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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Robur the Conqueror, by Jules Verne
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Robur the Conqueror
+
+Author: Jules Verne
+
+Release Date: September 19, 2001 [eBook #3808]
+[Most recently updated: April 21, 2023]
+
+Language: English
+
+Produced by: Norman Wolcott
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBUR THE CONQUEROR ***
+
+
+
+
+ROBUR THE CONQUEROR
+
+By Jules Verne
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+ CHAPTER I Mysterious sounds
+ CHAPTER II Agreement Impossible
+ CHAPTER III A Visitor is Announced
+ CHAPTER IV In Which a New Character Appears
+ CHAPTER V Another Disappearance
+ CHAPTER VI The President and Secretary Suspend Hostilities
+ CHAPTER VII On board the Albatross
+ CHAPTER VIII The Balloonists Refuse to be Convinced
+ CHAPTER IX Across the Prairie
+ CHAPTER X Westward—but Whither?
+ CHAPTER XI The Wide Pacific
+ CHAPTER XII Through the Himalayas
+ CHAPTER XIII Over the Caspian
+ CHAPTER XIV The Aeronef at Full Speed
+ CHAPTER XV A Skirmish in Dahomey
+ CHAPTER XVI Over the Atlantic
+ CHAPTER XVII The Shipwrecked Crew
+ CHAPTER XVIII Over the Volcano
+ CHAPTER XIX Anchored at Last
+ CHAPTER XX The Wreck of the Albatross
+ CHAPTER XXI The Institute Again
+ CHAPTER XXII The Go-Ahead is Launched
+ CHAPTER XXIII The Grand Collapse
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I
+MYSTERIOUS SOUNDS
+
+
+BANG! Bang!
+
+The pistol shots were almost simultaneous. A cow peacefully grazing
+fifty yards away received one of the bullets in her back. She had
+nothing to do with the quarrel all the same.
+
+Neither of the adversaries was hit.
+
+Who were these two gentlemen? We do not know, although this would be an
+excellent opportunity to hand down their names to posterity. All we can
+say is that the elder was an Englishman and the younger an American,
+and both of them were old enough to know better.
+
+So far as recording in what locality the inoffensive ruminant had just
+tasted her last tuft of herbage, nothing can be easier. It was on the
+left bank of Niagara, not far from the suspension bridge which joins
+the American to the Canadian bank three miles from the falls.
+
+The Englishman stepped up to the American.
+
+“I contend, nevertheless, that it was ‘Rule Britannia!’”
+
+“And I say it was ‘Yankee Doodle!’” replied the young American.
+
+The dispute was about to begin again when one of the seconds—doubtless
+in the interests of the milk trade—interposed.
+
+“Suppose we say it was ‘Rule Doodle’ and ‘Yankee Britannia’ and adjourn
+to breakfast?”
+
+This compromise between the national airs of Great Britain and the
+United States was adopted to the general satisfaction. The Americans
+and Englishmen walked up the left bank of the Niagara on their way to
+Goat Island, the neutral ground between the falls. Let us leave them in
+the presence of the boiled eggs and traditional ham, and floods enough
+of tea to make the cataract jealous, and trouble ourselves no more
+about them. It is extremely unlikely that we shall again meet with them
+in this story.
+
+Which was right; the Englishman or the American? It is not easy to say.
+Anyhow the duel shows how great was the excitement, not only in the new
+but also in the old world, with regard to an inexplicable phenomenon
+which for a month or more had driven everybody to distraction.
+
+Never had the sky been so much looked at since the appearance of man on
+the terrestrial globe. The night before an aerial trumpet had blared
+its brazen notes through space immediately over that part of Canada
+between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. Some people had heard those notes
+as “Yankee Doodle.” others had heard them as “Rule Britannia.” and
+hence the quarrel between the Anglo-Saxons, which ended with the
+breakfast on Goat Island. Perhaps it was neither one nor the other of
+these patriotic tunes, but what was undoubted by all was that these
+extraordinary sounds had seemed to descend from the sky to the earth.
+
+What could it be? Was it some exuberant aeronaut rejoicing on that
+sonorous instrument of which the Renommée makes such obstreperous use?
