Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space

CHAPTER VI

THE CAP­TAIN MAKES AN EX­PLO­RATION

Hec­tor Ser­vadac was not the man to re­main long un­nerved by any un­to­ward event. It was part of his char­ac­ter to dis­cov­er the why and the where­fore of ev­ery­thing that came un­der his ob­ser­va­tion, and he would have faced a can­non ball the more un­flinch­ing­ly from un­der­stand­ing the dy­nam­ic force by which it was pro­pelled. Such be­ing his tem­per­ament, it may well be imag­ined that he was anx­ious not to re­main long in ig­no­rance of the cause of the phe­nom­ena which had been so startling in their con­se­quences.

“We must in­quire in­to this to-​mor­row,” he ex­claimed, as dark­ness fell sud­den­ly up­on him. Then, af­ter a pause, he added: “That is to say, if there is to be a to-​mor­row; for if I were to be put to the tor­ture, I could not tell what has be­come of the sun.”

“May I ask, sir, what we are to do now?” put in Ben Zoof.

“Stay where we are for the present; and when day­light ap­pears– if it ev­er does ap­pear–we will ex­plore the coast to the west and south, and re­turn to the gour­bi. If we can find out noth­ing else, we must at least dis­cov­er where we are.”

“Mean­while, sir, may we go to sleep?”

“Cer­tain­ly, if you like, and if you can.”

Noth­ing loath to avail him­self of his mas­ter’s per­mis­sion, Ben Zoof crouched down in an an­gle of the shore, threw his arms over his eyes, and very soon slept the sleep of the ig­no­rant, which is of­ten sounder than the sleep of the just. Over­whelmed by the ques­tions that crowd­ed up­on his brain, Cap­tain Ser­vadac could on­ly wan­der up and down the shore. Again and again he asked him­self what the catas­tro­phe could por­tend. Had the towns of Al­giers, Oran, and Mosta­ganem es­caped the in­un­da­tion? Could he bring him­self to be­lieve that all the in­hab­itants, his friends, and com­rades had per­ished; or was it not more prob­able that the Mediter­ranean had mere­ly in­vad­ed the re­gion of the mouth of the She­lif? But this sup­po­si­tion did not in the least ex­plain the oth­er phys­ical dis­tur­bances. An­oth­er hy­poth­esis that pre­sent­ed it­self to his mind was that the African coast might have been sud­den­ly trans­port­ed to the equa­to­ri­al zone. But al­though this might get over the dif­fi­cul­ty of the al­tered al­ti­tude of the sun and the ab­sence of twi­light, yet it would nei­ther ac­count for the sun set­ting in the east, nor for the length of the day be­ing re­duced to six hours.

“We must wait till to-​mor­row,” he re­peat­ed; adding, for he had be­come dis­trust­ful of the fu­ture, “that is to say, if to-​mor­row ev­er comes.”

Al­though not very learned in as­tron­omy, Ser­vadac was ac­quaint­ed with the po­si­tion of the prin­ci­pal con­stel­la­tions. It was there­fore a con­sid­er­able dis­ap­point­ment to him that, in con­se­quence of the heavy clouds, not a star was vis­ible in the fir­ma­ment. To have as­cer­tained that the pole-​star had be­come dis­placed would have been an un­de­ni­able proof that the earth was re­volv­ing on a new ax­is; but not a rift ap­peared in the low­er­ing clouds, which seemed to threat­en tor­rents of rain.

It hap­pened that the moon was new on that very day; nat­ural­ly, there­fore, it would have set at the same time as the sun. What, then, was the cap­tain’s be­wil­der­ment when, af­ter he had been walk­ing for about an hour and a half, he no­ticed on the west­ern hori­zon a strong glare that pen­etrat­ed even the mass­es of the clouds.

“The moon in the west!” he cried aloud; but sud­den­ly be­think­ing him­self, he added: “But no, that can­not be the moon; un­less she had shift­ed very much near­er the earth, she could nev­er give a light as in­tense as this.”

As he spoke the screen of va­por was il­lu­mi­nat­ed to such a de­gree that the whole coun­try was as it were bathed in twi­light. “What can this be?” so­lil­oquized the cap­tain. “It can­not be the sun, for the sun set in the east on­ly an hour and a half ago. Would that those clouds would dis­close what enor­mous lu­mi­nary lies be­hind them! What a fool I was not to have learnt more as­tron­omy! Per­haps, af­ter all, I am rack­ing my brain over some­thing that is quite in the or­di­nary course of na­ture.”

