A Frozen Ocean
:
BOOK I.
:
Off On A Comet
The moon! She had disappeared for weeks; was she now returning? Had
she been faithless to the earth? and had she now approached to be a
satellite of the new-born world?
"Impossible!" said Lieutenant Procope; "the earth is millions and
millions of leagues away, and it is not probable that the moon has
ceased to revolve about her."
"Why not?" remonstrated Servadac. "It would not be more strang
than the
other phenomena which we have lately witnessed. Why should not the moon
have fallen within the limits of Gallia's attraction, and become her
satellite?"
"Upon that supposition," put in the count, "I should think that it would
be altogether unlikely that three months would elapse without our seeing
her."
"Quite incredible!" continued Procope. "And there is another thing which
totally disproves the captain's hypothesis; the magnitude of Gallia
is far too insignificant for her power of attraction to carry off the
moon."
"But," persisted Servadac, "why should not the same convulsion that tore
us away from the earth have torn away the moon as well? After wandering
about as she would for a while in the solar regions, I do not see why
she should not have attached herself to us."
The lieutenant repeated his conviction that it was not likely.
"But why not?" again asked Servadac impetuously.
"Because, I tell you, the mass of Gallia is so inferior to that of the
moon, that Gallia would become the moon's satellite; the moon could not
possibly become hers."
"Assuming, however," continued Servadac, "such to be the case--"
"I am afraid," said the lieutenant, interrupting him, "that I cannot
assume anything of the sort even for a moment."
Servadac smiled good-humoredly.
"I confess you seem to have the best of the argument, and if Gallia had
become a satellite of the moon, it would not have taken three months to
catch sight of her. I suppose you are right."
While this discussion had been going on, the satellite, or whatever it
might be, had been rising steadily above the horizon, and had reached a
position favorable for observation. Telescopes were brought, and it was
very soon ascertained, beyond a question, that the new luminary was not
the well-known Phoebe of terrestrial nights; it had no feature in common
with the moon. Although it was apparently much nearer to Gallia than the
moon to the earth, its superficies was hardly one-tenth as large, and
so feebly did it reflect the light of the remote sun, that it scarcely
emitted radiance enough to extinguish the dim luster of stars of the
eighth magnitude. Like the sun, it had risen in the west, and was now
at its full. To mistake its identity with the moon was absolutely
impossible; not even Servadac could discover a trace of the seas,
chasms, craters, and mountains which have been so minutely delineated
in lunar charts, and it could not be denied that any transient hope
that had been excited as to their once again being about to enjoy the
peaceful smiles of "the queen of night" must all be resigned.
Count Timascheff finally suggested, though somewhat doubtfully, the
question of the probability that Gallia, in her course across the zone
of the minor planets, had carried off one of them; but whether it
was one of the 169 asteroids already included in the astronomical
catalogues, or one previously unknown, he did not presume to determine.
The idea to a certain extent was plausible, inasmuch as it has been
ascertained that several of the telescopic planets are of such small
dimensions that a good walker might make a circuit of them in four and
twenty hours; consequently Gallia, being of superior volume, might be
supposed capable of exercising a power of attraction upon any of these
miniature microcosms.
The first night in Nina's Hive passed without special incident; and
next morning a regular scheme of life was definitely laid down. "My lord
governor," as Ben Zoof until he was peremptorily forbidden delighted to
call Servadac, had a wholesome dread of idleness and its consequences,
and insisted upon each member of the party undertaking some special
duty to fulfill. There was plenty to do. The domestic animals required
a great deal of attention; a supply of food had to be secured and
preserved; fishing had to be carried on while the condition of the sea
would allow it; and in several places the galleries had to be further
excavated to render them more available for use. Occupation, then, need
never be wanting, and the daily round of labor could go on in orderly
routine.
A perfect concord ruled the little colony. The Russians and Spaniards
amalgamated well, and both did their best to pick up various scraps
of French, which was considered the official language of the place.
Servadac himself undertook the tuition of Pablo and Nina, Ben Zoof being
their companion in play-hours, when he entertained them with enchanting
stories in the best Parisian French, about "a lovely city at the foot of
a mountain," where he always promised one day to take them.
The end of March came, but the cold was not intense to such a degree
as to confine any of the party to the interior of their resort; several
excursions were made along the shore, and for a radius of three or
four miles the adjacent district was carefully explored. Investigation,
however, always ended in the same result; turn their course in whatever
direction they would, they found that the country retained everywhere
its desert character, rocky, barren, and without a trace of vegetation.
Here and there a slight layer of snow, or a thin coating of ice arising
from atmospheric condensation indicated the existence of superficial
moisture, but it would require a period indefinitely long, exceeding
human reckoning, before that moisture could collect into a stream and
roll downwards over the stony strata to the sea. It seemed at present
out of their power to determine whether the land upon which they were
so happily settled was an island or a continent, and till the cold was
abated they feared to undertake any lengthened expedition to ascertain
the actual extent of the strange concrete of metallic crystallization.
