“Well, then,” said Count Timascheff, “we seem to have found a name for the new world we occupy.”
“But what I was going especially to observe,” continued the lieutenant, “is that the distance, 59,000,000 leagues, represents precisely the distance we ourselves were from the sun on the 15th. It was on that day we crossed the orbit of Mars.”
“Yes, true,” assented the others.
“And the next line,” said the lieutenant, after reading it aloud, “apparently registers the distance traversed by Gallia, the new little planet, in her own orbit. Her speed, of course, we know by Kepler’s laws, would vary according to her distance from the sun, and if she were— as I conjecture from the temperature at that date—on the 15th of January at her perihelion, she would be traveling twice as fast as the earth, which moves at the rate of between 50,000 and 60,000 miles an hour.”
“You think, then,” said Servadac, with a smile, “you have determined the perihelion of our orbit; but how about the aphelion? Can you form a judgment as to what distance we are likely to be carried?”
“You are asking too much,” remonstrated the count.
“I confess,” said the lieutenant, “that just at present I am not able to clear away the uncertainty of the future; but I feel confident that by careful observation at various points we shall arrive at conclusions which not only will determine our path, but perhaps may clear up the mystery about our geological structure.”
“Allow me to ask,” said Count Timascheff, “whether such a new asteroid would not be subject to ordinary mechanical laws, and whether, once started, it would not have an orbit that must be immutable?”
“Decidedly it would, so long as it was undisturbed by the attraction of some considerable body; but we must recollect that, compared to the great planets, Gallia must be almost infinitesimally small, and so might be attracted by a force that is irresistible.”
“Altogether, then,” said Servadac, “we seem to have settled it to our entire satisfaction that we must be the population of a young little world called Gallia. Perhaps some day we may have the honor of being registered among the minor planets.”
“No chance of that,” quickly rejoined Lieutenant Procope. “Those minor planets all are known to rotate in a narrow zone between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter; in their perihelia they cannot approximate the sun as we have done; we shall not be classed with them.”
“Our lack of instruments,” said the count, “is much to be deplored; it baffles our investigations in every way.”
“Ah, never mind! Keep up your courage, count!” said Servadac, cheerily.
And Lieutenant Procope renewed his assurances that he entertained good hopes that every perplexity would soon be solved.
“I suppose,” remarked the count, ” that we cannot attribute much importance to the last line: ‘Va bene! All right!! Parfait!!!'”
The captain answered, “At least, it shows that whoever wrote it had no murmuring or complaint to make, but was quite content with the new order of things.”
CHAPTER XVI. THE RESIDUUM OF A CONTINENT
Almost unconsciously, the voyagers in the Dobryna fell into the habit of using Gallia as the name of the new world in which they became aware they must be making an extraordinary excursion through the realms of space. Nothing, however, was allowed to divert them from their ostensible object of making a survey of the coast of the Mediterranean, and accordingly they persevered in following that singular boundary which had revealed itself to their extreme astonishment.
Having rounded the great promontory that had barred her farther progress to the north, the schooner skirted its upper edge. A few more leagues and they ought to be abreast of the shores of France. Yes, of France.
But who shall describe the feelings of Hector Servadac when, instead of the charming outline of his native land, he beheld nothing but a solid boundary of savage rock? Who shall paint the look of consternation with which he gazed upon the stony rampart—rising perpendicularly for a thousand feet— that had replaced the shores of the smiling south? Who shall reveal the burning anxiety with which he throbbed to see beyond that cruel wall?