Off on a Comet (4 page)

Ben Zoof burst into a roar of laughter. "Bravo!" he said, "we should
make a good pair of clowns."

But the captain was inclined to take a more serious view of the matter.
For a few seconds he stood lost in thought, then said solemnly, "Ben
Zoof, I must be dreaming. Pinch me hard; I must be either asleep or
mad."

"It is very certain that something has happened to us," said Ben Zoof.
"I have occasionally dreamed that I was a swallow flying over the
Montmartre, but I never experienced anything of this kind before; it
must be peculiar to the coast of Algeria."

Servadac was stupefied; he felt instinctively that he was not dreaming,
and yet was powerless to solve the mystery. He was not, however, the man
to puzzle himself for long over any insoluble problem. "Come what may,"
he presently exclaimed, "we will make up our minds for the future to be
surprised at nothing."

"Right, captain," replied Ben Zoof; "and, first of all, let us settle
our little score with Count Timascheff."

Beyond the ditch lay a small piece of meadow land, about an acre in
extent. A soft and delicious herbage carpeted the soil, whilst trees
formed a charming framework to the whole. No spot could have been chosen
more suitable for the meeting between the two adversaries.

Servadac cast a hasty glance round. No one was in sight. "We are the
first on the field," he said.

"Not so sure of that, sir," said Ben Zoof.

"What do you mean?" asked Servadac, looking at his watch, which he had
set as nearly as possible by the sun before leaving the gourbi; "it is
not nine o'clock yet."

"Look up there, sir. I am much mistaken if that is not the sun;" and as
Ben Zoof spoke, he pointed directly overhead to where a faint white disc
was dimly visible through the haze of clouds.

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Servadac. "How can the sun be in the zenith, in
the month of January, in lat. 39 degrees N.?"

"Can't say, sir. I only know the sun is there; and at the rate he has
been traveling, I would lay my cap to a dish of couscous that in less
than three hours he will have set."

Hector Servadac, mute and motionless, stood with folded arms. Presently
he roused himself, and began to look about again. "What means all this?"
he murmured. "Laws of gravity disturbed! Points of the compass reversed!
The length of day reduced one half! Surely this will indefinitely
postpone my meeting with the count. Something has happened; Ben Zoof and
I cannot both be mad!"

The orderly, meantime, surveyed his master with the greatest equanimity;
no phenomenon, however extraordinary, would have drawn from him a
single exclamation of surprise. "Do you see anyone, Ben Zoof?" asked the
captain, at last.

"No one, sir; the count has evidently been and gone." "But supposing
that to be the case," persisted the captain, "my seconds would have
waited, and not seeing me, would have come on towards the gourbi. I can
only conclude that they have been unable to get here; and as for Count
Timascheff—"

Without finishing his sentence. Captain Servadac, thinking it just
probable that the count, as on the previous evening, might come by
water, walked to the ridge of rock that overhung the shore, in order
to ascertain if the
Dobryna
were anywhere in sight. But the sea was
deserted, and for the first time the captain noticed that, although
the wind was calm, the waters were unusually agitated, and seethed and
foamed as though they were boiling. It was very certain that the yacht
would have found a difficulty in holding her own in such a swell.
Another thing that now struck Servadac was the extraordinary contraction
of the horizon. Under ordinary circumstances, his elevated position
would have allowed him a radius of vision at least five and twenty miles
in length; but the terrestrial sphere seemed, in the course of the last
few hours, to have become considerably reduced in volume, and he could
now see for a distance of only six miles in every direction.

Meantime, with the agility of a monkey, Ben Zoof had clambered to the
top of a eucalyptus, and from his lofty perch was surveying the
country to the south, as well as towards both Tenes and Mostaganem. On
descending, be informed the captain that the plain was deserted.

"We will make our way to the river, and get over into Mostaganem," said
the captain.

