Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space

CHAPTER III

IN­TER­RUPT­ED EF­FU­SIONS

Com­posed of mud and loose stones, and cov­ered with a thatch of turf and straw, known to the na­tives by the name of “driss,” the gour­bi, though a grade bet­ter than the tents of the no­mad Arabs, was yet far in­fe­ri­or to any habi­ta­tion built of brick or stone. It ad­joined an old stone hostel­ry, pre­vi­ous­ly oc­cu­pied by a de­tach­ment of en­gi­neers, and which now af­ford­ed shel­ter for Ben Zoof and the two hors­es. It still con­tained a con­sid­er­able num­ber of tools, such as mat­tocks, shov­els, and pick-​ax­es.

Un­com­fort­able as was their tem­po­rary abode, Ser­vadac and his at­ten­dant made no com­plaints; nei­ther of them was dain­ty in the mat­ter ei­ther of board or lodg­ing. Af­ter din­ner, leav­ing his or­der­ly to stow away the re­mains of the repast in what he was pleased to term the “cup­board of his stom­ach.” Cap­tain Ser­vadac turned out in­to the open air to smoke his pipe up­on the edge of the cliff. The shades of night were draw­ing on. An hour pre­vi­ous­ly, veiled in heavy clouds, the sun had sunk be­low the hori­zon that bound­ed the plain be­yond the She­lif.

The sky pre­sent­ed a most sin­gu­lar ap­pear­ance. To­wards the north, al­though the dark­ness ren­dered it im­pos­si­ble to see be­yond a quar­ter of a mile, the up­per stra­ta of the at­mo­sphere were suf­fused with a rosy glare. No well-​de­fined fringe of light, nor arch of lu­mi­nous rays, be­to­kened a dis­play of au­ro­ra bo­re­alis, even had such a phe­nomenon been pos­si­ble in these lat­itudes; and the most ex­pe­ri­enced me­te­orol­ogist would have been puz­zled to ex­plain the cause of this strik­ing il­lu­mi­na­tion on this 31st of De­cem­ber, the last evening of the pass­ing year.

But Cap­tain Ser­vadac was no me­te­orol­ogist, and it is to be doubt­ed whether, since leav­ing school, he had ev­er opened his “Course of Cos­mog­ra­phy.” Be­sides, he had oth­er thoughts to oc­cu­py his mind. The prospects of the mor­row of­fered se­ri­ous mat­ter for con­sid­er­ation. The cap­tain was ac­tu­at­ed by no per­son­al an­imos­ity against the count; though ri­vals, the two men re­gard­ed each oth­er with sin­cere re­spect; they had sim­ply reached a cri­sis in which one of them was _de trop;_ which of them, fate must de­cide.

At eight o’clock, Cap­tain Ser­vadac re-​en­tered the gour­bi, the sin­gle apart­ment of which con­tained his bed, a small writ­ing-​ta­ble, and some trunks that served in­stead of cup­boards. The or­der­ly per­formed his culi­nary op­er­ations in the ad­join­ing build­ing, which he al­so used as a bed-​room, and where, ex­tend­ed on what he called his “good oak mat­tress,” he would sleep sound­ly as a dor­mouse for twelve hours at a stretch. Ben Zoof had not yet re­ceived his or­ders to re­tire, and en­sconc­ing him­self in a cor­ner of the gour­bi, he en­deav­ored to doze–a task which the un­usu­al ag­ita­tion of his mas­ter ren­dered some­what dif­fi­cult. Cap­tain Ser­vadac was ev­ident­ly in no hur­ry to be­take him­self to rest, but seat­ing him­self at his ta­ble, with a pair of com­pass­es and a sheet of trac­ing-​pa­per, he be­gan to draw, with red and blue crayons, a va­ri­ety of col­ored lines, which could hard­ly be sup­posed to have much con­nec­tion with a to­po­graph­ical sur­vey. In truth, his char­ac­ter of staff-​of­fi­cer was now en­tire­ly ab­sorbed in that of Gas­con po­et. Whether he imag­ined that the com­pass­es would be­stow up­on his vers­es the mea­sure of a math­emat­ical ac­cu­ra­cy, or whether he fan­cied that the par­ti-​col­ored lines would lend va­ri­ety to his rhythm, it is im­pos­si­ble to de­ter­mine; be that as it may, he was de­vot­ing all his en­er­gies to the com­pi­la­tion of his ron­do, and supreme­ly dif­fi­cult he found the task.

“Hang it!” he ejac­ulat­ed, “what­ev­er in­duced me to choose this me­ter? It is as hard to find rhymes as to ral­ly fugi­tive in a bat­tle. But, by all the pow­ers! it shan’t be said that a French of­fi­cer can­not cope with a piece of po­et­ry. One bat­tal­ion has fought– now for the rest!”

Per­se­ver­ance had its re­ward. Present­ly two lines, one red, the oth­er blue, ap­peared up­on the pa­per, and the cap­tain mur­mured: “Words, mere words, can­not avail, Telling true heart’s ten­der tale.”

“What on earth ails my mas­ter?” mut­tered Ben Zoof; “for the last hour he has been as fid­gety as a bird re­turn­ing af­ter its win­ter mi­gra­tion.”

Ser­vadac sud­den­ly start­ed from his seat, and as he paced the room with all the fren­zy of po­et­ic in­spi­ra­tion, read out: “Emp­ty words can­not con­vey All a lover’s heart would say.”

“Well, to be sure, he is at his ev­er­last­ing vers­es again!” said Ben Zoof to him­self, as he roused him­self in his cor­ner. “Im­pos­si­ble to sleep in such a noise;” and he gave vent to a loud groan.

“How now, Ben Zoof?” said the cap­tain sharply. “What ails you?”

“Noth­ing, sir, on­ly the night­mare.”

“Curse the fel­low, he has quite in­ter­rupt­ed me!” ejac­ulat­ed the cap­tain. “Ben Zoof!” he called aloud.

“Here, sir!” was the prompt re­ply; and in an in­stant the or­der­ly was up­on his feet, stand­ing in a mil­itary at­ti­tude, one hand to his fore­head, the oth­er close­ly pressed to his trous­er-​seam.

“Stay where you are! don’t move an inch!” shout­ed Ser­vadac; “I have just thought of the end of my ron­do.” And in a voice of in­spi­ra­tion, ac­com­pa­ny­ing his words with dra­mat­ic ges­tures, Ser­vadac be­gan to de­claim:

“Lis­ten, la­dy, to my vows — O, con­sent to be my spouse; Con­stant ev­er I will be, Con­stant . . . .”

No clos­ing lines were ut­tered. All at once, with un­ut­ter­able vi­olence, the cap­tain and his or­der­ly were dashed, face down­wards, to the ground.