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Updated: May 11, 2025
An hour after sunrise on New Year's Day, Frenchmen, Russians, Spaniards, and little Nina, as the representative of Italy, sat down to a feast such as never before had been seen in Gallia. Ben Zoof and the Russian cook had quite surpassed themselves. The wines, part of the Dobryna's stores, were of excellent quality.
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. "Eureka!
But he would be even with them yet; he would have it all out of them: he would make European prices pay, after all. He had a plan he knew how; and he chuckled to himself, and grinned maliciously. True to his word, the captain next morning arrived at the tartan. He was accompanied by Ben Zoof and two Russian sailors.
The child pointed to a bird which she was caressing tenderly in her bosom. "A pigeon!" exclaimed Ben Zoof, who had reached the scene of commotion, adding: "A carrier-pigeon! And by all the saints of Montmartre, there is a little bag attached to its neck!" He took the bird, and rushing into the hall placed it in Servadac's hands.
No attempt had been made to rebuild the gourbi, but the captain and Ben Zoof managed to make up quarters sufficiently comfortable in the principal apartment of the adjoining structure, where the stone walls, that at first afforded a refuge from the torrents of rain, now formed an equally acceptable shelter from the burning sun.
Captain Servadac mounted his horse Zephyr, and Ben Zoof simultaneously got astride his mare Galette, named after the mill of Montmartre. They galloped off in the direction of the Shelif, and were not long in discovering that the diminution in the pressure of the atmosphere had precisely the same effect upon their horses as it had had upon themselves.
Ben Zoof!" ejaculated Servadac, who could scarcely shout loud enough to relieve his pent-up feelings. Ignoring this ebullition of the captain's spleen, the count went on to say: "Captain Servadac was naturally most anxious to get what news he could. Accordingly, he left his servant on the island in charge of his horses, and came on board the Dobryna with me.
"I had quite reckoned upon a supper and a bed at Orleansville to-night," said Servadac, as, full of despondency, he surveyed the waste of water. "Quite impossible," replied Ben Zoof, "except you had gone by a boat. But cheer up, sir, cheer up; we will soon devise some means for getting across to Mostaganem."
Thus it fell out that one morning Ben Zoof, from his lookout on Gourbi Island, saw a ship, not the Dobryna, appear upon the horizon, and make quietly down towards what had formerly been the right bank of the Shelif. Such was Ben Zoof's version of what had occurred, as he had gathered it from the new-comers.
"Well, then," said Ben Zoof, "if you will be good enough to come with me for about a mile, I shall be able to show you my companions. But we must take our guns." "Why take our guns?" asked Servadac. "I hope we are not going to fight." "No, not with men," said Ben Zoof; "but it does not answer to throw a chance away for giving battle to those thieves of birds."
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