+
+No! There was no balloon and there were no aeronauts. Some strange
+phenomenon had occurred in the higher zones of the atmosphere, a
+phenomenon of which neither the nature nor the cause could be
+explained. Today it appeared over America; forty-eight hours afterwards
+it was over Europe; a week later it was in Asia over the Celestial
+Empire.
+
+Hence in every country of the world—empire, kingdom, or republic—there
+was anxiety which it was important to allay. If you hear in your house
+strange and inexplicable noises, do you not at once endeavor to
+discover the cause? And if your search is in vain, do you not leave
+your house and take up your quarters in another? But in this case the
+house was the terrestrial globe! There are no means of leaving that
+house for the moon or Mars, or Venus, or Jupiter, or any other planet
+of the solar system. And so of necessity we have to find out what it is
+that takes place, not in the infinite void, but within the
+atmospherical zones. In fact, if there is no air there is no noise, and
+as there was a noise—that famous trumpet, to wit—the phenomenon must
+occur in the air, the density of which invariably diminishes, and which
+does not extend for more than six miles round our spheroid.
+
+Naturally the newspapers took up the question in their thousands, and
+treated it in every form, throwing on it both light and darkness,
+recording many things about it true or false, alarming and
+tranquillizing their readers—as the sale required—and almost driving
+ordinary people mad. At one blow party politics dropped unheeded—and
+the affairs of the world went on none the worse for it.
+
+But what could this thing be? There was not an observatory that was not
+applied to. If an observatory could not give a satisfactory answer what
+was the use of observatories? If astronomers, who doubled and tripled
+the stars a hundred thousand million miles away, could not explain a
+phenomenon occurring only a few miles off, what was the use of
+astronomers?
+
+The observatory at Paris was very guarded in what it said. In the
+mathematical section they had not thought the statement worth noticing;
+in the meridional section they knew nothing about it; in the physical
+observatory they had not come across it; in the geodetic section they
+had had no observation; in the meteorological section there had been no
+record; in the calculating room they had had nothing to deal with. At
+any rate this confession was a frank one, and the same frankness
+characterized the replies from the observatory of Montsouris and the
+magnetic station in the park of St. Maur. The same respect for the
+truth distinguished the Bureau des Longitudes.
+
+The provinces were slightly more affirmative. Perhaps in the night of
+the fifth and the morning of the sixth of May there had appeared a
+flash of light of electrical origin which lasted about twenty seconds.
+At the Pic du Midi this light appeared between nine and ten in the
+evening. At the Meteorological Observatory on the Puy de Dome the light
+had been observed between one and two o’clock in the morning; at Mont
+Ventoux in Provence it had been seen between two and three o’clock; at
+Nice it had been noticed between three and four o’clock; while at the
+Semnoz Alps between Annecy, Le Bourget, and Le Léman, it had been
+detected just as the zenith was paling with the dawn.
+
+Now it evidently would not do to disregard these observations
+altogether. There could be no doubt that a light had been observed at
+different places, in succession, at intervals, during some hours.
+Hence, whether it had been produced from many centers in the
+terrestrial atmosphere, or from one center, it was plain that the light
+must have traveled at a speed of over one hundred and twenty miles an
+hour.
+
+In the United Kingdom there was much perplexity. The observatories were
+not in agreement. Greenwich would not consent to the proposition of
+Oxford. They were agreed on one point, however, and that was: “It was
+nothing at all!”
+
+But, said one, “It was an optical illusion!” While the other contended
+that, “It was an acoustical illusion!” And so they disputed. Something,
+however, was, it will be seen, common to both “It was an illusion.”
+
+Between the observatory of Berlin and the observatory of Vienna the
+discussion threatened to end in international complications; but
+Russia, in the person of the director of the observatory at Pulkowa,
+showed that both were right. It all depended on the point of view from
+which they attacked the phenomenon, which, though impossible in theory,
+was possible in practice.
+
+In Switzerland, at the observatory of Sautis in the canton of
+Appenzell, at the Righi, at the Gäbriss, in the passes of the St.
+Gothard, at the St. Bernard, at the Julier, at the Simplon, at Zurich,
+at Somblick in the Tyrolean Alps, there was a very strong
+disinclination to say anything about what nobody could prove—and that
+was nothing but reasonable.
+
+But in Italy, at the meteorological stations on Vesuvius, on Etna in
+the old Casa Inglesi, at Monte Cavo, the observers made no hesitation
+in admitting the materiality of the phenomenon, particularly as they
+had seen it by day in the form of a small cloud of vapor, and by night
+in that of a shooting star. But of what it was they knew nothing.
