A new marvel arrested every eye. A fresh satellite, in the gloom of night, was shining conspicuously before them.
That satellite was a part of Gallia itself!
By the expansive action of the inner heat, Gallia, like Gambart’s comet, had been severed in twain; an enormous fragment had been detached and launched into space!
The fragment included Ceuta and Gibraltar, with the two English garrisons!
CHAPTER XVII. THE VENTURE MADE
What would be the consequences of this sudden and complete disruption, Servadac and his people hardly dared to think.
The first change that came under their observation was the rapidity of the sun’s appearances and disappearances, forcing them to the conviction that although the comet still rotated on its axis from east to west, yet the period of its rotation had been diminished by about one-half. Only six hours instead of twelve elapsed between sunrise and sunrise; three hours after rising in the west the sun was sinking again in the east.
“We are coming to something!” exclaimed Servadac. “We have got a year of something like 2,880 days.”
“I shouldn’t think it would be an easy matter to find saints enough for such a calendar as that!” said Ben Zoof.