Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space Page 13

  CHAPTER X. A SEARCH FOR ALGERIA

  The _Dobryna_, a strong craft of 200 tons burden, had been built in thefamous shipbuilding yards in the Isle of Wight. Her sea going qualitieswere excellent, and would have amply sufficed for a circumnavigation ofthe globe. Count Timascheff was himself no sailor, but had thegreatest confidence in leaving the command of his yacht in the hands ofLieutenant Procope, a man of about thirty years of age, and an excellentseaman. Born on the count's estates, the son of a serf who had beenemancipated long before the famous edict of the Emperor Alexander,Procope was sincerely attached, by a tie of gratitude as well as of dutyand affection, to his patron's service. After an apprenticeship on amerchant ship he had entered the imperial navy, and had already reachedthe rank of lieutenant when the count appointed him to the charge ofhis own private yacht, in which he was accustomed to spend by far thegreater part of his time, throughout the winter generally cruising inthe Mediterranean, whilst in the summer he visited more northern waters.

  The ship could not have been in better hands. The lieutenant was wellinformed in many matters outside the pale of his profession, and hisattainments were alike creditable to himself and to the liberal friendwho had given him his education. He had an excellent crew, consistingof Tiglew the engineer, four sailors named Niegoch, Tolstoy, Etkef, andPanofka, and Mochel the cook. These men, without exception, were allsons of the count's tenants, and so tenaciously, even out at sea, didthey cling to their old traditions, that it mattered little to them whatphysical disorganization ensued, so long as they felt they were sharingthe experiences of their lord and master. The late astounding events,however, had rendered Procope manifestly uneasy, and not the lessso from his consciousness that the count secretly partook of his ownanxiety.

  Steam up and canvas spread, the schooner started eastwards. With afavorable wind she would certainly have made eleven knots an hourhad not the high waves somewhat impeded her progress. Although only amoderate breeze was blowing, the sea was rough, a circumstance tobe accounted for only by the diminution in the force of the earth'sattraction rendering the liquid particles so buoyant, that by the mereeffect of oscillation they were carried to a height that was quiteunprecedented. M. Arago has fixed twenty-five or twenty-six feet asthe maximum elevation ever attained by the highest waves, and hisastonishment would have been very great to see them rising fifty oreven sixty feet. Nor did these waves in the usual way partially unfurlthemselves and rebound against the sides of the vessel; they mightrather be described as long undulations carrying the schooner (itsweight diminished from the same cause as that of the water) alternatelyto such heights and depths, that if Captain Servadac had been subject toseasickness he must have found himself in sorry plight. As the pitching,however, was the result of a long uniform swell, the yacht did not labormuch harder than she would against the ordinary short strong waves ofthe Mediterranean; the main inconvenience that was experienced was thediminution in her proper rate of speed.

  For a few miles she followed the line hitherto presumably occupied bythe coast of Algeria; but no land appeared to the south. The changedpositions of the planets rendered them of no avail for purposes ofnautical observation, nor could Lieutenant Procope calculate hislatitude and longitude by the altitude of the sun, as his reckoningswould be useless when applied to charts that had been constructed forthe old order of things; but nevertheless, by means of the log, whichgave him the rate of progress, and by the compass which indicated thedirection in which they were sailing, he was able to form an estimateof his position that was sufficiently free from error for his immediateneed.

  Happily the recent phenomena had no effect upon the compass; themagnetic needle, which in these regions had pointed about 22 degreesfrom the north pole, had never deviated in the least--a proof that,although east and west had apparently changed places, north and southcontinued to retain their normal position as cardinal points. The logand the compass, therefore, were able to be called upon to do the workof the sextant, which had become utterly useless.

  On the first morning of the cruise Lieutenant Procope, who, like mostRussians, spoke French fluently, was explaining these peculiaritiesto Captain Servadac; the count was present, and the conversationperpetually recurred, as naturally it would, to the phenomena whichremained so inexplicable to them all.

  "It is very evident," said the lieutenant, "that ever since the 1st ofJanuary the earth has been moving in a new orbit, and from some unknowncause has drawn nearer to the sun."

  "No doubt about that," said Servadac; "and I suppose that, havingcrossed the orbit of Venus, we have a good chance of running into theorbit of Mercury."

  "And finish up by a collision with the sun!" added the count.

  "There is no fear of that, sir. The earth has undoubtedly entered upona new orbit, but she is not incurring any probable risk of beingprecipitated onto the sun."

  "Can you satisfy us of that?" asked the count.

  "I can, sir. I can give you a proof which I think you will own isconclusive. If, as you suppose, the earth is being drawn on so as tobe precipitated against the sun, the great center of attraction of oursystem, it could only be because the centrifugal and centripetal forcesthat cause the planets to rotate in their several orbits had beenentirely suspended: in that case, indeed, the earth would rush onwardstowards the sun, and in sixty-four days and a half the catastrophe youdread would inevitably happen."

