CHAPTER VIII.VENUS IN PERILOUS PROXIMITY.
The light of the returning sun soon extinguished the glory
of the stars, and rendered it necessary for the captain to
postpone his observations until future cloudless nights.
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° 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 on the banks of
the Gaboon, 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 hay-making; 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 labour. 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 endeavours 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 travelling 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—mountains to which
Schroeter has assigned an altitude ten times greater than
that of Mont Blanc, being 1/114th part of the radius of the
planet.[1]
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 travelling 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 fairly exasperated.
“You idiot!” he angrily exclaimed; “cannot you
understand that the planets are travelling 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 splendour.
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 had 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 vapour
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 as
likely to influence his future proceedings.
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.
1^ The highest mountains on the earth do not exceed
1/720th part of the earth's radius.
