A Light On The Horizon

: BOOK I.
: Off On A Comet

On the following day, without giving himself any further concern about

the Jew's incredulity, the captain gave orders for the Hansa to be

shifted round to the harbor of the Shelif. Hakkabut raised no objection,

not only because he was aware that the move insured the immediate safety

of his tartan, but because he was secretly entertaining the hope that

he might entice away two or three of the Dobryna's crew and make his

escape to Algiers or some other port.



Operations now commenced for preparing proper winter quarters. Spaniards

and Russians alike joined heartily in the work, the diminution of

atmospheric pressure and of the force of attraction contributing such

an increase to their muscular force as materially facilitated all their

labors.



The first business was to accommodate the building adjacent to the

gourbi to the wants of the little colony. Here for the present the

Spaniards were lodged, the Russians retaining their berths upon the

yacht, while the Jew was permitted to pass his nights upon the Hansa.

This arrangement, however, could be only temporary. The time could not

be far distant when ships' sides and ordinary walls would fail to

give an adequate protection from the severity of the cold that must

be expected; the stock of fuel was too limited to keep up a permanent

supply of heat in their present quarters, and consequently they must

be driven to seek some other refuge, the internal temperature of which

would at least be bearable.



The plan that seemed to commend itself most to their consideration was,

that they should dig out for themselves some subterraneous pits similar

to "silos," such as are used as receptacles for grain. They presumed

that when the surface of Gallia should be covered by a thick layer of

ice, which is a bad conductor of heat, a sufficient amount of warmth

for animal vitality might still be retained in excavations of this kind.

After a long consultation they failed to devise any better expedient,

and were forced to resign themselves to this species of troglodyte

existence.



In one respect they congratulated themselves that they should be better

off than many of the whalers in the polar seas, for as it is impossible

to get below the surface of a frozen ocean, these adventurers have to

seek refuge in huts of wood and snow erected on their ships, which at

best can give but slight protection from extreme cold; but here, with a

solid subsoil, the Gallians might hope to dig down a hundred feet or so

and secure for themselves a shelter that would enable them to brave the

hardest severity of climate.



The order, then, was at once given. The work was commenced. A stock of

shovels, mattocks, and pick-axes was brought from the gourbi, and with

Ben Zoof as overseer, both Spanish majos and Russian sailors set to work

with a will.



It was not long, however, before a discovery, more unexpected than

agreeable, suddenly arrested their labors. The spot chosen for the

excavation was a little to the right of the gourbi, on a slight

elevation of the soil. For the first day everything went on prosperously

enough; but at a depth of eight feet below the surface, the navvies came

in contact with a hard surface, upon which all their tools failed to

make the slightest impression. Servadac and the count were at once

apprised of the fact, and had little difficulty in recognizing the

substance that had revealed itself as the very same which composed the

shores as well as the subsoil of the Gallian sea. It evidently formed

the universal substructure of the new asteroid. Means for hollowing it

failed them utterly. Harder and more resisting than granite, it could

not be blasted by ordinary powder; dynamite alone could suffice to rend

it.



The disappointment was very great. Unless some means of protection were

speedily devised, death seemed to be staring them in the face. Were the

figures in the mysterious documents correct? If so, Gallia must now be

a hundred millions of leagues from the sun, nearly three times the

distance of the earth at the remotest section of her orbit. The

intensity of the solar light and heat, too, was very seriously

diminishing, although Gourbi Island (being on the equator of an orb

which had its axes always perpendicular to the plane in which it

revolved) enjoyed a position that gave it a permanent summer. But no

advantage of this kind could compensate for the remoteness of the sun.

The temperature fell steadily; already, to the discomfiture of the

little Italian girl, nurtured in sunshine, ice was beginning to form in

the crevices of the rocks, and manifestly the time was impending when

the sea itself would freeze.



Some shelter must be found before the temperature should fall to 60

degrees below zero. Otherwise death was inevitable. Hitherto, for the

last few days, the thermometer had been registering an average of about

6 degrees below zero, and it had become matter of experience that the

stove, although replenished with all the wood that was available, was

altogether inadequate to effect any sensible mitigation of the severity

of the cold. Nor could any amount of fuel be enough. It was certain

that ere long the very mercury and spirit in the thermometers would be

congealed. Some other resort must assuredly be soon found, or they must

perish. That was clear.



The idea of betaking themselves to the Dobryna and Hansa could not

for a moment be seriously entertained; not only did the structure of the

vessels make them utterly insufficient to give substantial shelter,

but they were totally unfitted to be trusted as to their stability when

exposed to the enormous pressure of the accumulated ice.



