CHAPTER I.THE ASTRONOMER.
By the return of the expedition, conveying its contribution
from Formentera, the known population of Gallia was
raised to a total of thirty-six.
On learning the details of his friends' discoveries,
Count Timascheff did not hesitate in believing that the
exhausted individual who was lying before him was the
author alike of the two unsigned documents picked up at
sea, and of the third statement so recently brought to
hand by the carrier-pigeon. Manifestly, he had arrived at
some knowledge of Gallia's movements: he had estimated
her distance from the sun; he had calculated the diminution
of her tangential speed; but there was nothing to
show that he had arrived at the conclusions which were of
the most paramount interest to them all. Had he ascertained
the true character of her orbit? had he established
any data from which it would be possible to reckon what
time must elapse before she would again approach the
earth?
The only intelligible words which the astronomer had
uttered had been, “My comet!”
To what could the exclamation refer? Was it to be
conjectured that a fragment of the earth had been chipped
off by the collision of a comet? and if so, was it implied
that the name of the comet itself was Gallia, and were
they mistaken in supposing that such was the name given
by the savant to the little world that had been so suddenly
launched into space? Again and again they discussed
these questions; but no satisfactory answer could be found.
The only man who was able to throw any light upon the
subject was lying amongst them in an unconscious and
half-dying condition.
Apart from motives of humanity, motives of self-interest
made it a matter of the deepest concern to restore
animation to that senseless form. Ben Zoof, after making
the encouraging remark that savants have as many lives
as a cat, proceeded, with Negrete's assistance, to give the
body such a vigourous rubbing as would have threatened
serious injury to any ordinary mortal, whilst they administered
cordials and restoratives from the Dobryna's
medical stores powerful enough, one might think, to rouse
the very dead.
Meanwhile the captain was racking his brain in his
exertions to recall what were the circumstances of his
previous acquaintance with the Frenchman upon whose
features he was gazing; he only grew more and more convinced
that he had once been familiar with them. Perhaps
it was not altogether surprising that he had almost forgotten
him; he had never seen him since the days of his
youth, that time of life which, with a certain show of justice,
has been termed the age of ingratitude; for, in point of
fact, the astronomer was none other than Professor
Palmyrin Rosette, Servadac's old science-master at the
Lycée Charlemagne.
After completing his year of elementary studies,
Hector Servadac had entered the school at Saint Cyr, and
from that time he and his former tutor had never met, so
that naturally they would well-nigh pass from each other's
recollection. One thing, however, on the other hand, might
conduce to a mutual and permanent impression on their
memories; during the year at the Lycée, young Servadac,
never of a very studious turn of mind, had contrived, as the
ringleader of a set of like calibre as himself, to lead the
poor professor a life of perpetual torment. If grains of
nitrous salts were surreptitiously mixed with the distilled
water in the laboratory so that various chemical experiments
terminated with the most unexpected results; if a
portion of quicksilver was extracted from the tube of the
barometer so that the instrument registered a condition of
things quite anomalous to the state of the atmosphere; if
the thermometer was cunningly heated just at the very
moment when the professor was known to be going to
consult it; if living insects were found to be crawling between
the lenses of the telescope; if the isolation of the
electric battery was clandestinely destroyed so that not a
spark could be elicited; if a hole infinitesimally small
was punctured in the pneumatic machine so that no perseverance
could exhaust the air; every trick was sure to
be traced to Servadac at the head of his mischievous
accomplices, whose enjoyment of the joke was intensified
to no small degree by the uncontrolled fury of the disconcerted
professor. The little man on the discovery of
each delinquency would fume and rage in a manner that
was a source of unbounded delight to his audience.
Two years after Servadac left the Lycée, Professor
Rosette had thrown up all educational employment in
order that he might devote himself entirely to the study
of astronomy. He endeavoured to obtain a post at the
Observatory, but his ungenial character was so well known
in scientific circles that he failed in his application; however,
having some small private means, he determined on
his own account to carry on his researches without any
official salary. He had really considerable genius for the
science that he had adopted; besides discovering three of
the latest of the telescopic planets, he had worked out the
elements of the three hundred and twenty-fifth comet in
the catalogue; but his chief delight was to criticize the
publications of other astronomers, and he was never better
pleased than when he detected a flaw in their reckonings.
When Ben Zoof and Negrete had extricated their
patient from the envelope of furs in which he had been
wrapped by Servadac and the lieutenant, they found themselves
face to face with a shrivelled little man, about five
feet two inches high, with a round bald head, smooth and
shiny as an ostrich's egg, no beard unless the unshorn
growth of a week could be so described, and a long hooked
nose that supported a huge pair of spectacles such as with
many near-sighted people seems to have become a part of
their individuality. His nervous system was remarkably
developed, and his body might not inaptly be compared to
one of the Rhumkorff bobbins of which the thread, several
hundred yards in length, is permeated throughout by
electric fluid. But whatever he was, his life, if possible,
must be preserved. When he had been partially divested
of his clothing, his heart was found to be still beating,
though very feebly. Asserting that while there was life
there was hope, Ben Zoof re-commenced his friction with
more vigour than ever, humming all the time (as though
he were polishing his sabre for parade) the military refrain:
“Au tripoli,[1] fils de la gloire,
Tu dois I'eclat de ton acier.”
When the rubbing had been continued without a
moment's intermission for the best part of half an hour,
the astronomer heaved a faint sigh, which ere long was
followed by another and another. He half opened his
eyes, closed them again, then opened them completely, but
without exhibiting any consciousness whatever of his
situation. A few words seemed to escape his lips, but
they were quite unintelligible. Presently he raised his
right hand to his forehead as though instinctively feeling
for something that was missing; then, all of a sudden, his
features became contracted, his face flushed with apparent
irritation, and he exclaimed fretfully:
“My spectacles!—where are my spectacles?”
