CHAPTER XX.A LIGHT ON THE HORIZON.
On the following day, without giving himself any further
concern about the Jew's incredulity, the captain gave
orders for the Hansa to be shifted round to the harbour of
the Shelif. Hakkabut raised no objection, not only because
he was aware that the move insured the immediate
safety of his tartan, but because he was secretly entertaining
the hope that he might entice away two or three of
the Dobryna's crew and make his escape to Algiers or
some other port.
Operations now commenced for preparing proper winter-quarters.
Spaniards and Russians alike joined heartily in
the work, the diminution of atmospheric pressure and of
the force of attraction contributing such an increase to
their muscular force as materially facilitated all their
labours.
The first business was to accommodate the building
adjacent to the gourbi to the wants of the little colony.
Here for the present the Spaniards were lodged, the
Russians retaining their berths upon the yacht, while the
Jew was permitted to pass his nights upon the Hansa.
This arrangement, however, could be only temporary.
The time could not be far distant when ships' sides and
ordinary walls would fail to give an adequate protection
from the severity of the cold that must be expected; the
stock of fuel was too limited to keep up a permanent
supply of heat in their present quarters, and consequently
they must be driven to seek some other refuge, the internal
temperature of which would at least be bearable.
The plan that seemed to commend itself most to their
consideration was, that they should dig out for themselves
some subterraneous pits similar to “silos,” such as are
used as receptacles for grain. They presumed that when
the surface of Gallia should be covered by a thick layer of
ice, which is a bad conductor of heat, a sufficient amount
of warmth for animal vitality might still be retained in
excavations of this kind. After a long consultation they
failed to devise any better expedient, and were forced to
resign themselves to this species of troglodyte existence.
In one respect they congratulated themselves that they
should be better off than many of the whalers in the polar
seas, for as it is impossible to get below the surface of a
frozen ocean, these adventurers have to seek refuge in huts
of wood and snow erected on their ships, which at best can
give but slight protection from extreme cold; but here,
with a solid subsoil, the Gallians might hope to dig down
a hundred feet or so and secure for themselves a shelter
that would enable them to brave the hardest severity of
climate.
The order, then, was at once given. The work was
commenced. A stock of shovels, mattocks, and pick-axes
was brought from the gourbi, and with Ben Zoof as overseer,
both Spanish majos and Russian sailors set to work
with a will.
It was not long, however, before a discovery, more
unexpected than agreeable, suddenly arrested their labours.
The spot chosen for the excavation was a little to the
right of the gourbi, on a slight elevation of the soil. For
the first day everything went on prosperously enough; but
at a depth of eight feet below the surface, the navvies
came in contact with a hard surface, upon which all their
tools failed to make the slightest impression. Servadac
and the count were at once apprised of the fact, and had
little difficulty in recognizing the substance that had
revealed itself as the very same which composed the
shores as well as the subsoil of the Gallian sea. It
evidently formed the universal substructure of the new
asteroid. Means for hollowing it failed them utterly.
Harder and more resisting than granite, it could not be
blasted by ordinary powder; dynamite alone could suffice
to rend it.
The disappointment was very great Unless some
means of protection were speedily devised, death seemed
to be staring them in the face. Were the figures in the
mysterious documents correct? and had Gallia, according
to physical law, been travelling at a rate that was progressively
increasing? If so, she must now be a hundred
millions of leagues from the sun, nearly three times the
distance of the earth at the remotest section of her orbit
The intensity of the solar light and heat, too, was very
seriously diminishing, although Gourbi Island (being
on the equator of an orb which had its axes always perpendicular
to the plane in which it revolved) enjoyed a
position that gave it a permanent summer. But no
advantage of this kind could compensate for the remoteness of the sun.
The temperature fell steadily; already,
to the discomfiture of the little Italian girl, nurtured in
sunshine, ice was beginning to form in the crevices of the
rocks, and manifestly the time was impending when the
sea itself would freeze.
Some shelter must be found before the temperature
should fall to 60° below zero. Otherwise death was inevitable.
Hitherto, for the last few days, the thermometer
had been registering an average of about 6° below zero,
and it had become matter of experience that the stove,
although replenished with all the wood that was available,
was altogether inadequate to effect any sensible mitigation
of the severity of the cold. Nor could any amount of
fuel be enough. It was certain that ere long the very
mercury and spirit in the thermometers would be congealed.
Some other resort must assuredly be soon found,
or they must perish. That was clear.
The idea of betaking themselves to the Dobryna and
Hansa could not for a moment be seriously entertained;
not only did the structure of the vessels make them utterly
insufficient to give substantial shelter, but they were totally
unfitted to be trusted as to their stability when exposed to
the enormous pressure of the accumulated ice.
