"Jules Verne. Off on a Comet. WORKS" - читать интересную книгу автора

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Servadac. "How can the sun be in the zenith,
in the month of January, in lat. 39 degrees N.?"

"Can't say, sir. I only know the sun is there; and at the rate
he has been traveling, I would lay my cap to a dish of couscous
that in less than three hours he will have set."

Hector Servadac, mute and motionless, stood with folded arms.
Presently he roused himself, and began to look about again.
"What means all this?" he murmured. "Laws of gravity disturbed!
Points of the compass reversed! The length of day reduced one half!
Surely this will indefinitely postpone my meeting with the count.
Something has happened; Ben Zoof and I cannot both be mad!"

The orderly, meantime, surveyed his master with the greatest equanimity;
no phenomenon, however extraordinary, would have drawn from him
a single exclamation of surprise. "Do you see anyone, Ben Zoof?"
asked the captain, at last.

"No one, sir; the count has evidently been and gone." "But supposing
that to be the case," persisted the captain, "my seconds would
have waited, and not seeing me, would have come on towards the gourbi.
I can only conclude that they have been unable to get here;
and as for Count Timascheff--"

Without finishing his sentence. Captain Servadac, thinking it
just probable that the count, as on the previous evening, might come
by water, walked to the ridge of rock that overhung the shore,
in order to ascertain if the _Dobryna_ were anywhere in sight.
But the sea was deserted, and for the first time the captain
noticed that, although the wind was calm, the waters were unusually
agitated, and seethed and foamed as though they were boiling.
It was very certain that the yacht would have found a difficulty
in holding her own in such a swell. Another thing that now struck
Servadac was the extraordinary contraction of the horizon.
Under ordinary circumstances, his elevated position would have allowed
him a radius of vision at least five and twenty miles in length;
but the terrestrial sphere seemed, in the course of the last few hours,
to have become considerably reduced in volume, and he could now see
for a distance of only six miles in every direction.

Meantime, with the agility of a monkey, Ben Zoof had clambered to the top
of a eucalyptus, and from his lofty perch was surveying the country to
the south, as well as towards both Tenes and Mostaganem. On descending,
be informed the captain that the plain was deserted.

"We will make our way to the river, and get over into Mostaganem,"
said the captain.

The Shelif was not more than a mile and a half from the meadow, but no time