Ben Zoof Watches In Vain

: BOOK I.
: Off On A Comet

In a few minutes the governor general and his population were asleep.

The gourbi being in ruins, they were obliged to put up with the best

accommodation they could find in the adjacent erection. It must be owned

that the captain's slumbers were by no means sound; he was agitated by

the consciousness that he had hitherto been unable to account for his

strange experiences by any reasonable theory. Though far from being

a vanced in the knowledge of natural philosophy, he had been instructed,

to a certain degree, in its elementary principles; and, by an effort

of memory, he managed to recall some general laws which he had almost

forgotten. He could understand that an altered inclination of the

earth's axis with regard to the ecliptic would introduce a change of

position in the cardinal points, and bring about a displacement of

the sea; but the hypothesis entirely failed to account, either for the

shortening of the days, or for the diminution in the pressure of the

atmosphere. He felt that his judgment was utterly baffled; his only

remaining hope was that the chain of marvels was not yet complete, and

that something farther might throw some light upon the mystery.



Ben Zoof's first care on the following morning was to provide a

good breakfast. To use his own phrase, he was as hungry as the

whole population of three million Algerians, of whom he was the

representative, and he must have enough to eat. The catastrophe which

had overwhelmed the country had left a dozen eggs uninjured, and upon

these, with a good dish of his famous couscous, he hoped that he and his

master might have a sufficiently substantial meal. The stove was ready

for use, the copper skillet was as bright as hands could make it, and

the beads of condensed steam upon the surface of a large stone al-caraza

gave evidence that it was supplied with water. Ben Zoof at once lighted

a fire, singing all the time, according to his wont, a snatch of an old

military refrain.



Ever on the lookout for fresh phenomena, Captain Servadac watched the

preparations with a curious eye. It struck him that perhaps the air,

in its strangely modified condition, would fail to supply sufficient

oxygen, and that the stove, in consequence, might not fulfill its

function. But no; the fire was lighted just as usual, and fanned into

vigor by Ben Zoof applying his mouth in lieu of bellows, and a bright

flame started up from the midst of the twigs and coal. The skillet was

duly set upon the stove, and Ben Zoof was prepared to wait awhile for

the water to boil. Taking up the eggs, he was surprised to notice that

they hardly weighed more than they would if they had been mere shells;

but he was still more surprised when he saw that before the water had

been two minutes over the fire it was at full boil.



"By jingo!" he exclaimed, "a precious hot fire!"



Servadac reflected. "It cannot be that the fire is hotter," he said,

"the peculiarity must be in the water." And taking down a centigrade

thermometer, which hung upon the wall, he plunged it into the skillet.

Instead of 100 degrees, the instrument registered only 66 degrees.



"Take my advice, Ben Zoof," he said; "leave your eggs in the saucepan a

good quarter of an hour."



"Boil them hard! That will never do," objected the orderly.



"You will not find them hard, my good fellow. Trust me, we shall be able

to dip our sippets into the yolks easily enough."



The captain was quite right in his conjecture, that this new phenomenon

was caused by a diminution in the pressure of the atmosphere. Water

boiling at a temperature of 66 degrees was itself an evidence that the

column of air above the earth's surface had become reduced by one-third

of its altitude. The identical phenomenon would have occurred at

the summit of a mountain 35,000 feet high; and had Servadac been in

possession of a barometer, he would have immediately discovered the fact

that only now for the first time, as the result of experiment, revealed

itself to him--a fact, moreover, which accounted for the compression of

the blood-vessels which both he and Ben Zoof had experienced, as well

as for the attenuation of their voices and their accelerated breathing.

"And yet," he argued with himself, "if our encampment has been projected

to so great an elevation, how is it that the sea remains at its proper

level?"



Once again Hector Servadac, though capable of tracing consequences, felt

himself totally at a loss to comprehend their cause; hence his agitation

and bewilderment!



After their prolonged immersion in the boiling water, the eggs were

found to be only just sufficiently cooked; the couscous was very much in

the same condition; and Ben Zoof came to the conclusion that in future

he must be careful to commence his culinary operations an hour earlier.

He was rejoiced at last to help his master, who, in spite of his

perplexed preoccupation, seemed to have a very fair appetite for

breakfast.



