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

"And now, corporal, what is your business with me?" asked Major Oliphant.

"We want to know whether, as the days are only six hours long,
we are to have but two meals instead of four?"

The officers looked at each other, and by their glances agreed
that the corporal was a man of sound common sense.

"Eccentricities of nature," said the major, "cannot interfere with
military regulations. It is true that there will be but an interval
of an hour and a half between them, but the rule stands good--
four meals a day. England is too rich to grudge her soldiers any
of her soldiers' due. Yes; four meals a day."

"Hurrah!" shouted the soldiers, unable this time to keep their delight
within the bounds of military decorum; and, turning to the right-about,
they marched away, leaving the officers to renew the all-absorbing game.

However confident everyone upon the island might profess
to be that succor would be sent them from their native land--
for Britain never abandons any of her sons--it could not be disguised
that that succor was somewhat tardy in making its appearance.
Many and various were the conjectures to account for the delay.
Perhaps England was engrossed with domestic matters,
or perhaps she was absorbed in diplomatic difficulties;
or perchance, more likely than all, Northern Europe had received
no tidings of the convulsion that had shattered the south.
The whole party throve remarkably well upon the liberal provisions
of the commissariat department, and if the officers failed
to show the same tendency to _embonpoint_ which was fast becoming
characteristic of the men, it was only because they deemed it due
to their rank to curtail any indulgences which might compromise
the fit of their uniform.

On the whole, time passed indifferently well. An Englishman rarely suffers
from _ennui_, and then only in his own country, when required to conform
to what he calls "the humbug of society"; and the two officers, with their
similar tastes, ideas, and dispositions, got on together admirably.
It is not to be questioned that they were deeply affected by a sense
of regret for their lost comrades, and astounded beyond measure at finding
themselves the sole survivors of a garrison of 1,895 men, but with true
British pluck and self-control, they had done nothing more than draw up
a report that 1,882 names were missing from the muster-roll.

The island itself, the sole surviving fragment of an enormous pile
of rock that had reared itself some 1,600 feet above the sea,
was not, strictly speaking, the only land that was visible;
for about twelve miles to the south there was another island,
apparently the very counterpart of what was now occupied