the author's works. The sketches of mines and miners, their courage
and their dangers, their lives and their hopes, are carefully studied.
So also is the emotional aspect of the deeps under ground, the blackness,
the endless wandering passages, the silence, and the awe._




Off on a Comet OR Hector Servadac




CHAPTER I

A CHALLENGE


Nothing, sir, can induce me to surrender my claim."

"I am sorry, count, but in such a matter your views cannot modify mine."

"But allow me to point out that my seniority unquestionably gives
me a prior right."

"Mere seniority, I assert, in an affair of this kind, cannot possibly
entitle you to any prior claim whatever."

"Then, captain, no alternative is left but for me to compel you
to yield at the sword's point."