"Well, captain?" said Ben Zoof presently, such being his ordinary way of

opening conversation.



"Well, Ben Zoof?" was the captain's invariable response to his servant's

formula.



"What are we to do now, sir?"



"We can only for the present wait patiently where we are. We are

encamped upon an island, and therefore we can only be rescued by sea."



"But do you suppose that any of our friends are still alive?" asked Ben

Zoof.



"Oh, I think we must indulge the hope that this catastrophe has not

extended far. We must trust that it has limited its mischief to some

small portion of the Algerian coast, and that our friends are all alive

and well. No doubt the governor general will be anxious to investigate

the full extent of the damage, and will send a vessel from Algiers to

explore. It is not likely that we shall be forgotten. What, then, you

have to do, Ben Zoof, is to keep a sharp lookout, and to be ready, in

case a vessel should appear, to make signals at once."



"But if no vessel should appear!" sighed the orderly.



"Then we must build a boat, and go in search of those who do not come in

search of us."



"Very good. But what sort of a sailor are you?"



"Everyone can be a sailor when he must," said Servadac calmly.



Ben Zoof said no more. For several succeeding days he scanned the

horizon unintermittently with his telescope. His watching was in vain.

No ship appeared upon the desert sea. "By the name of a Kabyle!" he

broke out impatiently, "his Excellency is grossly negligent!"



Although the days and nights had become reduced from twenty-four hours

to twelve, Captain Servadac would not accept the new condition of

things, but resolved to adhere to the computations of the old calendar.

Notwithstanding, therefore, that the sun had risen and set twelve times

since the commencement of the new year, he persisted in calling the

following day the 6th of January. His watch enabled him to keep an

accurate account of the passing hours.



In the course of his life, Ben Zoof had read a few books. After

pondering one day, he said: "It seems to me, captain, that you have

turned into Robinson Crusoe, and that I am your man Friday. I hope I

have not become a negro."



"No," replied the captain. "Your complexion isn't the fairest in the

world, but you are not black yet."



"Well, I had much sooner be a white Friday than a black one," rejoined

Ben Zoof.



Still no ship appeared; and Captain Servadac, after the example of all

previous Crusoes, began to consider it advisable to investigate the

resources of his domain. The new territory of which he had become the

monarch he named Gourbi Island. It had a superficial area of about

nine hundred square miles. Bullocks, cows, goats, and sheep existed in

considerable numbers; and as there seemed already to be an abundance

of game, it was hardly likely that a future supply would fail them. The

condition of the cereals was such as to promise a fine ingathering of

wheat, maize, and rice; so that for the governor and his population,

with their two horses, not only was there ample provision, but even if

other human inhabitants besides themselves should yet be discovered,

there was not the remotest prospect of any of them perishing by

starvation.



From the 6th to the 13th of January the rain came down in torrents; and,

what was quite an unusual occurrence at this season of the year, several

heavy storms broke over the island. In spite, however, of the continual

downfall, the heavens still remained veiled in cloud. Servadac,

moreover, did not fail to observe that for the season the temperature

was unusually high; and, as a matter still more surprising, that it kept

steadily increasing, as though the earth were gradually and continuously

approximating to the sun. In proportion to the rise of temperature, the

light also assumed greater intensity; and if it had not been for

the screen of vapor interposed between the sky and the island, the

irradiation which would have illumined all terrestrial objects would

have been vivid beyond all precedent.



But neither sun, moon, nor star ever appeared; and Servadac's irritation

and annoyance at being unable to identify any one point of the firmament

may be more readily imagined than described. On one occasion Ben Zoof

endeavored to mitigate his master's impatience by exhorting him to

assume the resignation, even if he did not feel the indifference, which

he himself experienced; but his advice was received with so angry a

rebuff that he retired in all haste, abashed, to resume his watchman's

duty, which he performed with exemplary perseverance. Day and night,

with the shortest possible intervals of rest, despite wind, rain, and

storm, he mounted guard upon the cliff--but all in vain. Not a speck

appeared upon the desolate horizon. To say the truth, no vessel could

have stood against the weather. The hurricane raged with tremendous

fury, and the waves rose to a height that seemed to defy calculation.

Never, even in the second era of creation, when, under the influence of

internal heat, the waters rose in vapor to descend in deluge back upon

the world, could meteorological phenomena have been developed with more

impressive intensity.



