­chant­ing sto­ries in the best Parisian French, about “a love­ly city at the foot of a moun­tain,” where he al­ways promised one day to take them.

The end of March came, but the cold was not in­tense to such a de­gree as to con­fine any of the par­ty to the in­te­ri­or of their re­sort; sev­er­al ex­cur­sions were made along the shore, and for a ra­dius of three or four miles the ad­ja­cent dis­trict was care­ful­ly ex­plored. In­ves­ti­ga­tion, how­ev­er, al­ways end­ed in the same re­sult; turn their course in what­ev­er di­rec­tion they would, they found that the coun­try re­tained ev­ery­where its desert char­ac­ter, rocky, bar­ren, and with­out a trace of veg­eta­tion. Here and there a slight lay­er of snow, or a thin coat­ing of ice aris­ing from at­mo­spher­ic con­den­sa­tion in­di­cat­ed the ex­is­tence of su­per­fi­cial mois­ture, but it would re­quire a pe­ri­od in­def­inite­ly long, ex­ceed­ing hu­man reck­on­ing, be­fore that mois­ture could col­lect in­to a stream and roll down­wards over the stony stra­ta to the sea. It seemed at present out of their pow­er to de­ter­mine whether the land up­on which they were so hap­pi­ly set­tled was an is­land or a con­ti­nent, and till the cold was abat­ed they feared to un­der­take any length­ened ex­pe­di­tion to as­cer­tain the ac­tu­al ex­tent of the strange con­crete of metal­lic crys­tal­liza­tion.

By as­cend­ing one day to the sum­mit of the vol­cano, Cap­tain Ser­vadac and the count suc­ceed­ed in get­ting a gen­er­al idea of the as­pect of the coun­try. The moun­tain it­self was an enor­mous block ris­ing sym­met­ri­cal­ly to a height of near­ly 3,000 feet above the lev­el of the sea, in the form of a trun­cat­ed cone, of which the top­most sec­tion was crowned by a wreath of smoke is­su­ing con­tin­uous­ly from the mouth of a nar­row crater.

Un­der the old con­di­tion of ter­res­tri­al things, the as­cent of this steep ac­cliv­ity would have been at­tend­ed with much fa­tigue, but as the ef­fect of the al­tered con­di­tion of the law of grav­ity, the trav­el­ers per­formed per­pet­ual prodi­gies in the way of agili­ty, and in lit­tle over an hour reached the edge of the crater, with­out more sense of ex­er­tion than if they had tra­versed a cou­ple of miles on lev­el ground. Gal­lia had its draw­backs, but it had some com­pen­sat­ing ad­van­tages.

Tele­scopes in hand, the ex­plor­ers from the sum­mit scanned the sur­round­ing view. Their an­tic­ipa­tions had al­ready re­al­ized what they saw. Just as they ex­pect­ed, on the north, east, and west lay the Gal­lian Sea, smooth and mo­tion­less as a sheet of glass, the cold hav­ing, as it were, con­gealed the at­mo­sphere so that there was not a breath of wind. To­wards the south there seemed no lim­it to the land, and the vol­cano formed the apex of a tri­an­gle, of which the base was be­yond the reach of vi­sion. Viewed even from this height, whence dis­tance would do much to soft­en the gen­er­al as­per­ity, the sur­face nev­er­the­less seemed to be bristling with its myr­iads of hexag­onal lamel­lae, and to present dif­fi­cul­ties which, to an or­di­nary pedes­tri­an, would be in­sur­mount­able.

“Oh for some wings, or else a bal­loon!” cried Ser­vadac, as he gazed around him; and then, look­ing down to the rock up­on which they were stand­ing, he added, “We seem to have been trans­plant­ed to a soil strange enough in its chem­ical char­ac­ter to be­wil­der the _sa­vants_ at a mu­se­um.”

“And do you ob­serve, cap­tain,” asked the count, “how the con­vex­ity of our lit­tle world cur­tails our view? See, how cir­cum­scribed is the hori­zon!”

Ser­vadac replied that he had no­ticed the same cir­cum­stance from the top of the cliffs of Gour­bi Is­land.

“Yes,” said the count; “it be­comes more and more ob­vi­ous that ours is a very tiny world, and that Gour­bi Is­land is the sole pro­duc­tive spot up­on its sur­face. We have had a short sum­mer, and who knows whether we are not en­ter­ing up­on a win­ter that may last for years, per­haps for cen­turies?”

