Their agitation had not escaped the attention of those surrounding them; everyone understood the impatience that was devouring them, and by common accord people pretended not to notice that their behavior was strange and unusual, especially in an environment as tranquil and so completely unaccustomed to mental disturbance and passionate disorder. On the contrary, they were surrounded with consideration; a discreet sympathy enveloped them. Merovar, in particular, made great efforts in their regard, trying to distract them and render the tortures of waiting less painful.
The moment was approaching, however, when they were able to recommence the interrupted attempt. Two days more and darkness would reach the region in which the observatory was situated. Marcel, Jacques and Lord Rodilan were counting the minutes.
As if they wanted to hasten the moment when his experiments could resume, the engineer was incessantly occupied in visiting his communication apparatus, making sure that they were in working order. He was checking them for perhaps the hundredth time when it seemed to him that he perceived, in the room where he was, a singular odor. It was very faint, but characteristic; it was a vague odor of sulfur.
At first, he did not attach any great importance to it, but as it persisted, he looked around, to see whether it was coming from the next laboratory. Not discovering anything, he went back into the interior of the edifice; the odor was also sensible there; it even seemed to him to be slightly stronger.
He was about to go down to the lower floor when he met Merovar, who seemed to be looking for him.
“What are these unusual emanations in the air we’re breathing?” he asked. “Do you have chemists here who are carrying out some experiment with gases derived from sulfur?”
“No,” said the astronomer. “We’re only occupied with astronomy here, and I can’t explain this phenomenon, which I’ve noticed too. Let’s go see whether we can discover the cause.”
Accompanied by Jacques, Lord Rodilan and a few other scientists who were working at the observatory, they visited the various parts of the vast monument. Everywhere they received the same impression, but it became stronger the further down they went, and as they got closer to the cage of the elevator.
Already, everyone was experiencing the disagreeable sensation, and without anyone showing anxiety as yet, they were beginning to worry about it. They examined everything with the greatest care but in vain; there was nothing abnormal that might explain the phenomenon.
Marcel, his mind still haunted by his obsession, did not take long to leave Merovar to continue his investigation and return to his apparatus. He was joined by Jacques and Lord Rodilan, more impatient than ever to see the problem that was impassioning them so much resolved.
“Let’s leave our friends to find the cause of what’s happening,” said Jacques. “We have more important things to do. How long will it be, Marcel, before we can resume our signals?”
“Don’t worry—it won’t be long before we can get started. The penumbra’s already approaching. In twenty-four hours the darkness will be deep enough for out illuminated lamps to be perceptible from Earth. But if our calculations are correct, it will be daybreak in the Rocky Mountains at that moment, and we’ll have to wait to least another twelve hours before our friends can perceive our signals and respond.”
“How long it all takes!” said Lord Rodilan. “In truth, it’s necessary to be exiled on the Moon to learn patience.”
“In truth, my dear lord,” said Jacques, smiling, “it’s certain that your friends in London would no longer recognize in you the gentleman—so cold, so correct and so impassive—that they were accustomed to seeing.”
“That’s because all this has finished up getting on my nerves. Since I left the Earth I’ve seen so many extraordinary things that nothing seems impossible any longer, and it irritates me to see that people as clever as you are can’t find a quicker solution to a solution that seems to me to be so simple.”
“That’s phlegmatics all over,” said Marcel, laughing wholeheartedly. “As long as they’re in the midst of the ordinary course of life, nothing astonishes or excites them; they’re disdainful and blasé. If something new and unanticipated comes, their imagination runs wild; from one day to the next they become the most impatient of men. You see, Milord, true wisdom consists of always maintaining, whatever the circumstances, dignity and calmness of mind, not disdaining anything or finding anything tragic, avoiding all discouragement as well as all extravagant hope—and, as ancient wisdom put it, taking things as they come and people as they are.”
“Moralize away, my dear Marcel, since you have the time and liberty of mind to do it—but in truth, what’s happening? That odor of sulfur is becoming unbearable.”
In the meantime, in fact, the sulfurous emanations that had already been attracting the attention of the observatory’s personnel for some time had become increasingly sensible, and breathing was beginning to become difficult.
“There’s something inexplicable here,” said Lord Rodilan. “It’s absolutely necessary to discover what’s going on.”
Marcel and Jacques, poring over the apparatus, seemed oblivious to their surroundings.
As the Englishman got up to go in search of information, the door opened. Merovar appeared on the threshold.
“Friends,” he said, “our investigations haven’t discovered anything, but as the situation is becoming increasingly serious, I thought I ought to inform the Supreme Council of what’s happening here without further delay. Doubtless we’ll soon see the arrival of scientists familiar with questions of physics and geology. They’ll certainly discover the cause of the abnormal phenomenon and take the necessary measures to counter it. So far as I can judge, it’s probable that a crack has occurred in the elevator’s chimney, letting out gases accumulated in a neighboring cavity. At any rate, we’ll soon know.”
Almost at the same moment the elevator arrived, containing three scientists delegated by the Supreme Council to discover what was happening and find a remedy.