But, rea­son as he might, the mys­ter­ies of the heav­ens still re­mained im­pen­etra­ble. For about an hour some lu­mi­nous body, its disc ev­ident­ly of gi­gan­tic di­men­sions, shed its rays up­on the up­per stra­ta of the clouds; then, mar­velous to re­late, in­stead of obey­ing the or­di­nary laws of ce­les­tial mech­anism, and de­scend­ing up­on the op­po­site hori­zon, it seemed to re­treat far­ther off, grew dim­mer, and van­ished.

The dark­ness that re­turned to the face of the earth was not more pro­found than the gloom which fell up­on the cap­tain’s soul. Ev­ery­thing was in­com­pre­hen­si­ble. The sim­plest me­chan­ical rules seemed fal­si­fied; the plan­ets had de­fied the laws of grav­ita­tion; the mo­tions of the ce­les­tial spheres were er­ro­neous as those of a watch with a de­fec­tive main­spring, and there was rea­son to fear that the sun would nev­er again shed his ra­di­ance up­on the earth.

But these last fears were ground­less. In three hours’ time, with­out any in­ter­ven­ing twi­light, the morn­ing sun made its ap­pear­ance in the west, and day once more had dawned. On con­sult­ing his watch, Ser­vadac found that night had last­ed pre­cise­ly six hours. Ben Zoof, who was un­ac­cus­tomed to so brief a pe­ri­od of re­pose, was still slum­ber­ing sound­ly.

“Come, wake up!” said Ser­vadac, shak­ing him by the shoul­der; “it is time to start.”

“Time to start?” ex­claimed Ben Zoof, rub­bing his eyes. “I feel as if I had on­ly just gone to sleep.”

“You have slept all night, at any rate,” replied the cap­tain; “it has on­ly been for six hours, but you must make it enough.”

“Enough it shall be, sir,” was the sub­mis­sive re­join­der.

“And now,” con­tin­ued Ser­vadac, “we will take the short­est way back to the gour­bi, and see what our hors­es think about it all.”

“They will think that they ought to be groomed,” said the or­der­ly.

“Very good; you may groom them and sad­dle them as quick­ly as you like. I want to know what has be­come of the rest of Al­ge­ria: if we can­not get round by the south to Mosta­ganem, we must go east­wards to Tenes.” And forth­with they start­ed. Be­gin­ning to feel hun­gry, they had no hes­ita­tion in gath­er­ing figs, dates, and or­anges from the plan­ta­tions that formed a con­tin­uous rich and lux­uri­ant or­chard along their path. The dis­trict was quite de­sert­ed, and they had no rea­son to fear any le­gal penal­ty.

In an hour and a half they reached the gour­bi. Ev­ery­thing was just as they had left it, and it was ev­ident that no one had vis­it­ed the place dur­ing their ab­sence. All was des­olate as the shore they had quit­ted.

The prepa­ra­tions for the ex­pe­di­tion were brief and sim­ple. Ben Zoof sad­dled the hors­es and filled his pouch with bis­cuits and game; wa­ter, he felt cer­tain, could be ob­tained in abun­dance from the nu­mer­ous af­flu­ents of the She­lif, which, al­though they had now be­come trib­utaries of the Mediter­ranean, still me­an­dered through the plain. Cap­tain Ser­vadac mount­ed his horse Zephyr, and Ben Zoof si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly got astride his mare Galette, named af­ter the mill of Mont­martre. They gal­loped off in the di­rec­tion of the She­lif, and were not long in dis­cov­er­ing that the diminu­tion in the pres­sure of the at­mo­sphere had pre­cise­ly the same ef­fect up­on their hors­es as it had had up­on them­selves. Their mus­cu­lar strength seemed five times as great as hith­er­to; their hoofs scarce­ly touched the ground, and they seemed trans­formed from or­di­nary quadrupeds in­to ver­ita­ble hip­pogriffs. Hap­pi­ly, Ser­vadac and his or­der­ly were fear­less rid­ers; they made no at­tempt to curb their steeds, but even urged them to still greater ex­er­tions. Twen­ty min­utes suf­ficed to car­ry them over the four or five miles that in­ter­vened be­tween the gour­bi and the mouth of the She­lif; then, slack­en­ing their speed, they pro­ceed­ed at a more leisure­ly pace to the south­east, along what had once been the right bank of the riv­er, but which, al­though it still re­tained its for­mer char­ac­ter­is­tics, was now the bound­ary of a sea, which ex­tend­ing far­ther than the lim­its of the hori­zon, must have swal­lowed up at least a large por­tion of the province of Oran. Cap­tain Ser­vadac knew the coun­try well; he had at one time been en­gaged up­on a tri­go-​no­met­ri­cal sur­vey of the dis­trict, and con­se­quent­ly had an ac­cu­rate knowl­edge of its to­pog­ra­phy. His idea now was to draw up a re­port of his in­ves­ti­ga­tions: to whom that re­port should be de­liv­ered was a prob­lem he had yet to solve.

