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"Listen," said Servadac; "we have come to ask a favor." Imagining that at least half his property was to be confiscated, the Jew began to break out into his usual formula about being a poor man and having nothing to spare; but Servadac, without heeding his complainings, went on: "We are not going to ruin you, you know." Hakkabut looked keenly into the captain's face.
A skilled geologist would probably have been able to assign them their proper scientific classification, but neither Servadac, Timascheff, nor the lieutenant could pretend to any acquaintance with their specific character.
Heaven helps them that help themselves." "And what means have you to suggest, may I ask?" said the count, with a faint accent of satire. Servadac was forced to acknowledge that nothing tangible had hitherto presented itself to his mind. "I don't want to intrude," observed Ben Zoof, "but I don't understand why such learned gentlemen as you cannot make the comet go where you want it to go."
Looking towards the north, he could distinguish Gibraltar faintly visible in the extreme distance, and upon the summit of the rock both Ben Zoof and himself fancied they could make out another semaphore, giving signals, no doubt, in response to the one here. "Yes, it is only too clear; they have already occupied it, and established their communications," said Servadac.
Professor, I beg to acknowledge your courteous reception," gravely responded Timascheff. Servadac could not quite conceal his amusement at the count's irony, but continued, "This is Lieutenant Procope, the officer in command of the Dobryna." The professor bowed again in frigid dignity. "His yacht has conveyed us right round Gallia," added the captain.
"Look there!" answered the lieutenant, and he kept pointing steadily in its direction, until Servadac also distinctly saw the bright speck in the distance. It increased in clearness in the gathering shades of evening. "Can it be a ship?" asked the captain. "If so, it must be in flames; otherwise we should not be able to see it so far off," replied Procope.
The habitation that had now revealed itself, well lighted and thoroughly warm, was indeed marvelous. Not only would it afford ample accommodation for Hector Servadac and "his subjects," as Ben Zoof delighted to call them, but it would provide shelter for the two horses, and for a considerable number of domestic animals.
"A tour round the Mediterranean will suffice for the present, I think," said the captain, smiling. The count shook his head. "I am not sure," said he, "but what the tour of the Mediterranean will prove to be the tour of the world." Servadac made no reply, but for a time remained silent and absorbed in thought.
Speak out, man?" "Ask him if he brings any tidings of Europe," Hakkabut blurted out at last. Servadac shrugged his shoulders in contempt and turned away. Here was a man who had been resident three months in Gallia, a living witness of all the abnormal phenomena that had occurred, and yet refusing to believe that his hope of making good bargains with European traders was at an end.
Captain Servadac applied himself to his task while the by-standers waited, with some difficulty suppressing their inclination to laugh. There was a short silence, at the end of which Servadac announced that the volume of the comet was 47,880,000 cubic miles. "Just about 5,000 times less than the earth," observed the lieutenant. "Nice little comet! pretty little comet!" said Ben Zoof.
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