Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space

  CHAPTER II. CAPTAIN SERVADAC AND HIS ORDERLY

  At the time of which I write, there might be seen in the registers ofthe Minister of War the following entry:

  SERVADAC (_Hector_), born at St. Trelody in the district of Lesparre,department of the Gironde, July 19th, 18--.

  _Property:_ 1200 francs in rentes.

  _Length of service:_ Fourteen years, three months, and five days.

  _Service:_ Two years at school at St. Cyr; two years at L'Ecoled'Application; two years in the 8th Regiment of the Line; two years inthe 3rd Light Cavalry; seven years in Algeria.

  _Campaigns:_ Soudan and Japan.

  _Rank:_ Captain on the staff at Mostaganem.

  _Decorations:_ Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, March 13th, 18--.

  Hector Servadac was thirty years of age, an orphan without lineage andalmost without means. Thirsting for glory rather than for gold, slightlyscatter-brained, but warm-hearted, generous, and brave, he was eminentlyformed to be the protege of the god of battles.

  For the first year and a half of his existence he had been thefoster-child of the sturdy wife of a vine-dresser of Medoc--a linealdescendant of the heroes of ancient prowess; in a word, he was one ofthose individuals whom nature seems to have predestined for remarkablethings, and around whose cradle have hovered the fairy godmothers ofadventure and good luck.

  In appearance Hector Servadac was quite the type of an officer; he wasrather more than five feet six inches high, slim and graceful, with darkcurling hair and mustaches, well-formed hands and feet, and a clear blueeye. He seemed born to please without being conscious of the power hepossessed. It must be owned, and no one was more ready to confess itthan himself, that his literary attainments were by no means of a highorder. "We don't spin tops" is a favorite saying amongst artilleryofficers, indicating that they do not shirk their duty by frivolouspursuits; but it must be confessed that Servadac, being naturally idle,was very much given to "spinning tops." His good abilities, however,and his ready intelligence had carried him successfully through thecurriculum of his early career. He was a good draughtsman, an excellentrider--having thoroughly mastered the successor to the famous "UncleTom" at the riding-school of St. Cyr--and in the records of his militaryservice his name had several times been included in the order of theday.

  The following episode may suffice, in a certain degree, to illustratehis character. Once, in action, he was leading a detachment of infantrythrough an intrenchment. They came to a place where the side-work of thetrench had been so riddled by shell that a portion of it had actuallyfallen in, leaving an aperture quite unsheltered from the grape-shotthat was pouring in thick and fast. The men hesitated. In an instantServadac mounted the side-work, laid himself down in the gap, and thusfilling up the breach by his own body, shouted, "March on!"

  And through a storm of shot, not one of which touched the prostrateofficer, the troop passed in safety.

  Since leaving the military college, Servadac, with the exception ofhis two campaigns in the Soudan and Japan, had been always stationed inAlgeria. He had now a staff appointment at Mostaganem, and had latelybeen entrusted with some topographical work on the coast between Tenesand the Shelif. It was a matter of little consequence to him that thegourbi, in which of necessity he was quartered, was uncomfortable andill-contrived; he loved the open air, and the independence of his lifesuited him well. Sometimes he would wander on foot upon the sandy shore,and sometimes he would enjoy a ride along the summit of the cliff;altogether being in no hurry at all to bring his task to an end. Hisoccupation, moreover, was not so engrossing but that he could findleisure for taking a short railway journey once or twice a week; sothat he was ever and again putting in an appearance at the general'sreceptions at Oran, and at the fetes given by the governor at Algiers.

  It was on one of these occasions that he had first met Madame de L----,the lady to whom he was desirous of dedicating the rondo, the first fourlines of which had just seen the light. She was a colonel's widow,young and handsome, very reserved, not to say haughty in her manner, andeither indifferent or impervious to the admiration which she inspired.Captain Servadac had not yet ventured to declare his attachment; ofrivals he was well aware he had not a few, and amongst these not theleast formidable was the Russian Count Timascheff. And although theyoung widow was all unconscious of the share she had in the matter, itwas she, and she alone, who was the cause of the challenge just givenand accepted by her two ardent admirers.

  During his residence in the gourbi, Hector Servadac's sole companionwas his orderly, Ben Zoof. Ben Zoof was devoted, body and soul, to hissuperior officer. His own personal ambition was so entirely absorbed inhis master's welfare, that it is certain no offer of promotion--even hadit been that of aide-de-camp to the Governor-General of Algiers--wouldhave induced him to quit that master's service. His name might seemto imply that he was a native of Algeria; but such was by no means thecase. His true name was Laurent; he was a native of Montmartre in Paris,and how or why he had obtained his patronymic was one of those anomalieswhich the most sagacious of etymologists would find it hard to explain.

  Born on the hill of Montmartre, between the Solferino tower and themill of La Galette, Ben Zoof had ever possessed the most unreservedadmiration for his birthplace; and to his eyes the heights and districtof Montmartre represented an epitome of all the wonders of the world.In all his travels, and these had been not a few, he had neverbeheld scenery which could compete with that of his native home.No cathedral--not even Burgos itself--could vie with the church atMontmartre. Its race-course could well hold its own against that atPentelique; its reservoir would throw the Mediterranean into the shade;its forests had flourished long before the invasion of the Celts; andits very mill produced no ordinary flour, but provided materialfor cakes of world-wide renown. To crown all, Montmartre boasted amountain--a veritable mountain; envious tongues indeed might pronounceit little more than a hill; but Ben Zoof would have allowed himselfto be hewn in pieces rather than admit that it was anything less thanfifteen thousand feet in height.

  Ben Zoof's most ambitious desire was to induce the captain to go withhim and end his days in his much-loved home, and so incessantly wereServadac's ears besieged with descriptions of the unparalleled beautiesand advantages of this eighteenth arrondissement of Paris, that hecould scarcely hear the name of Montmartre without a conscious thrillof aversion. Ben Zoof, however, did not despair of ultimately convertingthe captain, and meanwhile had resolved never to leave him. When aprivate in the 8th Cavalry, he had been on the point of quittingthe army at twenty-eight years of age, but unexpectedly he had beenappointed orderly to Captain Servadac. Side by side they fought in twocampaigns. Servadac had saved Ben Zoof's life in Japan; Ben Zoof hadrendered his master a like service in the Soudan. The bond of union thuseffected could never be severed; and although Ben Zoof's achievementshad fairly earned him the right of retirement, he firmly declined allhonors or any pension that might part him from his superior officer. Twostout arms, an iron constitution, a powerful frame, and an indomitablecourage were all loyally devoted to his master's service, and fairlyentitled him to his _soi-disant_ designation of "The Rampart ofMontmartre." Unlike his master, he made no pretension to any giftof poetic power, but his inexhaustible memory made him a livingencyclopaedia; and for his stock of anecdotes and trooper's tales he wasmatchless.

  Thoroughly appreciating his servant's good qualities, Captain Servadacendured with imperturbable good humor those idiosyncrasies, which ina less faithful follower would have been intolerable, and from timeto time he would drop a word of sympathy that served to deepen hissubordinate's devotion.

  On one occasion, when Ben Zoof had mounted his hobby-horse, andwas indulging in high-flown praises about his beloved eighteentharrondissement, the captain had remarked gravely, "Do you know, BenZoof, that Montmartre only requires a matter of some thirteen thousandfeet to make it as high as Mont Blanc?"

  Ben Zoof's eyes glistened with delight; and from that moment HectorServadac and Montmar
tre held equal places in his affection.