+
+Scientists began at last to tire of the mystery, while they continued
+to disagree about it, and even to frighten the lowly and the ignorant,
+who, thanks to one of the wisest laws of nature, have formed, form, and
+will form the immense majority of the world’s inhabitants. Astronomers
+and meteorologists would soon have dropped the subject altogether had
+not, on the night of the 26th and 27th, the observatory of Kautokeino
+at Finmark, in Norway, and during the night of the 28th and 29th that
+of Isfjord at Spitzbergen—Norwegian one and Swedish the other—found
+themselves agreed in recording that in the center of an aurora borealis
+there had appeared a sort of huge bird, an aerial monster, whose
+structure they were unable to determine, but who, there was no doubt,
+was showering off from his body certain corpuscles which exploded like
+bombs.
+
+In Europe not a doubt was thrown on this observation of the stations in
+Finmark and Spitzbergen. But what appeared the most phenomenal about it
+was that the Swedes and Norwegians could find themselves in agreement
+on any subject whatever.
+
+There was a laugh at the asserted discovery in all the observatories of
+South America, in Brazil, Peru, and La Plata, and in those of Australia
+at Sydney, Adelaide, and Melbourne; and Australian laughter is very
+catching.
+
+To sum up, only one chief of a meteorological station ventured on a
+decided answer to this question, notwithstanding the sarcasms that his
+solution provoked. This was a Chinaman, the director of the observatory
+at Zi-Ka-Wey which rises in the center of a vast plateau less than
+thirty miles from the sea, having an immense horizon and wonderfully
+pure atmosphere. “It is possible.” said he, “that the object was an
+aviform apparatus—a flying machine!”
+
+What nonsense!
+
+But if the controversy was keen in the old world, we can imagine what
+it was like in that portion of the new of which the United States
+occupy so vast an area.
+
+A Yankee, we know, does not waste time on the road. He takes the street
+that leads him straight to his end. And the observatories of the
+American Federation did not hesitate to do their best. If they did not
+hurl their objectives at each other’s heads, it was because they would
+have had to put them back just when they most wanted to use them. In
+this much-disputed question the observatories of Washington in the
+District of Columbia, and Cambridge in Massachusetts, found themselves
+opposed by those of Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, and Ann Arbor
+in Michigan. The subject of their dispute was not the nature of the
+body observed, but the precise moment of its observation. All of them
+claimed to have seen it the same night, the same hour, the same minute,
+the same second, although the trajectory of the mysterious voyager took
+it but a moderate height above the horizon. Now from Massachusetts to
+Michigan, from New Hampshire to Columbia, the distance is too great for
+this double observation, made at the same moment, to be considered
+possible.
+
+Dudley at Albany, in the state of New York, and West Point, the
+military academy, showed that their colleagues were wrong by an
+elaborate calculation of the right ascension and declination of the
+aforesaid body.
+
+But later on it was discovered that the observers had been deceived in
+the body, and that what they had seen was an aerolite. This aerolite
+could not be the object in question, for how could an aerolite blow a
+trumpet?
+
+It was in vain that they tried to get rid of this trumpet as an optical
+illusion. The ears were no more deceived than the eyes. Something had
+assuredly been seen, and something had assuredly been heard. In the
+night of the 12th and 13th of May—a very dark night—the observers at
+Yale College, in the Sheffield Science School, had been able to take
+down a few bars of a musical phrase in D major, common time, which gave
+note for note, rhythm for rhythm, the chorus of the Chant du Départ.
+
+“Good.” said the Yankee wags. “There is a French band well up in the
+air.”
+
+“But to joke is not to answer.” Thus said the observatory at Boston,
+founded by the Atlantic Iron Works Society, whose opinions in matters
+of astronomy and meteorology began to have much weight in the world of
+science.
+
+Then there intervened the observatory at Cincinnati, founded in 1870,
+on Mount Lookout, thanks to the generosity of Mr. Kilgour, and known
+for its micrometrical measurements of double stars. Its director
+declared with the utmost good faith that there had certainly been
+something, that a traveling body had shown itself at very short periods
+at different points in the atmosphere, but what were the nature of this
+body, its dimensions, its speed, and its trajectory, it was impossible
+to say.
