THE PROFESSOR PERPLEXED
Another month passed away, and it was now September, but it was still impossible to leave the warmth of the subterranean retreat for the more airy and commodious quarters of the Hive, where "the bees"would certainly have been frozen to death in their cells.
It was altogether quite as much a matter of congratulation as of regret that the volcano showed no symptoms of resuming its activity;for although a return of the eruption might have rendered their former resort again habitable, any sudden outbreak would have been disastrous to them where they were, the crater being the sole outlet by which the burning lava could escape.
"A wretched time we have had for the last seven months,"said the orderly one day to his master; "but what a comfort little Nina has been to us all!""Yes, indeed," replied Servadac; "she is a charming little creature.
I hardly know how we should have got on without her.""What is to become of her when we arrive back at the earth?""Not much fear, Ben Zoof, but that she will be well taken care of.
Perhaps you and I had better adopt her."
"Ay, yes," assented the orderly. "You can be her father, and I can be her mother."Servadac laughed. "Then you and I shall be man and wife.""We have been as good as that for a long time," observed Ben Zoof, gravely.
By the beginning of October, the temperature had so far moderated that it could scarcely be said to be intolerable. The comet's distance was scarcely three times as great from the sun as the earth from the sun, so that the thermometer rarely sunk beyond 35 degrees below zero.
The whole party began to make almost daily visits to the Hive, and frequently proceeded to the shore, where they resumed their skating exercise, rejoicing in their recovered freedom like prisoners liberated from a dungeon.
Whilst the rest were enjoying their recreation, Servadac and the count would hold long conversations with Lieutenant Procope about their present position and future prospects, discussing all manner of speculations as to the results of the anticipated collision with the earth, and wondering whether any measures could be devised for mitigating the violence of a shock which might be terrible in its consequences, even if it did not entail a total annihilation of themselves.
There was no visitor to the Hive more regular than Rosette. He had already directed his telescope to be moved back to his former observatory, where, as much as the cold would permit him, he persisted in making his all-absorbing studies of the heavens.
The result of these studies no one ventured to inquire;but it became generally noticed that something was very seriously disturbing the professor's equanimity. Not only would he be seen toiling more frequently up the arduous way that lay between his nook below and his telescope above, but he would be heard muttering in an angry tone that indicated considerable agitation.
One day, as he was hurrying down to his study, he met Ben Zoof, who, secretly entertaining a feeling of delight at the professor's manifest discomfiture, made some casual remark about things not being very straight.
The way in which his advance was received the good orderly never divulged, but henceforward he maintained the firm conviction that there was something very much amiss up in the sky.
To Servadac and his friends this continual disquietude and ill-humor on the part of the professor occasioned no little anxiety.
From what, they asked, could his dissatisfaction arise?
They could only conjecture that he had discovered some flaw in his reckonings; and if this were so, might there not be reason to apprehend that their anticipations of coming into contact with the earth, at the settled time, might all be falsified?
Day followed day, and still there was no cessation of the professor's discomposure. He was the most miserable of mortals. If really his calculations and his observations were at variance, this, in a man of his irritable temperament, would account for his perpetual perturbation.
But he entered into no explanation; he only climbed up to his telescope, looking haggard and distressed, and when compelled by the frost to retire, he would make his way back to his study more furious than ever.
At times he was heard giving vent to his vexation. "Confound it!
what does it mean? what is she doing? All behind! Is Newton a fool?
Is the law of universal gravitation the law of universal nonsense?"And the little man would seize his head in both his hands, and tear away at the scanty locks which he could ill afford to lose.
Enough was overheard to confirm the suspicion that there was some irreconcilable discrepancy between the results of his computation and what he had actually observed; and yet, if he had been called upon to say, he would have sooner insisted that there was derangement in the laws of celestial mechanism, than have owned there was the least probability of error in any of his own calculations.
Assuredly, if the poor professor had had any flesh to lose he would have withered away to a shadow.
But this state of things was before long to come to an end.
On the 12th, Ben Zoof, who was hanging about outside the great hall of the cavern, heard the professor inside utter a loud cry.
Hurrying in to ascertain the cause, he found Rosette in a state of perfect frenzy, in which ecstasy and rage seemed to be struggling for the predominance.
"Eureka! Eureka!" yelled the excited astronomer.
"What, in the name of peace, do you mean?" bawled Ben Zoof, in open-mouthed amazement.
"Eureka!" again shrieked the little man.
"How? What? Where?" roared the bewildered orderly.