By ascending one day to the summit of the volcano, Captain Servadac
and the count succeeded in getting a general idea of the aspect of the
country. The mountain itself was an enormous block rising symmetrically
to a height of nearly 3,000 feet above the level of the sea, in the
form of a truncated cone, of which the topmost section was crowned by a
wreath of smoke issuing continuously from the mouth of a narrow crater.
Under the old condition of terrestrial things, the ascent of this steep
acclivity would have been attended with much fatigue, but as the effect
of the altered condition of the law of gravity, the travelers performed
perpetual prodigies in the way of agility, and in little over an hour
reached the edge of the crater, without more sense of exertion than if
they had traversed a couple of miles on level ground. Gallia had its
drawbacks, but it had some compensating advantages.
Telescopes in hand, the explorers from the summit scanned the
surrounding view. Their anticipations had already realized what they
saw. Just as they expected, on the north, east, and west lay the Gallian
Sea, smooth and motionless as a sheet of glass, the cold having, as it
were, congealed the atmosphere so that there was not a breath of wind.
Towards the south there seemed no limit to the land, and the volcano
formed the apex of a triangle, of which the base was beyond the reach of
vision. Viewed even from this height, whence distance would do much
to soften the general asperity, the surface nevertheless seemed to
be bristling with its myriads of hexagonal lamellae, and to present
difficulties which, to an ordinary pedestrian, would be insurmountable.
"Oh for some wings, or else a balloon!" cried Servadac, as he gazed
around him; and then, looking down to the rock upon which they were
standing, he added, "We seem to have been transplanted to a soil strange
enough in its chemical character to bewilder the savants at a museum."
"And do you observe, captain," asked the count, "how the convexity
of our little world curtails our view? See, how circumscribed is the
horizon!"
Servadac replied that he had noticed the same circumstance from the top
of the cliffs of Gourbi Island.
"Yes," said the count; "it becomes more and more obvious that ours is a
very tiny world, and that Gourbi Island is the sole productive spot upon
its surface. We have had a short summer, and who knows whether we
are not entering upon a winter that may last for years, perhaps for
centuries?"
"But we must not mind, count," said Servadac, smiling. "We have agreed,
you know, that, come what may, we are to be philosophers."
"Ay, true, my friend," rejoined the count; "we must be philosophers
and something more; we must be grateful to the good Protector who has
hitherto befriended us, and we must trust His mercy to the end."
For a few moments they both stood in silence, and contemplated land and
sea; then, having given a last glance over the dreary panorama, they
prepared to wend their way down the mountain. Before, however, they
commenced their descent, they resolved to make a closer examination of
the crater. They were particularly struck by what seemed to them almost
the mysterious calmness with which the eruption was effected. There was
none of the wild disorder and deafening tumult that usually accompany
the discharge of volcanic matter, but the heated lava, rising with a
uniform gentleness, quietly overran the limits of the crater, like the
flow of water from the bosom of a peaceful lake. Instead of a boiler
exposed to the action of an angry fire, the crater rather resembled a
brimming basin, of which the contents were noiselessly escaping. Nor
were there any igneous stones or red-hot cinders mingled with the smoke
that crowned the summit; a circumstance that quite accorded with the
absence of the pumice-stones, obsidians, and other minerals of volcanic
origin with which the base of a burning mountain is generally strewn.
Captain Servadac was of opinion that this peculiarity augured favorably
for the continuance of the eruption. Extreme violence in physical, as
well as in moral nature, is never of long duration. The most terrible
storms, like the most violent fits of passion, are not lasting; but here
the calm flow of the liquid fire appeared to be supplied from a source
that was inexhaustible, in the same way as the waters of Niagara,
gliding on steadily to their final plunge, would defy all effort to
arrest their course.
Before the evening of this day closed in, a most important change was
effected in the condition of the Gallian Sea by the intervention of
human agency. Notwithstanding the increasing cold, the sea, unruffled
as it was by a breath of wind, still retained its liquid state. It is an
established fact that water, under this condition of absolute stillness,
will remain uncongealed at a temperature several degrees below zero,
whilst experiment, at the same time, shows that a very slight shock will
often be sufficient to convert it into solid ice. It had occurred to
Servadac that if some communication could be opened with Gourbi Island,
there would be a fine scope for hunting expeditions. Having this
ultimate object in view, he assembled his little colony upon a
projecting rock at the extremity of the promontory, and having called
Nina and Pablo out to him in front, he said: "Now, Nina, do you think
you could throw something into the sea?"
"I think I could," replied the child, "but I am sure that Pablo would
throw it a great deal further than I can."
"Never mind, you shall try first."
Putting a fragment of ice into Nina's hand, he addressed himself to
Pablo:
"Look out, Pablo; you shall see what a nice little fairy Nina is! Throw,
Nina, throw, as hard as you can."
Nina balanced the piece of ice two or three times in her hand, and threw
it forward with all her strength.
A sudden thrill seemed to vibrate across the motionless waters to the
distant horizon, and the Gallian Sea had become a solid sheet of ice!