Dur­ing the four hours of day­light that still re­mained, the trav­el­ers rode about twen­ty-​one miles from the riv­er mouth. To their vast sur­prise, they did not meet a sin­gle hu­man be­ing. At night­fall they again en­camped in a slight bend of the shore, at a point which on the pre­vi­ous evening had faced the mouth of the Mi­na, one of the left-​hand af­flu­ents of the She­lif, but now ab­sorbed in­to the new­ly re­vealed ocean. Ben Zoof made the sleep­ing ac­com­mo­da­tion as com­fort­able as the cir­cum­stances would al­low; the hors­es were clogged and turned out to feed up­on the rich pas­ture that clothed the shore, and the night passed with­out spe­cial in­ci­dent.

At sun­rise on the fol­low­ing morn­ing, the 2nd of Jan­uary, or what, ac­cord­ing to the or­di­nary cal­en­dar, would have been the night of the 1st, the cap­tain and his or­der­ly re­mount­ed their hors­es, and dur­ing the six-​hours’ day ac­com­plished a dis­tance of forty-​two miles. The right bank of the riv­er still con­tin­ued to be the mar­gin of the land, and on­ly in one spot had its in­tegri­ty been im­paired. This was about twelve miles from the Mi­na, and on the site of the an­nex or sub­urb of Surkelmit­too. Here a large por­tion of the bank had been swept away, and the ham­let, with its eight hun­dred in­hab­itants, had no doubt been swal­lowed up by the en­croach­ing wa­ters. It seemed, there­fore, more than prob­able that a sim­ilar fate had over­tak­en the larg­er towns be­yond the She­lif.

In the evening the ex­plor­ers en­camped, as pre­vi­ous­ly, in a nook of the shore which here abrupt­ly ter­mi­nat­ed their new do­main, not far from where they might have ex­pect­ed to find the im­por­tant vil­lage of Mem­oun­tur­roy; but of this, too, there was now no trace. “I had quite reck­oned up­on a sup­per and a bed at Or­leansville to-​night,” said Ser­vadac, as, full of de­spon­den­cy, he sur­veyed the waste of wa­ter.

“Quite im­pos­si­ble,” replied Ben Zoof, “ex­cept you had gone by a boat. But cheer up, sir, cheer up; we will soon de­vise some means for get­ting across to Mosta­ganem.”

“If, as I hope,” re­joined the cap­tain, “we are on a penin­su­la, we are more like­ly to get to Tenes; there we shall hear the news.”

“Far more like­ly to car­ry the news our­selves,” an­swered Ben Zoof, as he threw him­self down for his night’s rest.

Six hours lat­er, on­ly wait­ing for sun­rise, Cap­tain Ser­vadac set him­self in move­ment again to re­new his in­ves­ti­ga­tions. At this spot the shore, that hith­er­to had been run­ning in a south­east­er­ly di­rec­tion, turned abrupt­ly to the north, be­ing no longer formed by the nat­ural bank of the She­lif, but con­sist­ing of an ab­so­lute­ly new coast-​line. No land was in sight. Noth­ing could be seen of Or­leansville, which ought to have been about six miles to the south­west; and Ben Zoof, who had mount­ed the high­est point of view at­tain­able, could dis­tin­guish sea, and noth­ing but sea, to the far­thest hori­zon.

Quit­ting their en­camp­ment and rid­ing on, the be­wil­dered ex­plor­ers kept close to the new shore. This, since it had ceased to be formed by the orig­inal riv­er bank, had con­sid­er­ably al­tered its as­pect. Fre­quent land­slips oc­curred, and in many places deep chasms rift­ed the ground; great gaps fur­rowed the fields, and trees, half up­root­ed, over­hung the wa­ter, re­mark­able by the fan­tas­tic dis­tor­tions of their gnarled trunks, look­ing as though they had been chopped by a hatch­et.