Neither Servadac, nor the count, nor Lieutenant Procope
were men to be easily disheartened, but it could not be
concealed that they felt themselves in circumstances by
which they were equally harassed and perplexed. The
sole expedient that their united counsel could suggest was
to obtain a refuge below ground, and that was denied them
by the strange and impenetrable substratum of the soil;
yet hour by hour the sun's disc was lessening in its
dimensions, and although at midday some faint radiance
and glow were to be distinguished, during the night the
painfulness of the cold was becoming almost intolerable.
Mounted upon Zephyr and Galette, the captain and
the count scoured the island in search of some available
retreat Scarcely a yard of ground was left unexplored,
the horses clearing every obstacle as if they were, like
Pegasus, furnished with wings. But all in vain. Soundings
were made again and again, but invariably with the
same result; the rock, hard as adamant, never failed to
reveal itself within a few feet of the surface of the ground.
The excavation of any silo being thus manifestly hopeless,
there seemed nothing to be done except to try and
render the building alongside the gourbi impervious to
frost. To contribute to the supply of fuel, orders were
given to collect every scrap of wood, dry or green, that the
island produced; and this involved the necessity of felling
the numerous trees that were scattered over the plain.
But toil as they might at the accumulation of firewood.
Captain Servadac and his companions could not resist the
conviction that the consumption of a very short period
would exhaust the total stock. And what would happen
then?
Studious if possible to conceal his real misgivings, and
anxious that the rest of the party should be affected as
little as might be by his own uneasiness, Servadac would
wander alone about the island, racking his brain for an
idea that would point the way out of the serious difficulty.
But still all in vain.
One day he suddenly came upon Ben Zoof, and asked
him whether he had no plan to propose. The orderly
shook his head, but after a few moments' pondering, said:
“Ah! master, if only we were at Montmartre, we
would get shelter in the charming stone-quarries.”
“Idiot!” replied the captain, angrily, “if we were at
Montmartre, you don't suppose that we should need to
live in stone-quarries?”
But the means of preservation which human ingenuity
had failed to secure were at hand from the felicitous provision
of Nature herself.
It was on the 10th of March that the captain and
Lieutenant Procope started off once more to investigate
the north-west corner of the island; on their way their
conversation naturally was engrossed by the subject of the
dire necessities which only too manifestly were awaiting
them. A discussion more than usually animated arose
between them, for the two men were not altogether of the
same mind as to the measures that ought to be adopted
in order to open the fairest chance of avoiding a fatal
climax to their exposure; the captain persisted that an
entirely new abode must be sought, while the lieutenant
was equally bent upon devising a method of some sort by
which their present quarters might be rendered sufficiently
warm. All at once, in the very heat of his argument,
Procope paused; he passed his hand across his eyes, as if
to dispel a mist, and stood, with a fixed gaze centred on a
point towards the south.
“What is that.?” he said, with a kind of hesitation.
“No, I am not mistaken,” he added; “it is a light on the
horizon.”
“A light!” exclaimed Servadac; “show me where.”
“Look there!” answered the lieutenant, and he kept
pointing steadily in its direction, until Servadac also distinctly
saw the bright speck in the distance.
It increased in clearness in the gathering shades of
evening.
“Can it be a ship?” asked the captain.
“If so, it must be in flames; otherwise we should not
be able to see it so far off,” replied Procope.
“It does not move,” said Servadac; “and unless I am
deceived, I can hear a kind of reverberation in the air.”
For some seconds the two men stood straining eyes
and ears in rapt attention.
Suddenly an idea struck Servadac's mind.
“The volcano!” he cried; “may it not be the volcano
that we saw, whilst we were on board the Dobryna?”
The lieutenant agreed that it was very probable.
“Heaven be praised!” ejaculated the captain, and he
went on in the tones of a keen excitement: “Nature has
provided us with our winter-quarters; the stream of burning
lava that is flowing there is the gift of a bounteous
Providence; it will provide us all the warmth we need.
No time to lose! To-morrow, my dear Procope, to-morrow
we will explore it all; no doubt the life, the heat we want
is reserved for us in the heart and bowels of our own
Gallia!”
Whilst the captain was indulging in his expressions of
enthusiasm, Procope was endeavouring to collect his
thoughts. Distinctly he remembered the long promontory
which had barred the Dobryna's progress while coasting
the southern confines of the sea, and which had obliged
her to ascend northwards as far as the former latitude of
Oran; he remembered also that at the extremity of the
promontory there was a rocky headland crowned with
smoke; and now he was convinced that he was right in
identifying the position, and in believing that the smoke
had given place to an eruption of flame.
