Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space

CHAPTER XXIII

A CAR­RI­ER-​PI­GEON

When, three hours af­ter sun­set, on the 23d of March, the Gal­lian moon rose up­on the west­ern hori­zon, it was ob­served that she had en­tered up­on her last quar­ter. She had tak­en on­ly four days to pass from syzy­gy to quadra­ture, and it was con­se­quent­ly ev­ident that she would be vis­ible for lit­tle more than a week at a time, and that her lu­na­tion would be ac­com­plished with­in six­teen days. The lu­nar months, like the so­lar days, had been di­min­ished by one-​half. Three days lat­er the moon was in con­junc­tion with the sun, and was con­se­quent­ly lost to view; Ben Zoof, as the first ob­serv­er of the satel­lite, was ex­treme­ly in­ter­est­ed in its move­ments, and won­dered whether it would ev­er reap­pear.

On the 26th, un­der an at­mo­sphere per­fect­ly clear and dry, the ther­mome­ter fell to 12 de­grees F. be­low ze­ro. Of the present dis­tance of Gal­lia from the sun, and the num­ber of leagues she had tra­versed since the re­ceipt of the last mys­te­ri­ous doc­ument, there were no means of judg­ing; the ex­tent of diminu­tion in the ap­par­ent disc of the sun did not af­ford suf­fi­cient ba­sis even for an ap­prox­imate cal­cu­la­tion; and Cap­tain Ser­vadac was per­pet­ual­ly re­gret­ting that they could re­ceive no fur­ther tid­ings from the anony­mous cor­re­spon­dent, whom he per­sist­ed in re­gard­ing as a fel­low-​coun­try­man.

The so­lid­ity of the ice was per­fect; the ut­ter still­ness of the air at the time when the fi­nal con­ge­la­tion of the wa­ters had tak­en place had re­sult­ed in the for­ma­tion of a sur­face that for smooth­ness would ri­val a skat­ing-​rink; with­out a crack or flaw it ex­tend­ed far be­yond the range of vi­sion.

The con­trast to the or­di­nary as­pect of po­lar seas was very re­mark­able. There, the ice-​fields are an ag­glom­er­ation of hum­mocks and ice­bergs, massed in wild con­fu­sion, of­ten tow­er­ing high­er than the masts of the largest whalers, and from the in­sta­bil­ity of their foun­da­tions li­able to an in­stan­ta­neous loss of equi­lib­ri­um; a breath of wind, a slight mod­ifi­ca­tion of the tem­per­ature, not un­fre­quent­ly serv­ing to bring about a se­ries of changes out­rival­ing the most elab­orate trans­for­ma­tion scenes of a pan­tomime. Here, on the con­trary, the vast white plain was lev­el as the desert of Sa­hara or the Rus­sian steppes; the wa­ters of the Gal­lian Sea were im­pris­oned be­neath the sol­id sheet, which be­came con­tin­ual­ly stouter in the in­creas­ing cold.

Ac­cus­tomed to the un­even crys­tal­liza­tions of their own frozen seas, the Rus­sians could not be oth­er­wise than de­light­ed with the pol­ished sur­face that af­ford­ed them such ex­cel­lent op­por­tu­ni­ty for en­joy­ing their fa­vorite pas­time of skat­ing. A sup­ply of skates, found hid­den away amongst the _Do­bry­na’s_ stores, was speed­ily brought in­to use. The Rus­sians un­der­took the in­struc­tion of the Spaniards, and at the end of a few days, dur­ing which the tem­per­ature was on­ly en­durable through the ab­sence of wind, there was not a Gal­lian who could not skate tol­er­ably well, while many of them could de­scribe fig­ures in­volv­ing the most com­pli­cat­ed curves. Ni­na and Pablo earned loud ap­plause by their rapid pro­fi­cien­cy; Cap­tain Ser­vadac, an adept in ath­let­ics, al­most out­vied his in­struc­tor, the count; and Ben Zoof, who had up­on some rare oc­ca­sions skat­ed up­on the Lake of Mont­martre (in his eyes, of course, a sea), per­formed prodi­gies in the art.

This ex­er­cise was not on­ly health­ful in it­self, but it was ac­knowl­edged that, in case of ne­ces­si­ty, it might be­come a very use­ful means of lo­co­mo­tion. As Cap­tain Ser­vadac re­marked, it was al­most a sub­sti­tute for rail­ways, and as if to il­lus­trate this propo­si­tion, Lieu­tenant Pro­cope, per­haps the great­est ex­pert in the par­ty, ac­com­plished the twen­ty miles to Gour­bi Is­land and back in con­sid­er­ably less than four hours.