The sin­uosi­ties of the coast line, al­ter­nate­ly gul­ly and head­land, had the ef­fect of mak­ing a de­vi­ous progress for the trav­el­ers, and at sun­set, al­though they had ac­com­plished more than twen­ty miles, they had on­ly just ar­rived at the foot of the Merdeyah Moun­tains, which, be­fore the cat­aclysm, had formed the ex­trem­ity of the chain of the Lit­tle At­las. The ridge, how­ev­er, had been vi­olent­ly rup­tured, and now rose per­pen­dic­ular­ly from the wa­ter.

On the fol­low­ing morn­ing Ser­vadac and Ben Zoof tra­versed one of the moun­tain gorges; and next, in or­der to make a more thor­ough ac­quain­tance with the lim­its and con­di­tion of the sec­tion of Al­ge­ri­an ter­ri­to­ry of which they seemed to be left as the sole oc­cu­pants, they dis­mount­ed, and pro­ceed­ed on foot to the sum­mit of one of the high­est peaks. From this el­eva­tion they as­cer­tained that from the base of the Merdeyah to the Mediter­ranean, a dis­tance of about eigh­teen miles, a new coast line had come in­to ex­is­tence; no land was vis­ible in any di­rec­tion; no isth­mus ex­ist­ed to form a con­nect­ing link with the ter­ri­to­ry of Tenes, which had en­tire­ly dis­ap­peared. The re­sult was that Cap­tain Ser­vadac was driv­en to the ir­re­sistible con­clu­sion that the tract of land which he had been sur­vey­ing was not, as he had at first imag­ined, a penin­su­la; it was ac­tu­al­ly an is­land.

Strict­ly speak­ing, this is­land was quadri­lat­er­al, but the sides were so ir­reg­ular that it was much more near­ly a tri­an­gle, the com­par­ison of the sides ex­hibit­ing these pro­por­tions: The sec­tion of the right bank of the She­lif, sev­en­ty-​two miles; the south­ern bound­ary from the She­lif to the chain of the Lit­tle At­las, twen­ty-​one miles; from the Lit­tle At­las to the Mediter­ranean, eigh­teen miles; and six­ty miles of the shore of the Mediter­ranean it­self, mak­ing in all an en­tire cir­cum­fer­ence of about 171 miles.

“What does it all mean?” ex­claimed the cap­tain, ev­ery hour grow­ing more and more be­wil­dered.

“The will of Prov­idence, and we must sub­mit,” replied Ben Zoof, calm and undis­turbed. With this re­flec­tion, the two men silent­ly de­scend­ed the moun­tain and re­mount­ed their hors­es. Be­fore evening they had reached the Mediter­ranean. On their road they failed to dis­cern a ves­tige of the lit­tle town of Mon­tenotte; like Tenes, of which not so much as a ru­ined cot­tage was vis­ible on the hori­zon, it seemed to be an­ni­hi­lat­ed.

On the fol­low­ing day, the 6th of Jan­uary, the two men made a forced march along the coast of the Mediter­ranean, which they found less al­tered than the cap­tain had at first sup­posed; but four vil­lages had en­tire­ly dis­ap­peared, and the head­lands, un­able to re­sist the shock of the con­vul­sion, had been de­tached from the main­land.

The cir­cuit of the is­land had been now com­plet­ed, and the ex­plor­ers, af­ter a pe­ri­od of six­ty hours, found them­selves once more be­side the ru­ins of their gour­bi. Five days, or what, ac­cord­ing to the es­tab­lished or­der of things, would have been two days and a half, had been oc­cu­pied in trac­ing the bound­aries of their new do­main; and they had as­cer­tained be­yond a doubt that they were the sole hu­man in­hab­itants left up­on the is­land.

“Well, sir, here you are, Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al of Al­ge­ria!” ex­claimed Ben Zoof, as they reached the gour­bi.

“With not a soul to gov­ern,” gloomi­ly re­joined the cap­tain.

“How so? Do you not reck­on me?”

“Pshaw! Ben Zoof, what are you?”

“What am I? Why, I am the pop­ula­tion.”

The cap­tain deigned no re­ply, but, mut­ter­ing some ex­pres­sions of re­gret for the fruit­less trou­ble he had tak­en about his ron­do, be­took him­self to rest.