When Servadac gave him a chance of speaking, he
said:
“The more I consider it, captain, the more I am
satisfied that your conjecture is correct. Beyond a doubt,
what we see is the volcano, and to-morrow we will not fail
to visit it.”
On returning to the gourbi, they communicated their
discovery to Count Timascheff only, deeming any further
publication of it to be premature. The count at once
placed his yacht at their disposal, and expressed his intention
of accompanying them.
“The yacht, I think,” said Procope, “had better remain
where she is; the weather is beautifully calm, and the
steam-launch will answer our purpose better; at any rate,
it will convey us much closer to shore than the schooner.”
The count replied that the lieutenant was by all means
to use his own discretion, and they all retired for the night.
Like many other modern pleasure-yachts, the Dobryna,
in addition to her four-oar, was fitted with a fast-going
little steam-launch, its screw being propelled, on the
Oriolle system, by means of a boiler, small but very
effective. Early next morning, this handy little craft was
sufficiently freighted with coal (of which there was still
about ten tons on board the Dobryna), and manned by
nobody except the captain, the count, and the lieutenant,
left the harbour of the Sheliff, much to the bewilderment of
Ben Zoof, who had not yet been admitted into the secret.
The orderly, however, consoled himself with the reflection
that he had been temporarily invested with the full powers
of governour-general, an office of which he was not a little
proud.
The eighteen miles between the island and the headland
were made in something less than three hours. The
volcanic eruption was manifestly very considerable, the
entire summit of the promontory being enveloped in
flames. To produce so large a combustion either the
oxygen of Gallia's atmosphere had been brought into
contact with the explosive gases contained beneath her
soil, or perhaps, still more probably, the volcano, like those
in the moon, was fed by an internal supply of oxygen of
her own.
It took more than half an hour to settle on a suitable
landing-place. At length, a small semi-circular creek was
discovered among the rocks, which appeared advantageous,
because, if circumstances should so require, it would form a
safe anchorage for both the Dobryna and the Hansa.
The launch securely moored, the passengers landed on
the side of the promontory opposite to that on which a
torrent of burning lava was descending to the sea. With
much satisfaction they experienced, as they approached
the mountain, a sensible difference in the temperature, and
their spirits could not do otherwise than rise at the prospect
of having their hopes confirmed, that a deliverance
from the threatened calamity had so opportunely been
found. On they went, up the steep acclivity, scrambling
over its rugged projections, scaling the irregularities of its
gigantic strata, bounding from point to point with the agility
of chamois, but never alighting on anything except on the
accumulation of the same hexagonal prisms with which
they had now become so familiar.
Their exertions were happily rewarded. Behind a
huge pyramidal rock they found a hole in the mountainside,
like the mouth of a great tunnel. Climbing up to
this orifice, which was more than sixty feet above the level
of the sea, they ascertained that it opened into a long dark
gallery. They entered and groped their way cautiously
along the sides. A continuous rumbling, that increased
as they advanced, made them aware that they must be
approaching the central funnel of the volcano; their only
fear was lest some insuperable wall of rock should suddenly
bar their further progress.
Servadac was some distance ahead.
“Come on!” he cried cheerily, his voice ringing
through the darkness, “come on! Our fire is lighted! no
stint of fuel! Nature provides that! Let us make haste
and warm ourselves!”
Inspired by his confidence, the count and the lieutenant
advanced bravely along the unseen and winding path.
The temperature was now at least fifteen degrees above
zero, and the walls of the gallery were beginning to feel
quite warm to the touch, an indication, not to be overlooked,
that the substance of which the rock was composed
was metallic in its nature, and capable of conducting heat.
“Follow me!” shouted Servadac again; “we shall
soon find a regular stove!”
Onwards they made their way, until at last a sharp
turn brought them into a sudden flood of light. The
tunnel had opened mto a vast cavern, and the gloom was
exchanged for an illumination that was perfectly dazzling.
Although the temperature was high, it was not in any way
intolerable.
One glance was sufficient to satisfy the explorers that
the grateful light and heat of this huge excavation were
to be attributed to a torrent of lava that was rolling downwards
to the sea, completely subtending the aperture of
the cave. Not inaptly might the scene be compared to
the celebrated Grotto of the Winds at the rear of the
central fall of Niagara, only with the exception that here,
instead of a curtain of rushing water, it was a curtain of
roaring flame that hung before the cavern's mouth.
“Heaven be praised!” cried Servadac, with glad
emotion; “here is all that we hoped for, and more besides!”