She went on to say that at first she had been very frightened;
but when she found that the earth did not shake any more,
she had thanked the great God, and had soon made herself very happy
living with Marzy. She had enough food, she said, and had been
waiting for a boat to fetch her, and now a boat had come and she
was quite ready to go away; only they must let her goat go with her:
they would both like so much to get back to the old farm.
"Here, at least, is one nice little inhabitant of Gallia,"
said Captain Servadac, as he caressed the child and conducted
her to the boat.
Half an hour later, both Nina and Marzy were
safely quartered
on board the yacht. It is
needless to say that they received
the heartiest of
welcomes. The Russian sailors, ever superstitious,
seemed almost to regard the coming of the child as the appearance
of an angel; and,
incredible as it may seem, more than one of them
wondered whether she had wings, and
amongst themselves they commonly
referred to her as "the little Madonna."
Soon out of sight of Madalena, the _Dobryna_ for some hours
held a southeasterly course along the shore, which here was
fifty leagues in advance of the former coast-line of Italy,
demonstrating that a new
continent must have been formed,
substituted as it were for the old
peninsula, of which not
a
vestige could be identified. At a
latitudecorrespondingwith the
latitude of Rome, the sea took the form of a deep gulf,
extending back far beyond the site of the Eternal City;
the coast making a wide sweep round to the former position
of Calabria, and jutting far beyond the
outline of "the boot,"
which Italy resembles. But the
beacon of Messina was not to
be discerned; no trace, indeed, survived of any
portion of Sicily;
the very peak of Etna, 11,000 feet as it had reared itself
above the level of the sea, had vanished utterly.
Another sixty leagues to the south, and the _Dobryna_ sighted
the entrance of the
strait which had afforded her so providential
a
refuge from the
tempest, and had conducted her to the
fragmentary relic
of Gibraltar. Hence to the Gulf of Cabes had been already explored,
and as it was
universally allowed that it was unnecessary to
renew the search in that direction, the
lieutenant started off
in a transverse course, towards a point
hitherto uninvestigated.
That point was reached on the 3rd of March, and
thence the coast
was
continuously followed, as it led through what had been Tunis,
across the
province of Constantine, away to the oasis of Ziban;
where,
taking a sharp turn, it first reached a
latitude of 32 degrees,
and then returned again, thus forming a sort of
irregular gulf,
enclosed by the same unvarying border of
mineral concrete.
This
colossalboundary then stretched away for nearly 150 leagues
over the Sahara desert, and, extending to the south of Gourbi Island,
occupied what, if Morocco had still existed, would have been
its natural frontier.
Adapting her course to these deviations of the coastline, the _Dobryna_
was steering northwards, and had
barely reached the limit of the bay,
when the attention of all on board was arrested by the phenomenon
of a
volcano, at least 3,000 feet high, its
crater crowned with smoke,
which
occasionally was streaked by tongues of flame.
"A burning mountain!" they exclaimed.
"Gallia, then, has some
internal heat," said Servadac.
"And why not, captain?" rejoined the
lieutenant. "If our asteroid
has carried with it a
portion of the old earth's atmosphere,
why should it not
likewiseretain something of its central fire?"
"Ah, well!" said the captain, shrugging his shoulders, "I dare say
there is caloric enough in our little world to supply the wants
of its population."
Count Timascheff interrupted the silence that followed this conversation
by
saying, "And now, gentlemen, as our course has brought us on our way once
more towards Gibraltar, what do you say to our renewing our acquaintance
with the Englishmen? They will be interested in the result of our
voyage."
"For my part," said Servadac, "I have no desire that way.
They know where to find Gourbi Island; they can betake themselves
thither just when they please. They have plenty of provisions.
If the water freezes, 120 leagues is no very great distance.
The
reception they gave us was not so
cordial that we need put
ourselves out of the way to repeat our visit."
"What you say is too true," replied the count. "I hope we shall show
them better manners when they
condescend to visit us."
"Ay," said Servadac, "we must remember that we are all one people now;
no longer Russian, French, or English. Nationality is extinct."
"I am sadly afraid, however," continued the count, "that an Englishman
will be an Englishman ever."
"Yes," said the captain, "that is always their failing."
And thus all further thought of making their way again to the little
garrison of Gibraltar was abandoned.
But even if their spirit of
courtesy had disposed them to renew their
acquaintance with the British officers, there were two circumstances
that just then would have rendered such a proposal very unadvisable.
In the first place, Lieutenant Procope was convinced that it could not be
much longer now before the sea would be entirely
frozen; and, besides this,
the
consumption of their coal, through the speed they had maintained,
had been so great that there was only too much reason to fear that fuel
would fail them. Anyhow, the strictest
economy was necessary, and it
was
accordinglyresolved that the
voyage should not be much prolonged.
Beyond the
volcanic peak,
moreover, the waters seemed to expand
into a
boundless ocean, and it might be a thing full of risk
to be
frozen up while the yacht was so inadequately provisioned.
Taking all these things into
account, it was agreed that further
investigations should be deferred to a more
favorable season, and that,
without delay, the _Dobryna_ should return to Gourbi Island.
This decision was especially
welcome to Hector Servadac, who,
throughout the whole of the last five weeks, had been agitated
by much
anxious thought on
account of the
faithful servant
he had left behind.
The
transit from the
volcano to the island was not long,
and was marked by only one
noticeable incident.
This was the
finding of a second
mysteriousdocument,
in
characterprecisely similar to what they had found before.
The
writer of it was
evidently engaged upon a calculation,
probably continued from day to day, as to the motions of
the
planet Gallia upon its orbit, and committing the results
of his reckonings to the waves as the
channel of communication.
Instead of being enclosed in a telescope-case, it was this
time secured in a preserved-meat tin, hermetically sealed,
and stamped with the same initials on the wax that fastened it.
The greatest care was used in
opening it, and it was found
to
contain the following message:
"Gallia
Ab sole, au 1 mars, dist. 78,000,000 1.!
Chemin parcouru de fev. a mars: 59,000,000 1.!
_Va bene! All right! Nil desperandum!_
Enchante!"
"Another enigma!" exclaimed Servadac; "and still no intelligible signature,
and no address. No
clearing up of the mystery!"
"I have no doubt, in my own mind," said the count, "that it
is one of a
series. It seems to me
probable that they are being
sent
broadcast upon the sea."
"I wonder where the hare-brained _savant_ that writes them can
be living?" observed Servadac.
"Very likely he may have met with the fate of AEsop's abstracted astronomer,
who found himself at the bottom of a well."
"Ay; but where _is_ that well?" demanded the captain.
This was a question which the count was
incapable of settling;
and they could only
speculate afresh as to whether the author of the
riddles was
dwelling upon some
solitary island, or, like themselves,
was navigating the waters of the new Mediterranean. But they could
detect nothing to guide them to a
definite decision.
After
thoughtfullyregarding the
document for some time.
Lieutenant Procope proceeded to observe that he believed the paper
might be considered as
genuine, and
accordingly,
taking its
statements as
reliable, he deduced two important conclusions:
first, that
whereas, in the month of January, the distance
traveled by the
planet (hypothet-ically called Gallia)
had been recorded as 82,000,000 leagues, the distance
traveledin February was only 59,- 000,000 leagues--a difference of
23,000,000 leagues in one month;
secondly, that the distance
of the
planet from the sun, which on the 15th of February had been