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The light of the returning sun soon extinguished the glory of the stars,
and rendered it necessary for the captain to postpone his observations. He had
sought in vain for further trace of the huge disc that had so excited his
wonder on the 1st, and it seemed most probable that, in its irregular orbit, it
had been carried beyond the range of vision.
The weather was still superb. The wind, after veering to the west, had
sunk to a perfect calm. Pursuing its inverted course, the sun rose and set with
undeviating regularity; and the days and nights were still divided into periods
of precisely six hours each— a sure proof that the sun remained close to
the new equator which manifestly passed through Gourbi Island.
Meanwhile the temperature was steadily increasing. The captain kept his
thermometer close at hand where he could repeatedly consult it, and on the 15th
he found that it registered 50 degrees centigrade in the shade.
No attempt had been made to rebuild the gourbi, but the captain and Ben
Zoof managed to make up quarters sufficiently comfortable in the principal
apartment of the adjoining structure, where the stone walls, that at first
afforded a refuge from the torrents of rain, now formed an equally acceptable
shelter from the burning sun. The heat was becoming insufferable, surpassing
the heat of Senegal and other equatorial regions; not a cloud ever tempered the
intensity of the solar rays; and unless some modification ensued, it seemed
inevitable that all vegetation should become scorched and burnt off from the
face of the island.
In spite, however, of the profuse perspirations from which he suffered,
Ben Zoof, constant to his principles, expressed no surprise at the unwonted
heat. No remonstrances from his master could induce him to abandon his watch
from the cliff. To withstand the vertical beams of that noontide sun would seem
to require a skin of brass and a brain of adamant; but yet, hour after hour, he
would remain conscientiously scanning the surface of the Mediterranean, which,
calm and deserted, lay outstretched before him. On one occasion, Servadac, in
reference to his orderly’s indomitable perseverance, happened to remark
that he thought he must have been born in the heart of equatorial Africa; to
which Ben Zoof replied, with the utmost dignity, that he was born at
Montmartre, which was all the same. The worthy fellow was unwilling to own
that, even in the matter of heat, the tropics could in any way surpass his own
much-loved home.
This unprecedented temperature very soon began to take effect upon the
products of the soil. The sap rose rapidly in the trees, so that in the course
of a few days buds, leaves, flowers, and fruit had come to full maturity. It
was the same with the cereals; wheat and maize sprouted and ripened as if by
magic, and for a while a rank and luxuriant pasturage clothed the meadows.
Summer and autumn seemed blended into one. If Captain Servadac had been more
deeply versed in astronomy, he would perhaps have been able to bring to bear
his knowledge that if the axis of the earth, as everything seemed to indicate,
now formed a right angle with the plane of the ecliptic, her various seasons,
like those of the planet Jupiter, would become limited to certain zones, in
which they would remain invariable. But even if he had understood the rationale
of the change, the convulsion that had brought it about would have been as much
a mystery as ever.
The precocity of vegetation caused some embarrassment. The time for the
corn and fruit harvest had fallen simultaneously with that of the haymaking;
and as the extreme heat precluded any prolonged exertions, it was evident
“the population” of the island would find it difficult to provide
the necessary amount of labor. Not that the prospect gave them much concern:
the provisions of the gourbi were still far from exhausted, and now that the
roughness of the weather had so happily subsided, they had every encouragement
to hope that a ship of some sort would soon appear. Not only was that part of
the Mediterranean systematically frequented by the government steamers that
watched the coast, but vessels of all nations were constantly cruising off the
shore.
In spite, however, of all their sanguine speculations, no ship appeared.
Ben Zoof admitted the necessity of extemporizing a kind of parasol for himself,
otherwise he must literally have been roasted to death upon the exposed summit
of the cliff.
Meanwhile, Servadac was doing his utmost—it must be acknowledged,
with indifferent success—to recall the lessons of his school-days. He
would plunge into the wildest speculations in his endeavors to unravel the
difficulties of the new situation, and struggled into a kind of conviction that
if there had been a change of manner in the earth’s rotation on her axis,
there would be a corresponding change in her revolution round the sun, which
would involve the consequence of the length of the year being either diminished
or increased.