But by the night of the 13th the tempest appeared to have spent its

fury; the wind dropped; the rain ceased as if by a spell; and Servadac,

who for the last six days had confined himself to the shelter of his

roof, hastened to join Ben Zoof at his post upon the cliff. Now, he

thought, there might be a chance of solving his perplexity; perhaps now

the huge disc, of which he had had an imperfect glimpse on the night of

the 31st of December, might again reveal itself; at any rate, he hoped

for an opportunity of observing the constellations in a clear firmament

above.



The night was magnificent. Not a cloud dimmed the luster of the stars,

which spangled the heavens in surpassing brilliancy, and several nebulae

which hitherto no astronomer had been able to discern without the aid of

a telescope were clearly visible to the naked eye.



By a natural impulse, Servadac's first thought was to observe the

position of the pole-star. It was in sight, but so near to the horizon

as to suggest the utter impossibility of its being any longer the

central pivot of the sidereal system; it occupied a position through

which it was out of the question that the axis of the earth indefinitely

prolonged could ever pass. In his impression he was more thoroughly

confirmed when, an hour later, he noticed that the star had approached

still nearer the horizon, as though it had belonged to one of the

zodiacal constellations.



The pole-star being manifestly thus displaced, it remained to be

discovered whether any other of the celestial bodies had become a

fixed center around which the constellations made their apparent daily

revolutions. To the solution of this problem Servadac applied himself

with the most thoughtful diligence. After patient observation, he

satisfied himself that the required conditions were answered by a

certain star that was stationary not far from the horizon. This

was Vega, in the constellation Lyra, a star which, according to the

precession of the equinoxes, will take the place of our pole-star 12,000

years hence. The most daring imagination could not suppose that a period

of 12,000 years had been crowded into the space of a fortnight; and

therefore the captain came, as to an easier conclusion, to the opinion

that the earth's axis had been suddenly and immensely shifted; and

from the fact that the axis, if produced, would pass through a point

so little removed above the horizon, he deduced the inference that the

Mediterranean must have been transported to the equator.



Lost in bewildering maze of thought, he gazed long and intently upon the

heavens. His eyes wandered from where the tail of the Great Bear, now a

zodiacal constellation, was scarcely visible above the waters, to where

the stars of the southern hemisphere were just breaking on his view. A

cry from Ben Zoof recalled him to himself.



"The moon!" shouted the orderly, as though overjoyed at once again

beholding what the poet has called:



"The kind companion of terrestrial night;"



and he pointed to a disc that was rising at a spot precisely opposite

the place where they would have expected to see the sun. "The moon!"

again he cried.



But Captain Servadac could not altogether enter into his servant's

enthusiasm. If this were actually the moon, her distance from the

earth must have been increased by some millions of miles. He was rather

disposed to suspect that it was not the earth's satellite at all,

but some planet with its apparent magnitude greatly enlarged by its

approximation to the earth. Taking up the powerful field-glass which

he was accustomed to use in his surveying operations, he proceeded to

investigate more carefully the luminous orb. But he failed to trace

any of the lineaments, supposed to resemble a human face, that mark the

lunar surface; he failed to decipher any indications of hill and plain;

nor could he make out the aureole of light which emanates from what

astronomers have designated Mount Tycho. "It is not the moon," he said

slowly.



"Not the moon?" cried Ben Zoof. "Why not?"



"It is not the moon," again affirmed the captain.



"Why not?" repeated Ben Zoof, unwilling to renounce his first

impression.



"Because there is a small satellite in attendance." And the captain drew

his servant's attention to a bright speck, apparently about the size of

one of Jupiter's satellites seen through a moderate telescope, that was

clearly visible just within the focus of his glass.



Here, then, was a fresh mystery. The orbit of this planet was assuredly

interior to the orbit of the earth, because it accompanied the sun

in its apparent motion; yet it was neither Mercury nor Venus, because

neither one nor the other of these has any satellite at all.



The captain stamped and stamped again with mingled vexation, agitation,

and bewilderment. "Confound it!" he cried, "if this is neither Venus nor

Mercury, it must be the moon; but if it is the moon, whence, in the name

of all the gods, has she picked up another moon for herself?"



The captain was in dire perplexity.