Neither Servadac, nor the count, nor Lieutenant Procope were men to

be easily disheartened, but it could not be concealed that they felt

themselves in circumstances by which they were equally harassed and

perplexed. The sole expedient that their united counsel could suggest

was to obtain a refuge below ground, and that was denied them by the

strange and impenetrable substratum of the soil; yet hour by hour the

sun's disc was lessening in its dimensions, and although at midday some

faint radiance and glow were to be distinguished, during the night the

painfulness of the cold was becoming almost intolerable.



Mounted upon Zephyr and Galette, the captain and the count scoured the

island in search of some available retreat. Scarcely a yard of ground

was left unexplored, the horses clearing every obstacle as if they were,

like Pegasus, furnished with wings. But all in vain. Soundings were made

again and again, but invariably with the same result; the rock, hard as

adamant, never failed to reveal itself within a few feet of the surface

of the ground.



The excavation of any silo being thus manifestly hopeless, there seemed

nothing to be done except to try and render the buildings alongside the

gourbi impervious to frost. To contribute to the supply of fuel, orders

were given to collect every scrap of wood, dry or green, that the island

produced; and this involved the necessity of felling the numerous

trees that were scattered over the plain. But toil as they might at the

accumulation of firewood, Captain Servadac and his companions could not

resist the conviction that the consumption of a very short period would

exhaust the total stock. And what would happen then?



Studious if possible to conceal his real misgivings, and anxious that

the rest of the party should be affected as little as might be by his

own uneasiness, Servadac would wander alone about the island, racking

his brain for an idea that would point the way out of the serious

difficulty. But still all in vain.



One day he suddenly came upon Ben Zoof, and asked him whether he had no

plan to propose. The orderly shook his head, but after a few moments'

pondering, said: "Ah! master, if only we were at Montmartre, we would

get shelter in the charming stone-quarries."



"Idiot!" replied the captain, angrily, "if we were at Montmartre, you

don't suppose that we should need to live in stone-quarries?"



But the means of preservation which human ingenuity had failed to secure

were at hand from the felicitous provision of Nature herself. It was on

the 10th of March that the captain and Lieutenant Procope started off

once more to investigate the northwest corner of the island; on their

way their conversation naturally was engrossed by the subject of

the dire necessities which only too manifestly were awaiting them. A

discussion more than usually animated arose between them, for the two

men were not altogether of the same mind as to the measures that ought

to be adopted in order to open the fairest chance of avoiding a fatal

climax to their exposure; the captain persisted that an entirely

new abode must be sought, while the lieutenant was equally bent upon

devising a method of some sort by which their present quarters might

be rendered sufficiently warm. All at once, in the very heat of his

argument, Procope paused; he passed his hand across his eyes, as if to

dispel a mist, and stood, with a fixed gaze centered on a point towards

the south. "What is that?" he said, with a kind of hesitation. "No, I am

not mistaken," he added; "it is a light on the horizon."



"A light!" exclaimed Servadac; "show me where."



"Look there!" answered the lieutenant, and he kept pointing steadily in

its direction, until Servadac also distinctly saw the bright speck in

the distance.



It increased in clearness in the gathering shades of evening. "Can it be

a ship?" asked the captain.



"If so, it must be in flames; otherwise we should not be able to see it

so far off," replied Procope.



"It does not move," said Servadac; "and unless I am greatly deceived, I

can hear a kind of reverberation in the air."



For some seconds the two men stood straining eyes and ears in rapt

attention. Suddenly an idea struck Servadac's mind. "The volcano!" he

cried; "may it not be the volcano that we saw, whilst we were on board

the Dobryna?"



The lieutenant agreed that it was very probable.



"Heaven be praised!" ejaculated the captain, and he went on in the tones

of a keen excitement: "Nature has provided us with our winter quarters;

the stream of burning lava that is flowing there is the gift of a

bounteous Providence; it will provide us all the warmth we need. No time

to lose! To-morrow, my dear Procope, to-morrow we will explore it all;

no doubt the life, the heat we want is reserved for us in the heart and

bowels of our own Gallia!"



Whilst the captain was indulging in his expressions of enthusiasm,

Procope was endeavoring to collect his thoughts. Distinctly he

remembered the long promontory which had barred the Dobryna's progress

while coasting the southern confines of the sea, and which had obliged

her to ascend northwards as far as the former latitude of Oran; he

remembered also that at the extremity of the promontory there was a

rocky headland crowned with smoke; and now he was convinced that he was

right in identifying the position, and in believing that the smoke had

given place to an eruption of flame.