In order to facilitate his operations, Ben Zoof had
removed the spectacles in spite of the tenacity with which
they seemed to adhere to the temples of his patient; but
he now rapidly brought them back and re-adjusted them
as best he could to what seemed to be their natural
position on the aquiline nose. The professor heaved a
long sigh of relief, and once more closed his eyes.
Before long the astronomer roused himself a little
more, and glanced inquiringly about him, but soon relapsed
into his comatose condition.
When next he opened his eyes, Captain Servadac happened
to be bending down closely over him, examining his
features with curious scrutiny. The old man darted an
angry look at him through the spectacles, and said
sharply:
“Servadac, five hundred lines to-morrow!”
It was an echo of days of old. The words were few,
but they were enough to recall the identity which Servadac
was trying to make out.
“Is it possible?” he exclaimed. “Here is my old
tutor, Mr, Rosette, in very flesh and blood.”
“Can't say much for the flesh,” muttered Ben Zoof.
The old man had again fallen back into a torpid
slumber. Ben Zoof continued:
“His sleep is getting more composed. Let him alone;
he will come round yet Haven't I heard of men more
dried up than he is, being brought all the way from Egypt
in cases covered with pictures?”
“You idiot!—those were mummies; they had been
dead for ages.”
Ben Zoof did not answer a word. He went on preparing
a warm bed, into which he managed to remove his
patient, who appeared very soon to fall into a calm and
natural sleep.
Too impatient to await the awakening of the astronomer
and to hear what representations he had to make,
Servadac, the count, and the lieutenant, constituting themselves
what might be designated “the Academy of
Sciences” of the colony, spent the whole of the remainder
of the day in starting and discussing the wildest conjectures
about their situation. The hypothesis, to which they
had now accustomed themselves for so long, that a new
asteroid had been formed by a fracture of the earth's surface,
seemed to fall to the ground when they found that
Professor Palmyrin Rosette had associated the name of
Gallia, not with their present home, but with what he
called “my, comet;” and that theory being abandoned,
they were driven to make the most improbable speculations
to replace it.
Alluding to Rosette, Servadac took care to inform his
companions that, although the professor was always
eccentric, and at times very irascible, yet he was really
exceedingly good-hearted; his bark was worse than his
bite; and if suffered to take their course without observation,
his outbreaks of ill-temper seldom lasted long.
“We will certainly do our best to get on with him,”
said the count “He is no doubt the author of the papers,
and we must hope that he will be able to give us some
valuable information,”
“Beyond a question the documents have originated
with him,” assented the lieutenant. “Gallia was the word
written at the top of every one of them, and Gallia was
the first word uttered by him in our hearing,”
The astronomer slept on. Meanwhile, the three
together had no hesitation in examining his papers, and
scrutinizing the figures on his extemporized black board.
The handwriting corresponded with that of the papers
already received; the black board was covered with algebraical
symbols traced in chalk, which they were careful
not to obliterate; and the papers, which consisted for the
most part of detached scraps, presented a perfect wilderness
of geometrical figures, conic sections of every variety
being repeated in countless profusion.
Lieutenant Procope pointed out that these curves
evidently had reference to the orbits of comets, which are
variously parabolic, hyperbolic, or elliptic. If either of
the first two, the comet, after once appearing within the
range of terrestrial vision, would vanish for ever in the
outlying regions of space; if the last, it would be sure,
sooner or later, after some periodic interval, to return.
From primâ facie appearance of his papers, then, it
seemed probable that the astronomer, during his sojourn
at Formentera, had been devoting himself to the study of
cometary orbits; and as calculations of this kind are
ordinarily based upon the assumption that the orbit is a
parabola, it was not unlikely that he had been endeavouring
to trace the path of some particular comet.
“I wonder whether these calculations were made
before or after the 1st of January: it makes all the difference,”
said Lieutenant Procope.
“We must bide our time and hear,” replied the count.
Servadac paced restlessly up and down.
“I would give a month of my life,” he cried, impetuously,
“for every hour that the old fellow goes sleeping
on.”
“You might be making a bad bargain,” said Procope,
smiling. “Perhaps after all the comet has had nothing to
do with the convulsion that we have experienced.”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed the captain; “I know better
than that, and so do you. Is it not as clear as daylight
that the earth and this comet have been in collision, and
the result has been that our little world has been split off
and sent flying far into space?”
Count Timascheff and the lieutenant looked at each
other in silence.
“I do not deny your theory,” said Procope after a
while. “If it be correct, I suppose we must conclude that
the enormous disc we observed on the night of the catastrophe
was the comet itself; and the velocity with which
it was travelling must have been so great that it was
hardly arrested at all by the attraction of the earth.”
“Plausible enough,” answered Count Timascheff; “and
it is to this comet that our scientific friend here has given
the name of Gallia.”
It still remained a puzzle to them all why the astronomer
should apparently be interested in the comet so
much more than in the new little world in which their
strange lot was cast.
“Can you explain this?” asked the count.
“There is no accounting for the freaks of philosophers,
you know,” said Servadac; “and have I not told you that
this philosopher in particular is one of the most eccentric
beings in creation?”
“Besides,” added the lieutenant, “it is exceedingly
likely that his observations had been going on for some
considerable period before the convulsion happened.”
Thus, the general conclusion arrived at by the Gallian
Academy of Science was this: That on the night of the
31st of December, a comet, crossing the ecliptic, had come
into collision with the earth, and that the violence of the
shock had separated a huge fragment from the globe, which
fragment from that date had been traversing the remote
inter-planetary regions.
Palmyrin Rosette would doubtless confirm their solution
of the phenomeaoa.
1^ Tripoli: a powder for polishing metals.
