Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space Read online

  CHAPTER I. A CHALLENGE

  "Nothing, sir, can induce me to surrender my claim."

  "I am sorry, count, but in such a matter your views cannot modify mine."

  "But allow me to point out that my seniority unquestionably gives me aprior right."

  "Mere seniority, I assert, in an affair of this kind, cannot possiblyentitle you to any prior claim whatever."

  "Then, captain, no alternative is left but for me to compel you to yieldat the sword's point."

  "As you please, count; but neither sword nor pistol can force me toforego my pretensions. Here is my card."

  "And mine."

  This rapid altercation was thus brought to an end by the formalinterchange of the names of the disputants. On one of the cards wasinscribed:

  _Captain Hector Servadac, Staff Officer, Mostaganem._

  On the other was the title:

  _Count Wassili Timascheff, On board the Schooner "Dobryna."_

  It did not take long to arrange that seconds should be appointed, whowould meet in Mostaganem at two o'clock that day; and the captain andthe count were on the point of parting from each other, with a salute ofpunctilious courtesy, when Timascheff, as if struck by a sudden thought,said abruptly: "Perhaps it would be better, captain, not to allow thereal cause of this to transpire?"

  "Far better," replied Servadac; "it is undesirable in every way for anynames to be mentioned."

  "In that case, however," continued the count, "it will be necessary toassign an ostensible pretext of some kind. Shall we allege a musicaldispute? a contention in which I feel bound to defend Wagner, while youare the zealous champion of Rossini?"

  "I am quite content," answered Servadac, with a smile; and with anotherlow bow they parted.

  The scene, as here depicted, took place upon the extremity of a littlecape on the Algerian coast, between Mostaganem and Tenes, about twomiles from the mouth of the Shelif. The headland rose more than sixtyfeet above the sea-level, and the azure waters of the Mediterranean, asthey softly kissed the strand, were tinged with the reddish hue of theferriferous rocks that formed its base. It was the 31st of December. Thenoontide sun, which usually illuminated the various projections of thecoast with a dazzling brightness, was hidden by a dense mass of cloud,and the fog, which for some unaccountable cause, had hung for thelast two months over nearly every region in the world, causing seriousinterruption to traffic between continent and continent, spread itsdreary veil across land and sea.

  After taking leave of the staff-officer, Count Wassili Timascheff wendedhis way down to a small creek, and took his seat in the stern of a lightfour-oar that had been awaiting his return; this was immediately pushedoff from shore, and was soon alongside a pleasure-yacht, that was lyingto, not many cable lengths away.

  At a sign from Servadac, an orderly, who had been standing at arespectful distance, led forward a magnificent Arabian horse; thecaptain vaulted into the saddle, and followed by his attendant, wellmounted as himself, started off towards Mostaganem. It was half-pasttwelve when the two riders crossed the bridge that had been recentlyerected over the Shelif, and a quarter of an hour later their steeds,flecked with foam, dashed through the Mascara Gate, which was one offive entrances opened in the embattled wall that encircled the town.

  At that date, Mostaganem contained about fifteen thousand inhabitants,three thousand of whom were French. Besides being one of the principaldistrict towns of the province of Oran, it was also a military station.Mostaganem rejoiced in a well-sheltered harbor, which enabled her toutilize all the rich products of the Mina and the Lower Shelif. It wasthe existence of so good a harbor amidst the exposed cliffs of thiscoast that had induced the owner of the _Dobryna_ to winter in theseparts, and for two months the Russian standard had been seen floatingfrom her yard, whilst on her mast-head was hoisted the pennant ofthe French Yacht Club, with the distinctive letters M. C. W. T., theinitials of Count Timascheff.