+
+It was then a journal whose publicity is immense—the “New York
+Herald”—received the anonymous contribution hereunder.
+
+“There will be in the recollection of most people the rivalry which
+existed a few years ago between the two heirs of the Begum of
+Ragginahra, the French doctor Sarrasin, the city of Frankville, and the
+German engineer Schultze, in the city of Steeltown, both in the south
+of Oregon in the United States.
+
+“It will not have been forgotten that, with the object of destroying
+Frankville, Herr Schultze launched a formidable engine, intended to
+beat down the town and annihilate it at a single blow.
+
+“Still less will it be forgotten that this engine, whose initial
+velocity as it left the mouth of the monster cannon had been
+erroneously calculated, had flown off at a speed exceeding by sixteen
+times that of ordinary projectiles—or about four hundred and fifty
+miles an hour—that it did not fall to the ground, and that it passed
+into an aerolitic stage, so as to circle for ever round our globe.
+
+“Why should not this be the body in question?”
+
+Very ingenious, Mr. Correspondent on the “New York Herald!” but how
+about the trumpet? There was no trumpet in Herr Schulze’s projectile!
+
+So all the explanations explained nothing, and all the observers had
+observed in vain. There remained only the suggestion offered by the
+director of Zi-Ka-Wey. But the opinion of a Chinaman!
+
+The discussion continued, and there was no sign of agreement. Then came
+a short period of rest. Some days elapsed without any object, aerolite
+or otherwise, being described, and without any trumpet notes being
+heard in the atmosphere. The body then had fallen on some part of the
+globe where it had been difficult to trace it; in the sea, perhaps. Had
+it sunk in the depths of the Atlantic, the Pacific, or the Indian
+Ocean? What was to be said in this matter?
+
+But then, between the 2nd and 9th of June, there came a new series of
+facts which could not possibly be explained by the unaided existence of
+a cosmic phenomenon.
+
+In a week the Hamburgers at the top of St. Michael’s Tower, the Turks
+on the highest minaret of St. Sophia, the Rouennais at the end of the
+metal spire of their cathedral, the Strasburgers at the summit of their
+minister, the Americans on the head of the Liberty statue at the
+entrance of the Hudson and on the Bunker Hill monument at Boston, the
+Chinese at the spike of the temple of the Four Hundred Genii at Canton,
+the Hindus on the sixteenth terrace of the pyramid of the temple at
+Tanjore, the San Pietrini at the cross of St. Peter’s at Rome, the
+English at the cross of St. Paul’s in London, the Egyptians at the apex
+of the Great Pyramid of Ghizeh, the Parisians at the lighting conductor
+of the iron tower of the Exposition of 1889, a thousand feet high, all
+of them beheld a flag floating from some one of these inaccessible
+points.
+
+And the flag was black, dotted with stars, and it bore a golden sun in
+its center.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II
+AGREEMENT IMPOSSIBLE
+
+
+“And the first who says the contrary—”
+
+“Indeed! But we will say the contrary so long as there is a place to
+say it in!”
+
+“And in spite of your threats—”
+
+“Mind what you are saying, Bat Fynn!”
+
+“Mind what you are saying, Uncle Prudent!”
+
+“I maintain that the screw ought to be behind!”
+
+“And so do we! And so do we!” replied half a hundred voices confounded
+in one.
+
+“No! It ought to be in front!” shouted Phil Evans.
+
+“In front!” roared fifty other voices, with a vigor in no whit less
+remarkable.
+
+“We shall never agree!”
+
+“Never! Never!”
+
+“Then what is the use of a dispute?”
+
+“It is not a dispute! It is a discussion!”
+
+One would not have thought so to listen to the taunts, objurgations,
+and vociferations which filled the lecture room for a good quarter of
+an hour.
+
+The room was one of the largest in the Weldon Institute, the well-known
+club in Walnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U. S. A. The evening
+before there had been an election of a lamplighter, occasioning many
+public manifestations, noisy meetings, and even interchanges of blows,
+resulting in an effervescence which had not yet subsided, and which
+would account for some of the excitement just exhibited by the members
+of the Weldon Institute. For this was merely a meeting of balloonists,
+discussing the burning question of the direction of balloons.
