the captain. "I wonder, too, what the Minister of War will say when
he receives a telegram informing him that his African colony has become,
not morally, but physically disorganized; that the cardinal points
are at variance with ordinary rules, and that the sun in the month of
January is shining down vertically upon our heads."

Ben Zoof, whose ideas of discipline were extremely rigid, at once
suggested that the colony should be put under the surveillance of the
police, that the cardinal points should be placed under restraint, and
that the sun should be shot for breach of discipline.

Meantime, they were both advancing with the utmost speed. The
decompression of the atmosphere made the specific gravity of their
bodies extraordinarily light, and they ran like hares and leaped like
chamois. Leaving the devious windings of the footpath, they went as
a crow would fly across the country. Hedges, trees, and streams were
cleared at a bound, and under these conditions Ben Zoof felt that he
could have overstepped Montmartre at a single stride. The earth seemed
as elastic as the springboard of an acrobat; they scarcely touched it
with their feet, and their only fear was lest the height to which they
were propelled would consume the time which they were saving by their
short cut across the fields.

It was not long before their wild career brought them to the right bank
of the Shelif. Here they were compelled to stop, for not only had the
bridge completely disappeared, but the river itself no longer existed.
Of the left bank there was not the slightest trace, and the right bank,
which on the previous evening had bounded the yellow stream, as it
murmured peacefully along the fertile plain, had now become the shore of
a tumultuous ocean, its azure waters extending westwards far as the eye
could reach, and annihilating the tract of country which had hitherto
formed the district of Mostaganem. The shore coincided exactly with what
had been the right bank of the Shelif, and in a slightly curved line
ran north and south, whilst the adjacent groves and meadows all retained
their previous positions. But the river-bank had become the shore of an
unknown sea.

Eager to throw some light upon the mystery, Servadac hurriedly made his
way through the oleander bushes that overhung the shore, took up some
water in the hollow of his hand, and carried it to his lips. "Salt
as brine!" he exclaimed, as soon as he had tasted it. "The sea has
undou