News of the unexplained phenomenon produced at the observatory had spread promptly through the lunar world, exciting considerable emotion. Everyone knew that the three inhabitants of the Earth had been installed there for several weeks, with the intention of organizing, if possible, communications with the terrestrial world. As had already been seen, everything touching that important question interested the entire population keenly. A great hope had been born since the arrival of the voyagers of seeing the realization of a project long caressed, but which had only given rise to failed attempts thus far. Everyone was wondering anxiously whether hopes were to be dashed again.
The newcomers had soon recognized the nature of the gas whose presence was vitiating the atmosphere; it was hydrogen sulfide.
“Your conjectures,” they said to Merovar, “are evidently well-founded. Although no shock was felt in the subterranean regions, which we would certainly have detected, revealed the event, it’s certain that a crack has developed somewhere in the elevator’s chimney, giving passage to the mephitic gas. It’s therefore necessary to evacuate the observatory, because the air is becoming more unbreathable by the minute, and it won’t be long before everyone is asphyxiated.
Merovar immediately gave the order for everyone to prepare to leave, and ran to warn the three friends.
Absorbed by the feverish wait for the signal that might confirm all their hopes, estranged from everything that was happening around them, they were all in the upper part of the observatory, which wires linked to the electrical apparatus outside.
The region had been plunged in darkness for several hours, but, as Marcel had calculated, when darkness had reached the observatory it had been daylight in the Rocky Mountains, and there were several hours more to wait.
With their eyes glued to the oculars of gigantic telescopes, they were following the rotation of the Earth anxiously, watching the light recede gradually toward the western coast of the Atlantic.
Merovar came in hurriedly. “Friends,”
he said, “the situation is becoming perilous. The envoys of the Supreme Council have decided that the observatory has to be evacuated; there’s no one left here but us. Let’s make haste to go down while there’s still time.”
Marcel did not appear to have heard him.
Jacques and Lord Rodilan also seemed insensible to the imminence of the peril. Merovar renewed his insistence.
While he was speaking, a muffled noise was heard, like a distant explosion, but none of them paid any attention to it.
Meanwhile, the atmosphere became increasingly laden with emanations of the deleterious gas. Already, their faces were becoming congested, their eyes bloodshot and their respiration hoarse. In their state of overexcitement, however, they did not appear to notice it. Even Jacques, forgetting that he was a physician, had not noticed the redoubtable symptoms.
Merovar became more urgent.
“Go without me, then,” exclaimed Marcel. “I won’t abandon my post at such a moment for anything in the world.”
With a gesture, without even taking their eyes away from the oculars, Jacques and Lord Rodilan made it understood that even the threat of death could not shake their resolve.
“The shadow’s approaching,” Jacques murmured.
“It’s already reached the Rocky Mountains,” said Lord Rodilan, in a voice trembling with emotion.
“Friends,” said Marcel, in an indescribable state of excitement, “We’re reaching our goal. In a few moments, we’ll know whether our signals have been perceived and whether the great problem of interplanetary communication has been solved.”
In the presence of that sublime abnegation, that sacrifice of life, accomplished with so much heroism and sacrifice, Merovar felt moved in spite of his self-mastery. The memory of great devotions to science, of which the history of the lunar world offered so many remarkable examples, came to mind and prompted admiration.
Mute and immobile, he folded his arms and waited.
Suddenly, three superhuman cries sprang forth at the same time:
“The signal!”
“The light!”
“Hurrah!”
In the center of the field of the three telescopes aimed at Long’s Peak, a sudden light had just appeared, which, in spite of the frightful distance, stood out clearly and brightly, and was sustained.
Breathless and bewildered, three-quarters asphyxiated in the atmosphere that was becoming more intolerable to their exhausted lungs by the second, they could not tear themselves away from that contemplation, and did not perceive that death was approaching rapidly.
A few moments later, Marcel got up, with a painful effort, and looked at his companions. Asphyxia had already done its work. Slumped in their seats, heads tilted back and arms dangling, they were no longer giving any sign of life.
Merovar was lying on the floor.
“It’s death,” Marcel murmured, “but at least let our friends know that we’ve perceived them. Our last thought will have been for them.” And he staggered toward the commutator that would illuminate and launch through space the luminous letters bearing their message.
Just as he was about to reach it, however, he collapsed and fell, like an inert mass.
PART TWO
I. Rugel’s Villa
About twenty terrestrial leagues from the capital of the lunar world, in the direction opposite the shore of the interior sea, the first buttresses were encountered of the formidable granite wall on which the vault of the cavern was supported. There, in a delightful spot, a lake was alimented by streams descending from the nearby mountains.
That pure and transparent lake was surrounded by hills clad in rich vegetation, whose thick carpets of moss sloped down to its sinuous edge. Nothing was more charming than that enchanted solitude, enlivened by birdsong and gentle breezes playing in the foliage.
Almost in the center of the lake, there was an islet, small in size, where trees of the most precious species came together with the most perfumed specimens of the lunar flora. Everything there seemed prepared to please the eye.