The tem­per­ature, mean­while, con­tin­ued to de­crease, and the av­er­age read­ing of the ther­mome­ter was about 16 de­grees F. be­low ze­ro; the light al­so di­min­ished in pro­por­tion, and all ob­jects ap­peared to be en­veloped in a half-​de­fined shad­ow, as though the sun were un­der­go­ing a per­pet­ual eclipse. It was not sur­pris­ing that the ef­fect of this con­tin­uous­ly over­hang­ing gloom should be to in­duce a fre­quent de­pres­sion of spir­its amongst the ma­jor­ity of the lit­tle pop­ula­tion, ex­iles as they were from their moth­er earth, and not un­like­ly, as it seemed, to be swept far away in­to the re­gions of an­oth­er plan­etary sphere. Prob­ably Count Timascheff, Cap­tain Ser­vadac, and Lieu­tenant Pro­cope were the on­ly mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty who could bring any sci­en­tif­ic judg­ment to bear up­on the un­cer­tain­ty that was be­fore them, but a gen­er­al sense of the strangeness of their sit­ua­tion could not fail at times to weigh heav­ily up­on the minds of all. Un­der these cir­cum­stances it was very nec­es­sary to coun­ter­act the ten­den­cy to de-​spond by con­tin­ual di­ver­sion; and the recre­ation of skat­ing thus op­por­tune­ly pro­vid­ed, seemed just the thing to arouse the flag­ging spir­its, and to re­store a whole­some ex­cite­ment.

With dogged ob­sti­na­cy, Isaac Hakkabut re­fused to take any share ei­ther in the labors or the amuse­ments of the colony. In spite of the cold, he had not been seen since the day of his ar­rival from Gour­bi Is­land. Cap­tain Ser­vadac had strict­ly for­bid­den any com­mu­ni­ca­tion with him; and the smoke that rose from the cab­in chim­ney of the _Hansa_ was the sole in­di­ca­tion of the pro­pri­etor be­ing still on board. There was noth­ing to pre­vent him, if he chose, from par­tak­ing gra­tu­itous­ly of the vol­canic light and heat which were be­ing en­joyed by all be­sides; but rather than aban­don his close and per­son­al over­sight of his pre­cious car­go, he pre­ferred to sac­ri­fice his own slen­der stock of fu­el.

Both the schooner and the tar­tan had been care­ful­ly moored in the way that seemed to promise best for with­stand­ing the rig­or of the win­ter. Af­ter see­ing the ves­sels made se­cure in the frozen creek. Lieu­tenant Pro­cope, fol­low­ing the ex­am­ple of many Arc­tic ex­plor­ers, had the pre­cau­tion to have the ice beveled away from the keels, so that there should be no risk of the ships’ sides be­ing crushed by the in­creas­ing pres­sure; he hoped that they would fol­low any rise in the lev­el of the ice-​field, and when the thaw should come, that they would eas­ily re­gain their prop­er wa­ter-​line.

On his last vis­it to Gour­bi Is­land, the lieu­tenant had as­cer­tained that north, east, and west, far as the eye could reach, the Gal­lian Sea had be­come one uni­form sheet of ice. One spot alone re­fused to freeze; this was the pool im­me­di­ate­ly be­low the cen­tral cav­ern, the re­cep­ta­cle for the stream of burn­ing la­va. It was en­tire­ly en­closed by rocks, and if ev­er a few ici­cles were formed there by the ac­tion of the cold, they were very soon melt­ed by the fiery show­er. Hiss­ing and splut­ter­ing as the hot la­va came in con­tact with it, the wa­ter was in a con­tin­ual state of ebul­li­tion, and the fish that abound­ed in its depths de­fied the an­gler’s craft; they were, as Ben Zoof re­marked, “too much boiled to bite.”

At the be­gin­ning of April the weath­er changed. The sky be­came over­cast, but there was no rise in the tem­per­ature. Un­like the po­lar win­ters of the earth, which or­di­nar­ily are af­fect­ed by at­mo­spher­ic in­flu­ence, and li­able to slight in­ter­mis­sions of their sever­ity at var­ious shift­ings of the wind, Gal­lia’s win­ter was caused by her im­mense dis­tance from the source of all light and heat, and the cold was con­se­quent­ly des­tined to go on steadi­ly in­creas­ing un­til it reached the lim­it as­cer­tained by Fouri­er to be the nor­mal tem­per­ature of the realms of space.

With the over-​cloud­ing of the heav­ens there arose a vi­olent tem­pest; but al­though the wind raged with an al­most in­con­ceiv­able fury, it was un­ac­com­pa­nied by ei­ther snow or rain. Its ef­fect up­on the burn­ing cur­tain that cov­ered the aper­ture of the cen­tral hall was very re­mark­able. So far from there be­ing any like­li­hood of the fire be­ing ex­tin­guished by the ve­he­mence of the cur­rent of air, the hur­ri­cane seemed rather to act as a ven­ti­la­tor, which fanned the flame in­to greater ac­tiv­ity, and the ut­most care was nec­es­sary to avoid be­ing burnt by the frag­ments of la­va that were drift­ed in­to the in­te­ri­or of the grot­to. More than once the cur­tain it­self was rift­ed en­tire­ly asun­der, but on­ly to close up again im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter al­low­ing a mo­men­tary draught of cold air to pen­etrate the hall in a way that was re­fresh­ing and rather ad­van­ta­geous than oth­er­wise.