When Servadac gave him a chance of speaking, he said, "The more I

consider it, captain, the more I am satisfied that your conjecture is

correct. Beyond a doubt, what we see is the volcano, and to-morrow we

will not fail to visit it."



On returning to the gourbi, they communicated their discovery to Count

Timascheff only, deeming any further publication of it to be premature.

The count at once placed his yacht at their disposal, and expressed his

intention of accompanying them.



"The yacht, I think," said Procope, "had better remain where she is;

the weather is beautifully calm, and the steam-launch will answer our

purpose better; at any rate, it will convey us much closer to shore than

the schooner."



The count replied that the lieutenant was by all means to use his own

discretion, and they all retired for the night.



Like many other modern pleasure-yachts, the Dobryna, in addition to

her four-oar, was fitted with a fast-going little steam-launch, its

screw being propelled, on the Oriolle system, by means of a boiler,

small but very effective. Early next morning, this handy little craft

was sufficiently freighted with coal (of which there was still about ten

tons on board the Dobryna), and manned by nobody except the captain,

the count, and the lieutenant, left the harbor of the Shelif, much to

the bewilderment of Ben Zoof, who had not yet been admitted into the

secret. The orderly, however, consoled himself with the reflection

that he had been temporarily invested with the full powers of governor

general, an office of which he was not a little proud.



The eighteen miles between the island and the headland were made in

something less than three hours. The volcanic eruption was manifestly

very considerable, the entire summit of the promontory being enveloped

in flames. To produce so large a combustion either the oxygen of

Gallia's atmosphere had been brought into contact with the explosive

gases contained beneath her soil, or perhaps, still more probable, the

volcano, like those in the moon, was fed by an internal supply of oxygen

of her own.



It took more than half an hour to settle on a suitable landing-place.

At length, a small semi-circular creek was discovered among the rocks,

which appeared advantageous, because, if circumstances should so

require, it would form a safe anchorage for both the Dobryna and the

Hansa.



The launch securely moored, the passengers landed on the side of the

promontory opposite to that on which a torrent of burning lava was

descending to the sea. With much satisfaction they experienced, as they

approached the mountain, a sensible difference in the temperature, and

their spirits could not do otherwise than rise at the prospect of having

their hopes confirmed, that a deliverance from the threatened calamity

had so opportunely been found. On they went, up the steep acclivity,

scrambling over its rugged projections, scaling the irregularities of

its gigantic strata, bounding from point to point with the agility of

chamois, but never alighting on anything except on the accumulation of

the same hexagonal prisms with which they had now become so familiar.



Their exertions were happily rewarded. Behind a huge pyramidal rock they

found a hole in the mountain-side, like the mouth of a great tunnel.

Climbing up to this orifice, which was more than sixty feet above the

level of the sea, they ascertained that it opened into a long dark

gallery. They entered and groped their way cautiously along the sides.

A continuous rumbling, that increased as they advanced, made them aware

that they must be approaching the central funnel of the volcano; their

only fear was lest some insuperable wall of rock should suddenly bar

their further progress.



Servadac was some distance ahead.



"Come on!" he cried cheerily, his voice ringing through the darkness,

"come on! Our fire is lighted! no stint of fuel! Nature provides that!

Let us make haste and warm ourselves!"



Inspired by his confidence, the count and the lieutenant advanced

bravely along the unseen and winding path. The temperature was now at

least fifteen degrees above zero, and the walls of the gallery were

beginning to feel quite warm to the touch, an indication, not to be

overlooked, that the substance of which the rock was composed was

metallic in its nature, and capable of conducting heat.



"Follow me!" shouted Servadac again; "we shall soon find a regular

stove!"



Onwards they made their way, until at last a sharp turn brought them

into a sudden flood of light. The tunnel had opened into a vast cavern,

and the gloom was exchanged for an illumination that was perfectly

dazzling. Although the temperature was high, it was not in any way

intolerable.



One glance was sufficient to satisfy the explorers that the grateful

light and heat of this huge excavation were to be attributed to a

torrent of lava that was rolling downwards to the sea, completely

subtending the aperture of the cave. Not inaptly might the scene be

compared to the celebrated Grotto of the Winds at the rear of the

central fall of Niagara, only with the exception that here, instead of

a curtain of rushing water, it was a curtain of roaring flame that hung

before the cavern's mouth.



"Heaven be praised!" cried Servadac, with glad emotion; "here is all

that we hoped for, and more besides!"