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Updated: May 1, 2025
They have often only one decent suit between them and sometimes not that. To-day, you see, they are at their wits' end for a breakfast. They have run their credit dry at Procope and everywhere else, and are gone now to a miserable little den in the Rue du Paon, kept by a fat good-natured old soul called la mère Gaudissart.
A cannon ball, too, would only fly a few yards," said Lieutenant Procope. "A jolly battle-field for cowards!" exclaimed Ben Zoof. "Not so jolly, Ben Zoof, as you fancy," said his master; "the cowards would be too heavy to run away."
"It is, I presume, to be taken for granted," continued Lieutenant Procope, "that the mass of the earth is comparatively so large that, in the event of a direct collision, her own motion would not be sensibly retarded, and that she would carry the comet along with her, as part of herself." "Very little question of that, I should think," said Servadac.
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!!!"
Twenty-seven minutes past two, and Gallia is only 72,000 miles from the terrestrial sphere; quicker and quicker is the velocity; ten minutes later, and they are only 36,000 miles apart! The whole configuration of the earth is clear. "Europe! Russia! France!" shout Procope, the count, and Servadac, almost in a breath. And they are not mistaken.
But the count entirely repudiated all idea of shrinking from what, quite as much as the captain, he regarded as a sacred duty, and turning to Lieutenant Procope, told him that unless some better plan could be devised, he was prepared to start off at once and make the attempt to skate across to Formentera. The lieutenant, who was lost in thought, made no immediate reply.
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.
Petersburg, and finally gained over Nicholas II. to its views. He is said to have formed his final decision during his winter stay at Livadia in the Crimea, owing to the personal intervention of Kuropatkin, and that too in face of a protest from the Finnish Minister, Procope, against the suspension by imperial ukase of a fundamental law of the Grand Duchy.
The nights continued lovely; the chilled condition of the atmosphere prevented the formation of clouds; the constellations gleamed forth with unsullied luster; and, much as Lieutenant Procope, from nautical considerations, might regret the absence of the moon, he could not do otherwise than own that the magnificent nights of Gallia were such as must awaken the enthusiasm of an astronomer.
The glowing expanse of the earth's disc seemed like a vast funnel, yawning to receive the comet and its atmosphere, balloon and all, into its open mouth. "Forty-seven!" cried Procope. There was half a minute yet. A thrill ran through every vein. A vibration quivered through the atmosphere. The montgolfier, elongated to its utmost stretch, was manifestly being sucked into a vortex.
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