A Bold Proposition

: BOOK II

On his return Servadac communicated to the count the result of his

expedition, and, though perfectly silent on the subject of his personal

project, did not conceal the fact that the Spaniards, without the

smallest right, had sold Ceuta to the English.



Having refused to quit their post, the Englishmen had virtually excluded

themselves from any further consideration; they had had their warning,

and must now
take the consequences of their own incredulity.



Although it had proved that not a single creature either at Gourbi

Island, Gibraltar, Ceuta, Madalena, or Formentera had received any

injury whatever at the time of the first concussion, there was nothing

in the least to make it certain that a like immunity from harm would

attend the second. The previous escape was doubtless owing to some

slight, though unaccountable, modification in the rate of motion; but

whether the inhabitants of the earth had fared so fortunately, was a

question that had still to be determined.



The day following Servadac's return, he and the count and Lieutenant

Procope met by agreement in the cave, formally to discuss what would be

the most advisable method of proceeding under their present prospects.

Ben Zoof was, as a matter of course, allowed to be present, and

Professor Rosette had been asked to attend; but he declined on the plea

of taking no interest in the matter. Indeed, the disappearance of his

moon had utterly disconcerted him, and the probability that he should

soon lose his comet also, plunged him into an excess of grief which he

preferred to bear in solitude.



Although the barrier of cool reserve was secretly increasing between the

captain and the count, they scrupulously concealed any outward token of

their inner feelings, and without any personal bias applied their best

energies to the discussion of the question which was of such mutual,

nay, of such universal interest.



Servadac was the first to speak. "In fifty-one days, if Professor

Rosette has made no error in his calculations, there is to be a

recurrence of collision between this comet and the earth. The inquiry

that we have now to make is whether we are prepared for the coming

shock. I ask myself, and I ask you, whether it is in our power, by

any means, to avert the evil consequences that are only too likely to

follow?"



Count Timascheff, in a voice that seemed to thrill with solemnity, said:

"In such events we are at the disposal of an over-ruling Providence;

human precautions cannot sway the Divine will."



"But with the most profound reverence for the will of Providence,"

replied the captain, "I beg to submit that it is our duty to devise

whatever means we can to escape the threatening mischief. Heaven helps

them that help themselves."



"And what means have you to suggest, may I ask?" said the count, with a

faint accent of satire.



Servadac was forced to acknowledge that nothing tangible had hitherto

presented itself to his mind.



"I don't want to intrude," observed Ben Zoof, "but I don't understand

why such learned gentlemen as you cannot make the comet go where you

want it to go."



"You are mistaken, Ben Zoof, about our learning," said the captain;

"even Professor Rosette, with all his learning, has not a shadow of

power to prevent the comet and the earth from knocking against each

other."



"Then I cannot see what is the use of all this learning," the orderly

replied.



"One great use of learning," said Count Timascheff with a smile, "is to

make us know our own ignorance."



While this conversation had been going on, Lieutenant Procope had been

sitting in thoughtful silence. Looking up, he now said, "Incident to

this expected shock, there may be a variety of dangers. If, gentlemen,

you will allow me, I will enumerate them; and we shall, perhaps, by

taking them seriatim, be in a better position to judge whether we

can successfully grapple with them, or in any way mitigate their

consequences."



There was a general attitude of attention. It was surprising how calmly

they proceeded to discuss the circumstances that looked so threatening

and ominous.



"First of all," resumed the lieutenant, "we will specify the different

ways in which the shock may happen."



"And the prime fact to be remembered," interposed Servadac, "is that the

combined velocity of the two bodies will be about 21,000 miles an hour."



"Express speed, and no mistake!" muttered Ben Zoof.



"Just so," assented Procope. "Now, the two bodies may impinge either

directly or obliquely. If the impact is sufficiently oblique, Gallia may

do precisely what she did before: she may graze the earth; she may,

or she may not, carry off a portion of the earth's atmosphere and

substance, and so she may float away again into space; but her orbit

would undoubtedly be deranged, and if we survive the shock, we

shall have small chance of ever returning to the world of our

fellow-creatures."



"Professor Rosette, I suppose," Ben Zoof remarked, "would pretty soon

find out all about that."



"But we will leave this hypothesis," said the lieutenant; "our

own experience has sufficiently shown us its advantages and its

disadvantages. We will proceed to consider the infinitely more serious

alternative of direct impact; of a shock that would hurl the comet

straight on to the earth, to which it would become attached."



"A great wart upon her face!" said Ben Zoof, laughing.



The captain held up his finger to his orderly, making him understand

that he should hold his tongue.



"It is, I presume, to be taken for granted," continued Lieutenant

Procope, "that the mass of the earth is comparatively so large that, in

the event of a direct collision, her own motion would not be sensibly

retarded, and that she would carry the comet along with her, as part of

herself."



"Very little question of that, I should think," said Servadac.



"Well, then," the lieutenant went on, "what part of this comet of ours

will be the part to come into collision with the earth? It may be the

equator, where we are; it may be at the exactly opposite point, at our

antipodes; or it may be at either pole. In any case, it seems hard to

foresee whence there is to come the faintest chance of deliverance."