On the 4th of April, af­ter an ab­sence of about four days, the new satel­lite, to Ben Zoof’s great sat­is­fac­tion, made its reap­pear­ance in a cres­cent form, a cir­cum­stance that seemed to jus­ti­fy the an­tic­ipa­tion that hence­for­ward it would con­tin­ue to make a pe­ri­od­ic rev­olu­tion ev­ery fort­night.

The crust of ice and snow was far too stout for the beaks of the strongest birds to pen­etrate, and ac­cord­ing­ly large swarms had left the is­land, and, fol­low­ing the hu­man pop­ula­tion, had tak­en refuge on the vol­canic promon­to­ry; not that there the bar­ren shore had any­thing in the way of nour­ish­ment to of­fer them, but their in­stinct im­pelled them to haunt now the very habi­ta­tions which for­mer­ly they would have shunned. Scraps of food were thrown to them from the gal­leries; these were speed­ily de­voured, but were al­to­geth­er in­ad­equate in quan­ti­ty to meet the de­mand. At length, em­bold­ened by hunger, sev­er­al hun­dred birds ven­tured through the tun­nel, and took up their quar­ters ac­tu­al­ly in Ni­na’s Hive. Con­gre­gat­ing in the large hall, the half-​fam­ished crea­tures did not hes­itate to snatch bread, meat, or food of any de­scrip­tion from the hands of the res­idents as they sat at ta­ble, and soon be­came such an in­tol­er­able nui­sance that it formed one of the dai­ly di­ver­sions to hunt them down; but al­though they were vig­or­ous­ly at­tacked by stones and sticks, and even oc­ca­sion­al­ly by shot, it was with some dif­fi­cul­ty that their num­ber could be sen­si­bly re­duced.

By a sys­tem­at­ic course of war­fare the bulk of the birds were all ex­pelled, with the ex­cep­tion of about a hun­dred, which be­gan to build in the crevices of the rocks. These were left in qui­et pos­ses­sion of their quar­ters, as not on­ly was it deemed ad­vis­able to per­pet­uate the var­ious breeds, but it was found that these birds act­ed as a kind of po­lice, nev­er fail­ing ei­ther to chase away or to kill any oth­ers of their species who in­fringed up­on what they ap­peared to re­gard as their own spe­cial priv­ilege in in­trud­ing with­in the lim­its of their do­main.

On the 15th loud cries were sud­den­ly heard is­su­ing from the mouth of the prin­ci­pal gallery.

“Help, help! I shall be killed!”

Pablo in a mo­ment rec­og­nized the voice as Ni­na’s. Out­run­ning even Ben Zoof he hur­ried to the as­sis­tance of his lit­tle play­mate, and dis­cov­ered that she was be­ing at­tacked by half a dozen great sea-​gulls, and on­ly af­ter re­ceiv­ing some se­vere blows from their beaks could he suc­ceed by means of a stout cud­gel in driv­ing them away.

“Tell me, Ni­na, what is this?” he asked as soon as the tu­mult had sub­sid­ed.

The child point­ed to a bird which she was ca­ress­ing ten­der­ly in her bo­som.

“A pi­geon!” ex­claimed Ben Zoof, who had reached the scene of com­mo­tion, adding:

“A car­ri­er-​pi­geon! And by all the saints of Mont­martre, there is a lit­tle bag at­tached to its neck!”

He took the bird, and rush­ing in­to the hall placed it in Ser­vadac’s hands.

“An­oth­er mes­sage, no doubt,” cried the cap­tain, “from our un­known friend. Let us hope that this time he has giv­en us his name and ad­dress.”

All crowd­ed round, ea­ger to hear the news. In the strug­gle with the gulls the bag had been par­tial­ly torn open, but still con­tained the fol­low­ing dis­patch: “Gal­lia!

Chemin par­cou­ru du 1er Mars au 1er Avril: 39,000,000 1.!

Dis­tance du soleil: 110,000,000 1.!

Capte Ne­ri­na en pas­sant.

Vivres vont man­quer et . . .”

The rest of the doc­ument had been so dam­aged by the beaks of the gulls that it was il­leg­ible. Ser­vadac was wild with vex­ation. He felt more and more con­vinced that the writ­er was a French­man, and that the last line in­di­cat­ed that he was in dis­tress from scarci­ty of food. The very thought of a fel­low-​coun­try­man in per­il of star­va­tion drove him well-​nigh to dis­trac­tion, and it was in vain that search was made ev­ery­where near the scene of con­flict in hopes of find­ing the miss­ing scrap that might bear a sig­na­ture or ad­dress.

Sud­den­ly lit­tle Ni­na, who had again tak­en pos­ses­sion of the pi­geon, and was hug­ging it to her breast, said:

“Look here, Ben Zoof!”

And as she spoke she point­ed to the left wing of the bird. The wing bore the faint im­press of a postage-​stamp, and the one word: “FOR­MENTERA.”