Captain Servadac, it may well be imagined, did not experience
the same gratifying emotion.

On the 20th, the distance between the two bodies had again
sensibly diminished. The captain had ceased to be surprised
that no vessel had been sent to rescue himself and his
companion from their strange imprisonment; the governor
general and the minister of war were doubtless far differently
occupied, and their interests far otherwise engrossed.
What sensational articles, he thought, must now be teeming to
the newspapers! What crowds must be flocking to the churches!
The end of the world approaching! the great climax close at hand!
Two days more, and the earth, shivered into a myriad atoms,
would be lost in boundless space!

These dire forebodings, however, were not destined to be realized.
Gradually the distance between the two planets began to increase;
the planes of their orbits did not coincide, and accordingly
the dreaded catastrophe did not ensue. By the 25th, Venus was
sufficiently remote to preclude any further fear of collision.
Ben Zoof gave a sigh of relief when the captain communicated
the glad intelligence.

Their proximity to Venus had been close enough to demonstrate
that beyond a doubt that planet has no moon or satellite such
as Cassini, Short, Montaigne of Limoges, Montbarron, and some
other astronomers have imagined to exist. "Had there been such
a satellite," said Servadac, "we might have captured it in passing.
But what can be the meaning," he added seriously, "of all this
displacement of the heavenly bodies?"