"Is the case so desperate?" asked Servadac.



"I will tell you why it seems so. If the side of the comet on which we

are resident impinges on the earth, it stands to reason that we must be

crushed to atoms by the violence of the concussion."



"Regular mincemeat!" said Ben Zoof, whom no admonitions could quite

reduce to silence.



"And if," said the lieutenant, after a moment's pause, and the slightest

possible frown at the interruption--"and if the collision should occur

at our antipodes, the sudden check to the velocity of the comet would be

quite equivalent to a shock in situ; and, another thing, we should run

the risk of being suffocated, for all our comet's atmosphere would be

assimilated with the terrestrial atmosphere, and we, supposing we were

not dashed to atoms, should be left as it were upon the summit of an

enormous mountain (for such to all intents and purposes Gallia would

be), 450 miles above the level of the surface of the globe, without a

particle of air to breathe."



"But would not our chances of escape be considerably better," asked

Count Timascheff, "in the event of either of the comet's poles being the

point of contact?"



"Taking the combined velocity into account," answered the lieutenant,

"I confess that I fear the violence of the shock will be too great to

permit our destruction to be averted."



A general silence ensued, which was broken by the lieutenant himself.

"Even if none of these contingencies occur in the way we have

contemplated, I am driven to the suspicion that we shall be burnt

alive."



"Burnt alive!" they all exclaimed in a chorus of horror.



"Yes. If the deductions of modern science be true, the speed of the

comet, when suddenly checked, will be transmuted into heat, and that

heat will be so intense that the temperature of the comet will be raised

to some millions of degrees."



No one having anything definite to allege in reply to Lieutenant

Procope's forebodings, they all relapsed into silence. Presently Ben

Zoof asked whether it was not possible for the comet to fall into the

middle of the Atlantic.



Procope shook his head. "Even so, we should only be adding the fate of

drowning to the list of our other perils."



"Then, as I understand," said Captain Servadac, "in whatever way or

in whatever place the concussion occurs, we must be either crushed,

suffocated, roasted, or drowned. Is that your conclusion, lieutenant?"



"I confess I see no other alternative," answered Procope, calmly.



"But isn't there another thing to be done?" said Ben Zoof.



"What do you mean?" his master asked.



"Why, to get off the comet before the shock comes."



"How could you get off Gallia?"



"That I can't say," replied the orderly.



"I am not sure that that could not be accomplished," said the

lieutenant.



All eyes in a moment were riveted upon him, as, with his head resting

on his hands, he was manifestly cogitating a new idea. "Yes, I think

it could be accomplished," he repeated. "The project may appear

extravagant, but I do not know why it should be impossible. Ben Zoof has

hit the right nail on the head; we must try and leave Gallia before the

shock."



"Leave Gallia! How?" said Count Timascheff.



The lieutenant did not at once reply. He continued pondering for a time,

and at last said, slowly and distinctly, "By making a balloon!"



Servadac's heart sank.



"A balloon!" he exclaimed. "Out of the question! Balloons are exploded

things. You hardly find them in novels. Balloon, indeed!"



"Listen to me," replied Procope. "Perhaps I can convince you that my

idea is not so chimerical as you imagine." And, knitting his brow, he

proceeded to establish the feasibility of his plan. "If we can ascertain

the precise moment when the shock is to happen, and can succeed

in launching ourselves a sufficient time beforehand into Gallia's

atmosphere, I believe it will transpire that this atmosphere will

amalgamate with that of the earth, and that a balloon whirled along by

the combined velocity would glide into the mingled atmosphere and remain

suspended in mid-air until the shock of the collision is overpast."



Count Timascheff reflected for a minute, and said, "I think, lieutenant,

I understand your project. The scheme seems tenable; and I shall be

ready to co-operate with you, to the best of my power, in putting it

into execution."



"Only, remember," continued Procope, "there are many chances to one

against our success. One instant's obstruction and stoppage in our

passage, and our balloon is burnt to ashes. Still, reluctant as I am to

acknowledge it, I confess that I feel our sole hope of safety rests in

our getting free from this comet."



"If the chances were ten thousand to one against us," said Servadac, "I

think the attempt ought to be made."



"But have we hydrogen enough to inflate a balloon?" asked the count.



"Hot air will be all that we shall require," the lieutenant answered;

"we are only contemplating about an hour's journey."



"Ah, a fire-balloon! A montgolfier!" cried Servadac. "But what are you

going to do for a casing?"



"I have thought of that. We must cut it out of the sails of the

Dobryna; they are both light and strong," rejoined the lieutenant.

Count Timascheff complimented the lieutenant upon his ingenuity, and Ben

Zoof could not resist bringing the meeting to a conclusion by a ringing

cheer.



Truly daring was the plan of which Lieutenant Procope had thus become

the originator; but the very existence of them all was at stake, and the

design must be executed resolutely. For the success of the enterprise it

was absolutely necessary to know, almost to a minute, the precise time

at which the collision would occur, and Captain Servadac undertook the

task, by gentle means or by stern, of extracting the secret from the

professor.



