Venus In Perilous Proximity
: BOOK I.: Off On A Comet
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 18th 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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ADDENDUM (Written by John Yiewsley Claxton, Esq., of Norbury, in the County Borough of Croydon, Surrey) In accordance with the desire of my old friend, Wilfrid Poynders, I am now about to publish the book which was handed to me by Mer...