+
+In this great saloon there were struggling, pushing, gesticulating,
+shouting, arguing, disputing, a hundred balloonists, all with their
+hats on, under the authority of a president, assisted by a secretary
+and treasurer. They were not engineers by profession, but simply
+amateurs of all that appertained to aerostatics, and they were amateurs
+in a fury, and especially foes of those who would oppose to aerostats
+“apparatuses heavier than the air.” flying machines, aerial ships, or
+what not. That these people might one day discover the method of
+guiding balloons is possible. There could be no doubt that their
+president had considerable difficulty in guiding them.
+
+This president, well known in Philadelphia, was the famous Uncle
+Prudent, Prudent being his family name. There is nothing surprising in
+America in the qualificative uncle, for you can there be uncle without
+having either nephew or niece. There they speak of uncle as in other
+places they speak of father, though the father may have had no
+children.
+
+Uncle Prudent was a personage of consideration, and in spite of his
+name was well known for his audacity. He was very rich, and that is no
+drawback even in the United States; and how could it be otherwise when
+he owned the greater part of the shares in Niagara Falls? A society of
+engineers had just been founded at Buffalo for working the cataract. It
+seemed to be an excellent speculation. The seven thousand five hundred
+cubic meters that pass over Niagara in a second would produce seven
+millions of horsepower. This enormous power, distributed amongst all
+the workshops within a radius of three hundred miles, would return an
+annual income of three hundred million dollars, of which the greater
+part would find its way into the pocket of Uncle Prudent. He was a
+bachelor, he lived quietly, and for his only servant had his valet
+Frycollin, who was hardly worthy of being the servant to so audacious a
+master.
+
+Uncle Prudent was rich, and therefore he had friends, as was natural;
+but he also had enemies, although he was president of the club—among
+others all those who envied his position. Amongst his bitterest foes we
+may mention the secretary of the Weldon Institute.
+
+This was Phil Evans, who was also very rich, being the manager of the
+Wheelton Watch Company, an important manufactory, which makes every day
+five hundred movements equal in every respect to the best Swiss
+workmanship. Phil Evans would have passed for one of the happiest men
+in the world, and even in the United States, if it had not been for
+Uncle Prudent. Like him he was in his forty-sixth year; like him of
+invariable health; like him of undoubted boldness. They were two men
+made to understand each other thoroughly, but they did not, for both
+were of extreme violence of character. Uncle Prudent was furiously hot;
+Phil Evans was abnormally cool.
+
+And why had not Phil Evans been elected president of the club? The
+votes were exactly divided between Uncle Prudent and him. Twenty times
+there had been a scrutiny, and twenty times the majority had not
+declared for either one or the other. The position was embarrassing,
+and it might have lasted for the lifetime of the candidates.
+
+One of the members of the club then proposed a way out of the
+difficulty. This was Jem Chip, the treasurer of the Weldon Institute.
+Chip was a confirmed vegetarian, a proscriber of all animal
+nourishment, of all fermented liquors, half a Mussulman, half a
+Brahman. On this occasion Jem Chip was supported by another member of
+the club, William T. Forbes, the manager of a large factory where they
+made glucose by treating rags with sulphuric acid. A man of good
+standing was this William T. Forbes, the father of two charming
+girls—Miss Dorothy, called Doll, and Miss Martha, called Mat, who gave
+the tone to the best society in Philadelphia.
+
+It followed, then, on the proposition of Jem Chip, supported by William
+T. Forbes and others, that it was decided to elect the president “on
+the center point.”
+
+This mode of election can be applied in all cases when it is desired to
+elect the most worthy; and a number of Americans of high intelligence
+are already thinking of employing it in the nomination of the President
+of the Republic of the United States.
+
+On two boards of perfect whiteness a black line is traced. The length
+of each of these lines is mathematically the same, for they have been
+determined with as much accuracy as the base of the first triangle in a
+trigonometrical survey. That done, the two boards were erected on the
+same day in the center of the conference room, and the two candidates,
+each armed with a fine needle, marched towards the board that had
+fallen to his lot. The man who planted his needle nearest the center of
+the line would be proclaimed President of the Weldon Institute.
+
+The operation must be done at once—no guide marks or trial shots
+allowed; nothing but sureness of eye. The man must have a compass in
+his eye, as the saying goes; that was all.
