Off on a Comet by Jules Verne (best non fiction books to read .TXT) 📕
It was on one of these occasions that he had first met Madame de L----, the lady to whom he was desirous of dedicating the rondo, the first four lines of which had just seen the light. She was a colonel's widow,
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long in the dark, if he thought we were not going back to the earth again.
The greatest satisfaction he could have would be to inform us that we had
parted from the earth for ever.”
“I trust from my very soul,” said the count, “that his
prognostications are correct.”
“The more I see of him, and the more I listen to him,” replied Servadac,
“the more I become convinced that his calculations are based on a
solid foundation, and will prove correct to the minutest particular.”
Ben Zoof here interrupted the conversation. “I have something
on my mind,” he said.
“Something on your mind? Out with it!” said the captain.
“That telescope!” said the orderly; “it strikes me that that telescope
which the old professor keeps pointed up at yonder big sun is bringing
it down straight upon us.”
The captain laughed heartily.
“Laugh, captain, if you like; but I feel disposed to break the old
telescope into atoms.”
“Ben Zoof,” said Servadac, his laughter exchanged for a look
of stern displeasure, “touch that telescope, and you shall
swing for it!”
The orderly looked astonished.
“I am governor here,” said Servadac.
Ben Zoof knew what his master meant, and to him his master’s wish was law.
The interval between the comet and Jupiter was, by the 1st
of October, reduced to 43,000,000 miles. The belts all parallel
to Jupiter’s equator were very distinct in their markings.
Those immediately north and south of the equator were of a dusky hue;
those toward the poles were alternately dark and light;
the intervening spaces of the planet’s superficies, between edge
and edge, being intensely bright. The belts themselves were
occasionally broken by spots, which the records of astronomy
describe as varying both in form and in extent.
The physiology of belts and spots alike was beyond the astronomer’s
power to ascertain; and even if he should be destined once again to take
his place in an astronomical congress on the earth, he would be just as
incapable as ever of determining whether or no they owed their existence
to the external accumulation of vapor, or to some internal agency.
It would not be Professor Rosette’s lot to enlighten his brother
savants to any great degree as to the mysteries that are associated
with this, which must ever rank as one of the most magnificent amongst
the heavenly orbs.
As the comet approached the critical point of its career it cannot
be denied that there was an unacknowledged consciousness of alarm.
Mutually reserved, though ever courteous, the count and the captain
were secretly drawn together by the prospect of a common danger;
and as their return to the earth appeared to them to become more
and more dubious, they abandoned their views of narrow isolation,
and tried to embrace the wider philosophy that acknowledges
the credibility of a habitable universe.
But no philosophy could be proof against the common instincts
of their humanity; their hearts, their hopes, were set upon
their natural home; no speculation, no science, no experience,
could induce them to give up their fond and sanguine anticipation
that once again they were to come in contact with the earth.
“Only let us escape Jupiter,” said Lieutenant Procope, repeatedly, “and we
are free from anxiety.”
“But would not Saturn lie ahead?” asked Servadac and the count
in one breath.
“No!” said Procope; “the orbit of Saturn is remote, and does
not come athwart our path. Jupiter is our sole hindrance.
Of Jupiter we must say, as William Tell said, ‘Once through
the ominous pass and all is well.’”
The 15th of October came, the date of the nearest approximation
of the comet to the planet. They were only 31,000,000 miles apart.
What would now transpire? Would Gallia be diverted from its proper
way? or would it hold the course that the astronomer had predicted?
Early next morning the captain ventured to take the count and the lieutenant
up to the observatory. The professor was in the worst of tempers.
That was enough. It was enough, without a word, to indicate the course
which events had taken. The comet was pursuing an unaltered way.
The astronomer, correct in his prognostications, ought to
have been the most proud and contented of philosophers;
his pride and contentment were both overshadowed by the certainty
that the career of his comet was destined to be so transient,
and that it must inevitably once again come into collision
with the earth.
“All right!” said Servadac, convinced by the professor’s ill humor
that the danger was past; “no doubt we are in for a two years’
excursion, but fifteen months more will take us back to the earth!”
“And we shall see Montmartre again!” exclaimed Ben Zoof,
in excited tones that betrayed his delight in the anticipation.
To use a nautical expression, they had safely “rounded the point,”
and they had to be congratulated on their successful navigation;
for if, under the influence of Jupiter’s attraction, the comet had been
retarded for a single hour, in that hour the earth would have already
traveled 2,300,000 miles from the point where contact would ensue,
and many centuries would elapse before such a coincidence would
possibly again occur.
On the 1st of November Gallia and Jupiter were 40,000,000 miles apart.
It was little more than ten weeks to the 15th of January, when the comet
would begin to re-approach the sun. Though light and heat were
now reduced to a twenty-fifth part of their terrestrial intensity,
so that a perpetual twilight seemed to have settled over Gallia,
yet the population felt cheered even by the little that was left,
and buoyed up by the hope that they should ultimately regain their proper
position with regard to the great luminary, of which the temperature
has been estimated as not less than 5,000,000 degrees.