In that exceedingly calm and peaceful world, the place seemed to be even calmer and more peaceful. One might have thought it an inviolable refuge reserved for study or meditation.
A short distance from the shore, a spacious habitation in a style that was both delicate and graceful was seemingly posed on a lawn that sloped gently down to the bank. Against the pale green background it stood out brightly, with its walkway sustained by slender colonnettes, its white walls decorated with paintings and mosaics, its terraces with elegant balustrades, its campaniles and perforated bell-rowers, whose apparent whimsicality nevertheless presented a savant harmony.
Floods of air and light entered through wide open bays. In that fortunate region, the atmosphere was exceedingly pleasant to breathe; one could not have asked for a more marvelous abode to render peace to troubled souls and health to enfeebled bodies.
It was to that retreat that the sage Rugel came to rest from the labors that his elevated functions imposed upon him. The wife who had been his companion in life had died some time ago, only leaving him as a pledge of her love a daughter on whom he lavished all his affections—but the memory of the one he had lost had never been effaced from his mind. He could not think without sadness about the happy times that he had spent with her—hence the hint of melancholy that always veiled his features, but which took nothing away from the nobility of his soul and the generosity of his heart.
When her education was complete, Orealis had returned to the paternal household; she had attempted to fill the void left by her mother, whom she had scarcely known; and sometimes, on seeing her always so loving and gentle, the father thought he had rediscovered the spouse that his heart regretted incessantly.
Orealis, Rugel’s cherished daughter, was splendidly beautiful. She was at the age when a girl becomes a woman, and still unites all the graces of childhood with the penetrating charm of youth. Her symmetrical, expressive features were brightened by two large dark eyes, which, in her pale and slightly rosy complexion, shone like two somber diamonds. Their glare was tempered an infinite softness; they were the interpreters of a pure soul, accessible to the most elevated sentiments and the most generous passions. Thick ash-blonde hair framed that radiant visage and fell in silky waves over her shoulders. A narrow circlet of gold, embedded with sparkling stones, was posed on those adorable tresses, their thousand fires scintillating in the mist of its soft tints. She wore a dresses made of a light and vaporous fabric, dazzlingly white, whose floating sleeves left the forearms bare and which, raised at the sides, uncovered an azure tunic with silver embroidered. Her tall figure was slim and shapely, offering admirable proportions. Phidias could not have dreamed of a more perfect model when he extracted from marble those young immortals in which the most perfect forms of the feminine body seemed to be bathed in a divine atmosphere.
Her gait was harmonious and supple, her gestures noble and dignified, and, on seeing her advance at a rhythmic stride, one would not have been able to help murmuring the poet’s line: Et vera incessu patuit Dea.23
Sometimes, when a joyful thought agitated her softly, as when she saw her father after a time of absence, her face, ordinary calm and tranquil in its lines, lit up with a celestial smile.
One could not see her without being influenced by the attraction that emanated from her; all those who approached her loved her and surrounded her with a religious respect.
Three of Rugel’s female relatives helped her, in that peaceful dwelling, to surround with care and affection the man whose high intelligence was universally admired and whose generosity was universally cherished. Orealis surpassed them all in charm and beauty, however, and if absolute equality had not reigned in that superior world, one might have thought that she was a young queen in the midst of her court.
In that house of Rugel’s, ordinarily so calm and almost silent, there had been an unaccustomed agitation for some time. It was there, after the catastrophe in which they had almost
found a horrible death, that the three voyagers from Earth had been transported.
It was to Rugel that they owed their salvation.
At the first news of the accident that had occurred at the observatory, he had become alarmed and anxious regarding the fate of his friends. In the palace, where the prudent Aldeovaze was sitting surrounded by the Supreme Council, the result of the mission entrusted to the scientists charged with investigating the causes of the phenomenon had been awaited impatiently.
Soon, they had learned that the order had been given to evacuate the observatory, which had become untenable, and that the entire personnel was coming down. Only the three inhabitants of Earth and Merovar had refused to leave.
Rugel understood. “Oh, the great hearts!” he cried. “They’re going to perish, victims of their love of science—but I shall save them in spite of themselves, if necessary.”
And he had left in all haste.
Having arrived at the foot of the elevator’s chimney, he found it full of unbreathable mephitic vapors. While he was being given a brief explanation of what had happened, a sound like a thunderclap was suddenly heard, which, reverberated by the echoes of the rocky walls, descended with a dull rumble.
Almost immediately afterwards, a kind of hissing became audible, and the column of air, driven back and heavily charged with sulfurous emanations, caused everyone to recoil.
“They’re doomed,” murmured one of the scientists. “The fissure has widened under the pressure of the gas. The whole shaft is filled with poisonous gases; there’s nothing more to be done.”
Rugel made an energetic gesture.
“I’m going,” he said, simply.
“You won’t go alone, then,” said the scientist who had spoken. “We’ll go with you.”
And, equipped with respirators of compressed air similar to those used to go out on to the surface of the satellite, Rugel and the three scientists had hastened into the elevator, which rose up again with vertiginous rapidity.
An Unknown World Page 20