Independently of the increased and increasing heat, there was another
very conclusive demonstration that the earth had thus suddenly approximated
towards the sun. The diameter of the solar disc was now exactly twice what it
ordinarily looks to the naked eye; in fact, it was precisely such as it would
appear to an observer on the surface of the planet Venus. The most obvious
inference would therefore be that the earth’s distance from the sun had
been diminished from 91,000,000 to 66,000,000 miles. If the just equilibrium of
the earth had thus been destroyed, and should this diminution of distance still
continue, would there not be reason to fear that the terrestrial world would be
carried onwards to actual contact with the sun, which must result in its total
annihilation?
The continuance of the splendid weather afforded Servadac every facility
for observing the heavens. Night after night, constellations in their beauty
lay stretched before his eyes— an alphabet which, to his mortification,
not to say his rage, he was unable to decipher. In the apparent dimensions of
the fixed stars, in their distance, in their relative position with regard to
each other, he could observe no change. Although it is established that our sun
is approaching the constellation of Hercules at the rate of more than
126,000,000 miles a year, and although Arcturus is traveling through space at
the rate of fifty-four miles a second—three times faster than the earth
goes round the sun,—yet such is the remoteness of those stars that no
appreciable change is evident to the senses. The fixed stars taught him
nothing.
Far otherwise was it with the planets. The orbits of Venus and Mercury
are within the orbit of the earth, Venus rotating at an average distance of
66,130,000 miles from the sun, and Mercury at that of 35,393,000. After
pondering long, and as profoundly as he could, upon these figures, Captain
Servadac came to the conclusion that, as the earth was now receiving about
double the amount of light and heat that it had been receiving before the
catastrophe, it was receiving about the same as the planet Venus; he was
driven, therefore, to the estimate of the measure in which the earth must have
approximated to the sun, a deduction in which he was confirmed when the
opportunity came for him to observe Venus herself in the splendid proportions
that she now assumed.
That magnificent planet which—as Phosphorus or Lucifer, Hesperus
or Vesper, the evening star, the morning star, or the shepherd’s
star—has never failed to attract the rapturous admiration of the most
indifferent observers, here revealed herself with unprecedented glory,
exhibiting all the phases of a lustrous moon in miniature. Various indentations
in the outline of its crescent showed that the solar beams were refracted into
regions of its surface where the sun had already set, and proved, beyond a
doubt, that the planet had an atmosphere of her own; and certain luminous
points projecting from the crescent as plainly marked the existence of
mountains. As the result of Servadac’s computations, he formed the
opinion that Venus could hardly be at a greater distance than 6,000,000 miles
from the earth.
“And a very safe distance, too,” said Ben Zoof, when his
master told him the conclusion at which he had arrived.
“All very well for two armies, but for a couple of planets not
quite so safe, perhaps, as you may imagine. It is my impression that it is more
than likely we may run foul of Venus,” said the captain.
“Plenty of air and water there, sir?” inquired the orderly.
“Yes; as far as I can tell, plenty,” replied Servadac.
“Then why shouldn’t we go and visit Venus?”
Servadac did his best to explain that as the two planets were of about
equal volume, and were traveling with great velocity in opposite directions,
any collision between them must be attended with the most disastrous
consequences to one or both of them. But Ben Zoof failed to see that, even at
the worst, the catastrophe could be much more serious than the collision of two
railway trains.
The captain became exasperated. “You idiot!” he angrily
exclaimed; “cannot you understand that the planets are traveling a
thousand times faster than the fastest express, and that if they meet, either
one or the other must be destroyed? What would become of your darling
Montmartre then?”
The captain had touched a tender chord. For a moment Ben Zoof stood with
clenched teeth and contracted muscles; then, in a voice of real concern, he
inquired whether anything could be done to avert the calamity.
“Nothing whatever; so you may go about your own business,”
was the captain’s brusque rejoinder.
All discomfited and bewildered, Ben Zoof retired without a word.
