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Off on a Comet-Part5_JULES VERNE(1828-1905)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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"If, as I hope," rejoined the captain, "we are on a peninsula,

we are more likely to get to Tenes; there we shall hear the news."



"Far more likely to carry the news ourselves," answered Ben Zoof,

as he threw himself down for his night's rest.



Six hours later, only waiting for sunrise, Captain Servadac

set himself in movement again to renew his investigations.



At this spot the shore, that hitherto had been running

in a southeasterly direction, turned abruptly to the north,



being no longer formed by the natural bank of the Shelif,

but consisting of an absolutely new coast-line. No land was in sight.



Nothing could be seen of Orleansville, which ought to have been

about six miles to the southwest; and Ben Zoof, who had mounted



the highest point of view attainable, could distinguish sea,

and nothing but sea, to the farthesthorizon.



Quitting their encampment and riding on, the bewildered explorers

kept close to the new shore. This, since it had ceased to be formed



by the original river bank, had considerably altered its aspect.

Frequent landslips occurred, and in many places deep chasms rifted



the ground; great gaps furrowed the fields, and trees, half uprooted,

overhung the water, remarkable by the fantastic distortions of their



gnarled trunks, looking as though they had been chopped by a hatchet.

The sinuosities of the coast line, alternately gully and headland,



had the effect of making a devious progress for the travelers,

and at sunset, although they had accomplished more than twenty miles,



they had only just arrived at the foot of the Merdeyah Mountains,

which, before the cataclysm, had formed the extremity of the chain



of the Little Atlas. The ridge, however, had been violently ruptured,

and now rose perpendicularly from the water.



On the following morning Servadac and Ben Zoof traversed one of the

mountain gorges; and next, in order to make a more thorough acquaintance



with the limits and condition of the section of Algerian territory

of which they seemed to be left as the sole occupants, they dismounted,



and proceeded on foot to the summit of one of the highest peaks.

From this elevation they ascertained that from the base of the Merdeyah



to the Mediterranean, a distance of about eighteen miles, a new coast

line had come into existence; no land was visible in any direction;



no isthmus existed to form a connecting link with the territory of Tenes,

which had entirely disappeared. The result was that Captain Servadac



was driven to the resistible" target="_blank" title="a.不可抵抗的">irresistibleconclusion that the tract of land which

he had been surveying was not, as he had at first imagined, a peninsula;



it was actually an island.

Strictly speaking, this island was quadrilateral, but the sides



were so irregular that it was much more nearly a triangle,

the comparison of the sides exhibiting these proportions:



The section of the right bank of the Shelif, seventy-two miles;

the southern boundary from the Shelif to the chain of the Little Atlas,



twenty-one miles; from the Little Atlas to the Mediterranean,

eighteen miles; and sixty miles of the shore of the Mediterranean itself,



making in all an entire circumference of about 171 miles.

"What does it all mean?" exclaimed the captain, every hour growing



more and more bewildered.

"The will of Providence, and we must submit," replied Ben Zoof,



calm and undisturbed. With this reflection, the two men

silently descended the mountain and remounted their horses.



Before evening they had reached the Mediterranean. On their road

they failed to discern a vestige of the little town of Montenotte;



like Tenes, of which not so much as a ruined cottage was visible

on the horizon, it seemed to be annihilated.



On the following day, the 6th of January, the two men made

a forced march along the coast of the Mediterranean, which they



found less altered than the captain had at first supposed;

but four villages had entirely disappeared, and the headlands,



unable to resist the shock of the convulsion, had been detached

from the mainland.






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