Before long the astronomer roused himself a little more, and glanced inquiringly about him, but soon relapsed into his comatose condition. When next he opened his eyes, Captain Servadac happened to be bending down closely over him, examining his features with curious scrutiny. The old man darted an angry look at him through the spectacles, and said sharply, “Servadac, five hundred lines to-morrow!”
It was an echo of days of old. The words were few, but they were enough to recall the identity which Servadac was trying to make out.
“Is it possible?” he exclaimed. “Here is my old tutor, Mr. Rosette, in very flesh and blood.”
“Can’t say much for the flesh,” muttered Ben Zoof.
The old man had again fallen back into a torpid slumber. Ben Zoof continued, “His sleep is getting more composed. Let him alone; he will come round yet. Haven’t I heard of men more dried up than he is, being brought all the way from Egypt in cases covered with pictures?”
“You idiot!—those were mummies; they had been dead for ages.”
Ben Zoof did not answer a word. He went on preparing a warm bed, into which he managed to remove his patient, who soon fell into a calm and natural sleep.
Too impatient to await the awakening of the astronomer and to hear what representations he had to make, Servadac, the count, and the lieutenant, constituting themselves what might be designated “the Academy of Sciences” of the colony, spent the whole of the remainder of the day in starting and discussing the wildest conjectures about their situation. The hypothesis, to which they had now accustomed themselves for so long, that a new asteroid had been formed by a fracture of the earth’s surface, seemed to fall to the ground when they found that Professor Palmyrin Rosette had associated the name of Gallia, not with their present home, but with what he called “my comet”; and that theory being abandoned, they were driven to make the most improbable speculations to replace it.
Alluding to Rosette, Servadac took care to inform his companions that, although the professor was always eccentric, and at times very irascible, yet he was really exceedingly good-hearted; his bark was worse than his bite; and if suffered to take their course without observation, his outbreaks of ill-temper seldom lasted long.
“We will certainly do our best to get on with him,” said the count. “He is no doubt the author of the papers, and we must hope that he will be able to give us some valuable information.”