During the ensuing days the distance between the two planets continued
to decrease, and it became more and more obvious that the earth, on her new
orbit, was about to cross the orbit of Venus. Throughout this time the earth
had been making a perceptible approach towards Mercury, and that
planet—which is rarely visible to the naked eye, and then only at what
are termed the periods of its greatest eastern and western
elongations—now appeared in all its splendor. It amply justified the epithet
of “sparkling” which the ancients were accustomed to confer upon
it, and could scarcely fail to awaken a new interest. The periodic recurrence
of its phases; its reflection of the sun’s rays, shedding upon it a light
and a heat seven times greater than that received by the earth; its glacial and
its torrid zones, which, on account of the great inclination of the axis, are
scarcely separable; its equatorial bands; its mountains eleven miles
high;—were all subjects of observation worthy of the most studious regard.
But no danger was to be apprehended from Mercury; with Venus only did
collision appear imminent. By the l8th of January the distance between that
planet and the earth had become reduced to between two and three millions of
miles, and the intensity of its light cast heavy shadows from all terrestrial
objects. It might be observed to turn upon its own axis in twenty-three hours
twenty-one minutes—an evidence, from the unaltered duration of its days,
that the planet had not shared in the disturbance. On its disc the clouds
formed from its atmospheric vapor were plainly perceptible, as also were the
seven spots, which, according to Bianchini, are a chain of seas. It was now
visible in broad daylight. Buonaparte, when under the Directory, once had his
attention called to Venus at noon, and immediately hailed it joyfully,
recognizing it as his own peculiar star in the ascendant. Captain Servadac, it
may well be imagined, did not experience the same gratifying emotion.
On the 20th, the distance between the two bodies had again sensibly
diminished. The captain had ceased to be surprised that no vessel had been sent
to rescue himself and his companion from their strange imprisonment; the
governor general and the minister of war were doubtless far differently
occupied, and their interests far otherwise engrossed. What sensational
articles, he thought, must now be teeming to the newspapers! What crowds must
be flocking to the churches! The end of the world approaching! the great climax
close at hand! Two days more, and the earth, shivered into a myriad atoms,
would be lost in boundless space!
These dire forebodings, however, were not destined to be realized.
Gradually the distance between the two planets began to increase; the planes of
their orbits did not coincide, and accordingly the dreaded catastrophe did not
ensue. By the 25th, Venus was sufficiently remote to preclude any further fear
of collision. Ben Zoof gave a sigh of relief when the captain communicated the
glad intelligence.
Their proximity to Venus had been close enough to demonstrate that
beyond a doubt that planet has no moon or satellite such as Cassini, Short,
Montaigne of Limoges, Montbarron, and some other astronomers have imagined to
exist. “Had there been such a satellite,” said Servadac, “we
might have captured it in passing. But what can be the meaning,” he added
seriously, “of all this displacement of the heavenly bodies?”
“What is that great building at Paris, captain, with a top like a
cap?” asked Ben Zoof.
“Do you mean the Observatory?”
“Yes, the Observatory. Are there not people living in the
Observatory who could explain all this?”
“Very likely; but what of that?”
“Let us be philosophers, and wait patiently until we can hear
their explanation.”
Servadac smiled. “Do you know what it is to be a philosopher, Ben
Zoof?” he asked.
“I am a soldier, sir,” was the servant’s prompt
rejoinder, “and I have learnt to know that ‘what can’t be
cured must be endured.’”
The captain made no reply, but for a time, at least, he desisted from
puzzling himself over matters which he felt he was utterly incompetent to
explain. But an event soon afterwards occurred which awakened his keenest
interest.
About nine o’clock on the morning of the 27th, Ben Zoof walked
deliberately into his master’s apartment, and, in reply to a question as
to what he wanted, announced with the utmost composure that a ship was in
sight.
“A ship!” exclaimed Servadac, starting to his feet. “A
ship! Ben Zoof, you donkey! you speak as unconcernedly as though you were
telling me that my dinner was ready.”
“Are we not philosophers, captain?” said the orderly.
But the captain was out of hearing.
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