  "And what demonstration do you offer," asked Servadac eagerly, "that itwill not happen?"

  "Simply this, captain: that since the earth entered her new orbithalf the sixty-four days has already elapsed, and yet it is only justrecently that she has crossed the orbit of Venus, hardly one-third ofthe distance to be traversed to reach the sun."

  The lieutenant paused to allow time for reflection, and added:"Moreover, I have every reason to believe that we are not so near thesun as we have been. The temperature has been gradually diminishing;the heat upon Gourbi Island is not greater now than we might ordinarilyexpect to find in Algeria. At the same time, we have the problem stillunsolved that the Mediterranean has evidently been transported to theequatorial zone."

  Both the count and the captain expressed themselves reassured by hisrepresentations, and observed that they must now do all in their powerto discover what had become of the vast continent of Africa, of which,they were hitherto failing so completely to find a vestige.

  Twenty-four hours after leaving the island, the _Dobryna_ had passedover the sites where Tenes, Cherchil, Koleah, and Sidi-Feruch once hadbeen, but of these towns not one appeared within range of the telescope.Ocean reigned supreme. Lieutenant Procope was absolutely certain thathe had not mistaken his direction; the compass showed that the windhad never shifted from the west, and this, with the rate of speed asestimated by the log, combined to assure him that at this date, the 2dof February, the schooner was in lat. 36 degrees 49 min N. and long. 3degrees 25 min E., the very spot which ought to have been occupied bythe Algerian capital. But Algiers, like all the other coast-towns, hadapparently been absorbed into the bowels of the earth.

  Captain Servadac, with clenched teeth and knitted brow, stood sternly,almost fiercely, regarding the boundless waste of water. His pulse beatfast as he recalled the friends and comrades with whom he had spent thelast few years in that vanished city. All the images of his past lifefloated upon his memory; his thoughts sped away to his native France,only to return again to wonder whether the depths of ocean would revealany traces of the Algerian metropolis.

  "Is it not impossible," he murmured aloud, "that any city shoulddisappear so completely? Would not the loftiest eminences of the cityat least be visible? Surely some portion of the Casbah must still riseabove the waves? The imperial fort, too, was built upon an elevationof 750 feet; it is incredible that it should be so totally submerged.Unless some vestiges of these are found, I shall begin to suspect thatthe whole of Africa has been swallowed in some vast abyss."

  Another circumstance was most remarkable. Not a material object of anykind was
to be noticed floating on the surface of the water; not onebranch of a tree had been seen drifting by, nor one spar belonging toone of the numerous vessels that a month previously had been mooredin the magnificent bay which stretched twelve miles across from CapeMatafuz to Point Pexade. Perhaps the depths might disclose what thesurface failed to reveal, and Count Timascheff, anxious that Servadacshould have every facility afforded him for solving his doubts, calledfor the sounding-line. Forthwith, the lead was greased and lowered.To the surprise of all, and especially of Lieutenant Procope, theline indicated a bottom at a nearly uniform depth of from four to fivefathoms; and although the sounding was persevered with continuously formore than two hours over a considerable area, the differences of levelwere insignificant, not corresponding in any degree to what would beexpected over the site of a city that had been terraced like the seatsof an amphitheater. Astounding as it seemed, what alternative was leftbut to suppose that the Algerian capital had been completely leveled bythe flood?

  The sea-bottom was composed of neither rock, mud, sand, nor shells;the sounding-lead brought up nothing but a kind of metallic dust, whichglittered with a strange iridescence, and the nature of which it wasimpossible to determine, as it was totally unlike what had ever beenknown to be raised from the bed of the Mediterranean.

  "You must see, lieutenant, I should think, that we are not so near thecoast of Algeria as you imagined."

  The lieutenant shook his head. After pondering awhile, he said: "Ifwe were farther away I should expect to find a depth of two or threehundred fathoms instead of five fathoms. Five fathoms! I confess I ampuzzled."

  For the next thirty-six hours, until the 4th of February, the sea wasexamined and explored with the most unflagging perseverance. Its depthremained invariable, still four, or at most five, fathoms; and althoughits bottom was assiduously dredged, it was only to prove it barren ofmarine production of any type.

  The yacht made its way to lat. 36 degrees, and by reference to thecharts it was tolerably certain that she was cruising over the site ofthe Sahel, the ridge that had separated the rich plain of the Mitidjafrom the sea, and of which the highest peak, Mount Boujereah, hadreached an altitude of 1,200 feet; but even this peak, which might havebeen expected to emerge like an islet above the surface of the sea,was nowhere to be traced. Nothing was to be done but to put about, andreturn in disappointment towards the north.

  Thus the _Dobryna_ regained the waters of the Mediterranean withoutdiscovering a trace of the missing province of Algeria.