To Lieutenant Procope himself was entrusted the superintendence of the

construction of the montgolfier, and the work was begun at once. It was

to be large enough to carry the whole of the twenty-three residents in

the volcano, and, in order to provide the means of floating aloft

long enough to give time for selecting a proper place for descent, the

lieutenant was anxious to make it carry enough hay or straw to maintain

combustion for a while, and keep up the necessary supply of heated air.



The sails of the Dobryna, which had all been carefully stowed away in

the Hive, were of a texture unusually close, and quite capable of being

made airtight by means of a varnish, the ingredients of which were

rummaged out of the promiscuous stores of the tartan. The lieutenant

himself traced out the pattern and cut out the strips, and all hands

were employed in seaming them together. It was hardly the work for

little fingers, but Nina persisted in accomplishing her own share of it.

The Russians were quite at home at occupation of this sort, and having

initiated the Spaniards into its mysteries, the task of joining together

the casing was soon complete. Isaac Hakkabut and the professor were

the only two members of the community who took no part in this somewhat

tedious proceeding.



A month passed away, but Servadac found no opportunity of getting at the

information he had pledged himself to gain. On the sole occasion when he

had ventured to broach the subject with the astronomer, he had received

for answer that as there was no hurry to get back to the earth, there

need be no concern about any dangers of transit.



Indeed, as time passed on, the professor seemed to become more and more

inaccessible. A pleasant temperature enabled him to live entirely in his

observatory, from which intruders were rigidly shut out. But Servadac

bided his time. He grew more and more impressed with the importance of

finding out the exact moment at which the impact would take place,

but was content to wait for a promising opportunity to put any fresh

questions on the subject to the too reticent astronomer.



Meanwhile, the earth's disc was daily increasing in magnitude; the comet

traveled 50,000,000 leagues during the month, at the close of which it

was not more than 78,000,000 leagues from the sun.



A thaw had now fairly set in. The breaking up of the frozen ocean was a

magnificent spectacle, and "the great voice of the sea," as the whalers

graphically describe it, was heard in all its solemnity. Little streams

of water began to trickle down the declivities of the mountain and along

the shelving shore, only to be transformed, as the melting of the snow

continued, into torrents or cascades. Light vapors gathered on the

horizon, and clouds were formed and carried rapidly along by breezes to

which the Gallian atmosphere had long been unaccustomed. All these

were doubtless but the prelude to atmospheric disturbances of a more

startling character; but as indications of returning spring, they were

greeted with a welcome which no apprehensions for the future could

prevent being glad and hearty.



A double disaster was the inevitable consequence of the thaw. Both the

schooner and the tartan were entirely destroyed. The basement of the icy

pedestal on which the ships had been upheaved was gradually undermined,

like the icebergs of the Arctic Ocean, by warm currents of water, and

on the night of the 12th the huge block collapsed en masse, so that on

the following morning nothing remained of the Dobryna and the Hansa

except the fragments scattered on the shore.



Although certainly expected, the catastrophe could not fail to cause a

sense of general depression. Well-nigh one of their last ties to Mother

Earth had been broken; the ships were gone, and they had only a balloon

to replace them!



To describe Isaac Hakkabut's rage at the destruction of the tartan would

be impossible. His oaths were simply dreadful; his imprecations on the

accursed race were full of wrath. He swore that Servadac and his people

were responsible for his loss; he vowed that they should be sued and

made to pay him damages; he asserted that he had been brought from

Gourbi Island only to be plundered; in fact, he became so intolerably

abusive, that Servadac threatened to put him into irons unless he

conducted himself properly; whereupon the Jew, finding that the captain

was in earnest, and would not hesitate to carry the threat into effect,

was fain to hold his tongue, and slunk back into his dim hole.



By the 14th the balloon was finished, and, carefully sewn and well

varnished as it had been, it was really a very substantial structure. It

was covered with a network that had been made from the light rigging

of the yacht, and the car, composed of wicker-work that had formed

partitions in the hold of the Hansa, was quite commodious enough to

hold the twenty-three passengers it was intended to convey. No thought

had been bestowed upon comfort or convenience, as the ascent was to

last for so short a time, merely long enough for making the transit from

atmosphere to atmosphere.



The necessity was becoming more and more urgent to get at the true

hour of the approaching contact, but the professor seemed to grow more

obstinate than ever in his resolution to keep his secret.



On the 15th the comet crossed the orbit of Mars, at the safe distance

of 56,000,000 leagues; but during that night the community thought

that their last hour had taken them unawares. The volcano rocked and

trembled with the convulsions of internal disturbance, and Servadac and

his companions, convinced that the mountain was doomed to some sudden

disruption, rushed into the open air.



The first object that caught their attention as they emerged upon the

open rocks was the unfortunate professor, who was scrambling down

the mountain-side, piteously displaying a fragment of his shattered

telescope.



It was no time for condolence.



A new marvel arrested every eye. A fresh satellite, in the gloom of

night, was shining conspicuously before them.



That satellite was a part of Gallia itself!



By the expansive action of the inner heat, Gallia, like Gambart's comet,

had been severed in twain; an enormous fragment had been detached and

launched into space!



The fragment included Ceuta and Gibraltar, with the two English

garrisons!



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