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 harbor 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 labors.
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 labors. 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? If so, Gallia 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 degrees
below zero. Otherwise death was inevitable. Hitherto, for the last few days,
the thermometer had been registering an average of about 6 degrees
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 buildings 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 northwest 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 centered 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 greatly 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 endeavoring 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 harbor of the Shelif, 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 governor 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 probable,
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 mountain-side, 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 into 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!"
