Servadac raised his watch to his ear. "It is going," said he; "but, by all
the wines of Medoc, I am puzzled. Don't you see the sun is in the west?
It must be near setting."

"Setting, captain! Why, it is rising finely, like a conscript at the sound
of the reveille. It is considerably higher since we have been talking."

Incredible as it might appear, the fact was undeniable that the sun
was rising over the Shelif from that quarter of the horizon behind
which it usually sank for the latter portion of its daily round.
They were utterly bewildered. Some mysterious phenomenon must not
only have altered the position of the sun in the sidereal system,
but must even have brought about an important modification of the earth's
rotation on her axis.

Captain Servadac consoled himself with the prospect of reading
an explanation of the mystery in next week's newspapers, and turned
his attention to what was to him of more immediate importance.
"Come, let us be off," said he to his orderly; "though heaven
and earth be topsy-turvy, I must be at my post this morning."

"To do Count Timascheff the honor of running him through the body,"
added Ben Zoof.

If Servadac and his orderly had been less preoccupied, they would
have noticed that a variety of other physical changes besides
the apparent alteration in the movement of the sun had been evolved
during the atmospheric disturbances of that New Year's night.
As they descended the steep footpath leading from the cliff towards
the Shelif, they were unconscious that their respiration became