  Having entered the town, Captain Servadac made his way towards Matmore,the military quarter, and was not long in finding two friends on whomhe might rely--a major of the 2nd Fusileers, and a captain of the8th Artillery. The two officers listened gravely enough to Servadac'srequest that they would act as his seconds in an affair of honor, butcould not resist a smile on hearing that the dispute between him and thecount had originated in a musical discussion. Surely, they suggested,the matter might be easily arranged; a few slight concessions on eitherside, and all might be amicably adjusted. But no representations ontheir part were of any avail. Hector Servadac was inflexible.

  "No concession is possible," he replied, resolutely. "Rossini has beendeeply injured, and I cannot suffer the injury to be unavenged. Wagneris a fool. I shall keep my word. I am quite firm."

  "Be it so, then," replied one of the officers; "and after all, you know,a sword-cut need not be a very serious affair."

  "Certainly not," rejoined Servadac; "and especially in my case, when Ihave not the slightest intention of being wounded at all."

  Incredulous as they naturally were as to the assigned cause of thequarrel, Servadac's friends had no alternative but to accept hisexplanation, and without farther parley they started for the staffoffice, where, at two o'clock precisely, they were to meet the secondsof Count Timascheff. Two hours later they had returned. All thepreliminaries had been arranged; the count, who like many Russiansabroad was an aide-de-camp of the Czar, had of course proposed swordsas the most appropriate weapons, and the duel was to take place on thefollowing morning, the first of January, at nine o'clock, upon the cliffat a spot about a mile and a half from the mouth of the Shelif. Withthe assurance that they would not fail to keep their appointment withmilitary punctuality, the two officers cordially wrung their friend'shand and retired to the Zulma Cafe for a game at piquet. CaptainServadac at once retraced his steps and left the town.

  For the last fortnight Servadac had not been occupying his properlodgings in the military quarters; having been appointed to make a locallevy, he had been living in a gourbi, or native hut, on the Mostaganemcoast, between four and five miles from the Shelif. His orderly was hissole companion, and by any other man than the captain the enforced exilewould have been esteemed little short of a severe penance.

  On his way to the gourbi, his mental occupation was a very laboriouseffort to put together what he was pleased to call a rondo, upon a modelof versification all but obsolete. This rondo, it is unnecessary toconceal, was to be an ode addressed to a young widow by whom he had beencaptivated, and whom he was anxious to marry, and the tenor of his musewas intended to prove that when once a man has found an object inall respects worthy of his affections, he should love her "in allsimplicity." Whether the aphorism were universally true was not verymaterial to the gallant captain, whose sole ambition at present was toconstruct a roundelay of which this should be the prevailing sentiment.He indulged the fancy that he might succeed in producing a compositionwhich would have a fine effect here in Algeria, where poetry in thatform was all but unknown.

  "I know well enough," he said repeatedly to himself, "what I want tosay. I want to tell her that I love her sincerely, and wish to marryher; but, confound it! the words won't rhyme. Plague on it! Does nothingrhyme with 'simplicity'? Ah! I have it now:

  'Lovers should, whoe'er they be, Love in all simplicity.'

  But what next? how am I to go on? I say, Ben Zoof," he called aloud tohis orderly, who was trotting silently close in his rear, "did you evercompose any poetry?"

  "No, captain," answered the man promptly: "I have never made any verses,but I have seen them made fast enough at a booth during the fete ofMontmartre."

  "Can you remember them?"

  "Remember them! to be sure I can. This is the way they began:

  'Come in! come in! you'll not repent The entrance money you have spent; The wondrous mirror in this place Reveals your future sweetheart's face.'"

  "Bosh!" cried Servadac in disg
ust; "your verses are detestable trash."

  "As good as any others, captain, squeaked through a reed pipe."

  "Hold your tongue, man," said Servadac peremptorily; "I have madeanother couplet.

  'Lovers should, whoe'er they be, Love in all simplicity; Lover, loving honestly, Offer I myself to thee.'"

  Beyond this, however, the captain's poetical genius was impotent tocarry him; his farther efforts were unavailing, and when at six o'clockhe reached the gourbi, the four lines still remained the limit of hiscomposition.