red 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."

"Beyond a question the documents have originated with him," assented
the lieutenant. "Gallia was the word written at the top of every one of
them, and Gallia was the first word uttered by him in our hearing."

The astronomer slept on. Meanwhile, the three together had no
hesitation in examining his papers, and scrutinizing the figures on his
extemp