“But we must not mind, count,” said Ser­vadac, smil­ing. “We have agreed, you know, that, come what may, we are to be philoso­phers.”

“Ay, true, my friend,” re­joined the count; “we must be philoso­phers and some­thing more; we must be grate­ful to the good Pro­tec­tor who has hith­er­to be­friend­ed us, and we must trust His mer­cy to the end.”

For a few mo­ments they both stood in si­lence, and con­tem­plat­ed land and sea; then, hav­ing giv­en a last glance over the drea­ry panora­ma, they pre­pared to wend their way down the moun­tain. Be­fore, how­ev­er, they com­menced their de­scent, they re­solved to make a clos­er ex­am­ina­tion of the crater. They were par­tic­ular­ly struck by what seemed to them al­most the mys­te­ri­ous calm­ness with which the erup­tion was ef­fect­ed. There was none of the wild dis­or­der and deaf­en­ing tu­mult that usu­al­ly ac­com­pa­ny the dis­charge of vol­canic mat­ter, but the heat­ed la­va, ris­ing with a uni­form gen­tle­ness, qui­et­ly over­ran the lim­its of the crater, like the flow of wa­ter from the bo­som of a peace­ful lake. In­stead of a boil­er ex­posed to the ac­tion of an an­gry fire, the crater rather re­sem­bled a brim­ming basin, of which the con­tents were noise­less­ly es­cap­ing. Nor were there any ig­neous stones or red-​hot cin­ders min­gled with the smoke that crowned the sum­mit; a cir­cum­stance that quite ac­cord­ed with the ab­sence of the pumice-​stones, ob­sid­ians, and oth­er min­er­als of vol­canic ori­gin with which the base of a burn­ing moun­tain is gen­er­al­ly strewn.

Cap­tain Ser­vadac was of opin­ion that this pe­cu­liar­ity au­gured fa­vor­ably for the con­tin­uance of the erup­tion. Ex­treme vi­olence in phys­ical, as well as in moral na­ture, is nev­er of long du­ra­tion. The most ter­ri­ble storms, like the most vi­olent fits of pas­sion, are not last­ing; but here the calm flow of the liq­uid fire ap­peared to be sup­plied from a source that was in­ex­haustible, in the same way as the wa­ters of Ni­agara, glid­ing on steadi­ly to their fi­nal plunge, would de­fy all ef­fort to ar­rest their course.

Be­fore the evening of this day closed in, a most im­por­tant change was ef­fect­ed in the con­di­tion of the Gal­lian Sea by the in­ter­ven­tion of hu­man agen­cy. Notwith­stand­ing the in­creas­ing cold, the sea, un­ruf­fled as it was by a breath of wind, still re­tained its liq­uid state. It is an es­tab­lished fact that wa­ter, un­der this con­di­tion of ab­so­lute still­ness, will re­main un­con­gealed at a tem­per­ature sev­er­al de­grees be­low ze­ro, whilst ex­per­iment, at the same time, shows that a very slight shock will of­ten be suf­fi­cient to con­vert it in­to sol­id ice. It had oc­curred to Ser­vadac that if some com­mu­ni­ca­tion could be opened with Gour­bi Is­land, there would be a fine scope for hunt­ing ex­pe­di­tions. Hav­ing this ul­ti­mate ob­ject in view, he as­sem­bled his lit­tle colony up­on a pro­ject­ing rock at the ex­trem­ity of the promon­to­ry, and hav­ing called Ni­na and Pablo out to him in front, he said: “Now, Ni­na, do you think you could throw some­thing in­to the sea?”

“I think I could,” replied the child, “but I am sure that Pablo would throw it a great deal fur­ther than I can.”

“Nev­er mind, you shall try first.”

Putting a frag­ment of ice in­to Ni­na’s hand, he ad­dressed him­self to Pablo:

“Look out, Pablo; you shall see what a nice lit­tle fairy Ni­na is! Throw, Ni­na, throw, as hard as you can.”

Ni­na bal­anced the piece of ice two or three times in her hand, and threw it for­ward with all her strength.

A sud­den thrill seemed to vi­brate across the mo­tion­less wa­ters to the dis­tant hori­zon, and the Gal­lian Sea had be­come a sol­id sheet of ice!