Of the anxiety endured during the last two months Isaac Hakkabut
had known nothing. Since the day he had done his lucky stroke
of business he had never left the tartan; and after Ben Zoof,
on the following day, had returned the steelyard and the
borrowed cash, receiving back the paper roubles deposited,
all communication between the Jew and Nina’s Hive had ceased.
In the course of the few minutes’ conversation which Ben Zoof
had held with him, he had mentioned that he knew that
the whole soil of Gallia was made of gold; but the old man,
guessing that the orderly was only laughing at him as usual,
paid no attention to the remark, and only meditated upon
the means he could devise to get every bit of the money
in the new world into his own possession. No one grieved
over the life of solitude which Hakkabut persisted in leading.
Ben Zoof giggled heartily, as he repeatedly observed “it was
astonishing how they reconciled themselves to his absence.”
The time came, however, when various circumstances prompted him
to think he must renew his intercourse with the inhabitants of
the Hive. Some of his goods were beginning to spoil, and he felt
the necessity of turning them into money, if he would not be a loser;
he hoped, moreover, that the scarcity of his commodities would
secure very high prices.
It happened, just about this same time, that Ben Zoof had been
calling his master’s attention to the fact that some of their most
necessary provisions would soon be running short, and that their stock
of coffee, sugar, and tobacco would want replenishing. Servadac’s mind,
of course, turned to the cargo on board the Hansa, and he resolved,
according to his promise, to apply to the Jew and become a purchaser.
Mutual interest and necessity thus conspired to draw Hakkabut and
the captain together.
Often and often had Isaac gloated in his solitude over the prospect
of first selling a portion of his merchandise for all the gold
and silver in the colony. His recent usurious transaction
had whetted his appetite. He would next part with some more
of his cargo for all the paper money they could give him;
but still he should have goods left, and they would want these.
Yes, they should have these, too, for promissory notes.
Notes would hold good when they got back again to the earth;
bills from his Excellency the governor would be good bills;
anyhow there would be the sheriff. By the God of Israel!
he would get good prices, and he would get fine interest!
Although he did not know it, he was proposing to follow the practice of
the Gauls of old, who advanced money on bills for payment in a future life.
Hakkabut’s “future life,” however, was not many months in advance
of the present.
Still Hakkabut hesitated to make the first advance, and it was accordingly
with much satisfaction that he hailed Captain Servadac’s appearance
on board the Hansa.
“Hakkabut,” said the captain, plunging without further preface
into business, “we want some coffee, some tobacco, and other things.
I have come to-day to order them, to settle the price, and to-morrow
Ben Zoof shall fetch the goods away.”
“Merciful, heavens!” the Jew began to whine; but Servadac cut him short.
“None of that miserable howling! Business! I am come to buy your goods.
I shall pay for them.”
“Ah yes, your Excellency,” whispered the Jew, his voice
trembling like a street beggar. “Don’t impose on me.
I am poor; I am nearly ruined already.”
“Cease your wretched whining!” cried Servadac. “I have told you once,
I shall pay for all I buy.”
“Ready money?” asked Hakkabut.
“Yes, ready money. What makes you ask?” said the captain,
curious to hear what the Jew would say.
“Well, you see—you see, your Excellency,” stammered out the Jew,
“to give credit to one wouldn’t do, unless I gave credit to another.
You are solvent—I mean honorable, and his lordship the count is honorable;
but maybe—maybe—”
“Well?” said Servadac, waiting, but inclined to kick the old rascal
out of his sight.
“I shouldn’t like to give credit,” he repeated.
“I have not asked you for credit. I have told you, you shall
have ready money.”
“Very good, your Excellency. But how will you pay me?”
“Pay you? Why, we shall pay you in gold and silver and copper,
while our money lasts, and when that is gone we shall pay you
in bank notes.”
“Oh, no paper, no paper!” groaned out the Jew, relapsing into
his accustomed whine.
“Nonsense, man!” cried Servadac.
“No paper!” reiterated Hakkabut.
“Why not? Surely you can trust the banks of England, France, and Russia.”
“Ah no! I must have gold. Nothing so safe as gold.”
“Well then,” said the captain, not wanting to lose his temper,
“you shall have it your own way; we have plenty of gold for
the present. We will leave the bank notes for by and by.”
The Jew’s countenance brightened, and Servadac, repeating that
he should come again the next day, was about to quit the vessel.
“One moment, your Excellency,” said Hakkabut, sidling up with
a hypocritical smile; “I suppose I am to fix my own prices.”
“You will, of course, charge ordinary prices—proper market prices;
European prices, I mean.”
“Merciful heavens!” shrieked the old man, “you rob me of my rights;
you defraud me of my privilege. The monopoly of the market belongs to me.
It is the custom; it is my right; it is my privilege to fix my own prices.”
Servadac made him understand that he had no intention of swerving
from his decision.
“Merciful heavens!” again howled the Jew, “it is sheer ruin.
The
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