The Shelif was not more than a mile and a half from the meadow, but
no time was to be lost if the two men were to reach the town before
nightfall. Though still hidden by heavy clouds, the sun was evidently
declining fast; and what was equally inexplicable, it was not following
the oblique curve that in these latitudes and at this time of year might
be expected, but was sinking perpendicularly on to the horizon.

As he went along, Captain Servadac pondered deeply. Perchance some
unheard-of phenomenon had modified the rotary motion of the globe; or
perhaps the Algerian coast had been transported beyond the equator
into the southern hemisphere. Yet the earth, with the exception of the
alteration in its convexity, in this part of Africa at least, seemed to
have undergone no change of any very great importance. As far as the eye
could reach, the shore was, as it had ever been, a succession of
cliffs, beach, and arid rocks, tinged with a red ferruginous hue. To
the south—if south, in this inverted order of things, it might still
be called—the face of the country also appeared unaltered, and some
leagues away, the peaks of the Merdeyah mountains still retained their
accustomed outline.

Presently a rift in the clouds gave passage to an oblique ray of light
that clearly proved that the sun was setting in the east.

"Well, I am curious to know what they think of all this at Mostaganem,"
said the captain. "I wonder, too, what the Minister of War will say when
he receives a telegram informing him that his African colony has become,
not morally, but physically disorganized; that the cardinal points
are at variance with ordinary rules, and that the sun in the month of
January is shining down vertically upon our heads."

Ben Zoof, whose ideas of discipline were extremely rigid, at once
suggested that the colony should be put under the surveillance of the
police, that the cardinal points should be placed under restraint, and
that the sun should be shot for breach of discipline.

Meantime, they were both advancing with the utmost speed. The
decompression of the atmosphere made the specific gravity of their
bodies extraordinarily light, and they ran like hares and leaped like
chamois. Leaving the devious windings of the footpath, they went as
a crow would fly across the country. Hedges, trees, and streams were
cleared at a bound, and under these conditions Ben Zoof felt that he
could have overstepped Montmartre at a single stride. The earth seemed
as elastic as the springboard of an acrobat; they scarcely touched it
with their feet, and their only fear was lest the height to which they
were propelled would consume the time which they were saving by their
short cut across the fields.

It was not long before their wild career brought them to the right bank
of the Shelif. Here they were compelled to stop, for not only had the
bridge completely disappeared, but the river itself no longer existed.
Of the left bank there was not the slightest trace, and the right bank,
which on the previous evening had bounded the yellow stream, as it
murmured peacefully along the fertile plain, had now become the shore of
a tumultuous ocean, its azure waters extending westwards far as the eye
could reach, and annihilating the tract of country which had hitherto
formed the district of Mostaganem. The shore coincided exactly with what
had been the right bank of the Shelif, and in a slightly curved line
ran north and south, whilst the adjacent groves and meadows all retained
their previous positions. But the river-bank had become the shore of an
unknown sea.

Eager to throw some light upon the mystery, Servadac hurriedly made his
way through the oleander bushes that overhung the shore, took up some
water in the hollow of his hand, and carried it to his lips. "Salt
as brine!" he exclaimed, as soon as he had tasted it. "The sea has
undoubtedly swallowed up all the western part of Algeria."

"It will not last long, sir," said Ben Zoof. "It is, probably, only a
severe flood."

The captain shook his head. "Worse than that, I fear, Ben Zoof," he
replied with emotion. "It is a catastrophe that may have very
serious consequences. What can have become of all my friends and
fellow-officers?"

Ben Zoof was silent. Rarely had he seen his master so much agitated;
and though himself inclined to receive these phenomena with philosophic
indifference, his notions of military duty caused his countenance to
reflect the captain's expression of amazement.

But there was little time for Servadac to examine the changes which a
few hours had wrought. The sun had already reached the eastern horizon,
and just as though it were crossing the ecliptic under the tropics,
it sank like a cannon ball into the sea. Without any warning, day gave
place to night, and earth, sea, and sky were immediately wrapped in
profound obscurity.

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.