+
+Uncle Prudent stuck in his needle at the same moment as Phil Evans did
+his. Then there began the measurement to discover which of the two
+competitors had most nearly approached the center.
+
+Wonderful! Such had been the precision of the shots that the measures
+gave no appreciable difference. If they were not exactly in the
+mathematical center of the line, the distance between the needles was
+so small as to be invisible to the naked eye.
+
+The meeting was much embarrassed.
+
+Fortunately one of the members, Truck Milnor, insisted that the
+measurements should be remade by means of a rule graduated by the
+micrometrical machine of M. Perreaux, which can divide a millimeter
+into fifteen-hundredths of a millimeter with a diamond splinter, was
+brought to bear on the lines; and on reading the divisions through a
+microscope the following were the results: Uncle Prudent had approached
+the center within less than six fifteenth-hundredths of a millimeter.
+Phil Evans was within nine fifteen-hundredths.
+
+And that is why Phil Evans was only secretary of the Weldon Institute,
+whereas Uncle Prudent was president. A difference of three
+fifteen-hundredths of a millimeter! And on account of it Phil Evans
+vowed against Uncle Prudent one of those hatreds which are none the
+less fierce for being latent.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III
+A VISITOR IS ANNOUNCED
+
+
+The many experiments made during this last quarter of the nineteenth
+century have given considerable impetus to the question of guidable
+balloons. The cars furnished with propellers attached in 1852 to the
+aerostats of the elongated form introduced by Henry Giffard, the
+machines of Dupuy de Lome in 1872, of the Tissandier brothers in 1883,
+and of Captain Krebs and Renard in 1884, yielded many important
+results. But if these machines, moving in a medium heavier than
+themselves, maneuvering under the propulsion of a screw, working at an
+angle to the direction of the wind, and even against the wind, to
+return to their point of departure, had been really “guidable.” they
+had only succeeded under very favorable conditions. In large, covered
+halls their success was perfect. In a calm atmosphere they did very
+well. In a light wind of five or six yards a second they still moved.
+But nothing practical had been obtained. Against a miller’s wind—nine
+yards a second—the machines had remained almost stationary. Against a
+fresh breeze—eleven yards a second—they would have advanced backwards.
+In a storm—twenty-seven to thirty-three yards a second—they would have
+been blown about like a feather. In a hurricane—sixty yards a
+second—they would have run the risk of being dashed to pieces. And in
+one of those cyclones which exceed a hundred yards a second not a
+fragment of them would have been left. It remained, then, even after
+the striking experiments of Captains Krebs and Renard, that though
+guidable aerostats had gained a little speed, they could not be kept
+going in a moderate breeze. Hence the impossibility of making practical
+use of this mode of aerial locomotion.
+
+With regards to the means employed to give the aerostat its motion a
+great deal of progress had been made. For the steam engines of Henry
+Giffard, and the muscular force of Dupuy de Lome, electric motors had
+gradually been substituted. The batteries of bichromate of potassium of
+the Tissandier brothers had given a speed of four yards a second. The
+dynamo-electric machines of Captain Krebs and Renard had developed a
+force of twelve horsepower and yielded a speed of six and a half yards
+per second.
+
+With regard to this motor, engineers and electricians had been
+approaching more and more to that desideratum which is known as a steam
+horse in a watch case. Gradually the results of the pile of which
+Captains Krebs and Renard had kept the secret had been surpassed, and
+aeronauts had become able to avail themselves of motors whose lightness
+increased at the same time as their power.
+
+In this there was much to encourage those who believed in the
+utilization of guidable balloons. But yet how many good people there
+are who refuse to admit the possibility of such a thing! If the
+aerostat finds support in the air it belongs to the medium in which it
+moves; under such conditions, how can its mass, which offers so much
+resistance to the currents of the atmosphere, make its way against the
+wind?
+
+In this struggle of the inventors after a light and powerful motor, the
+Americans had most nearly attained what they sought. A dynamo-electric
+apparatus, in which a new pile was employed the composition of which
+was still a mystery, had been bought from its inventor, a Boston
+chemist up to then unknown. Calculations made with the greatest care,
+diagrams drawn with the utmost exactitude, showed that by means of this
+apparatus driving a screw of given dimensions a displacement could be
+obtained of from twenty to twenty-two yards a second.
+
+Now this was magnificent!
+
+“And it is not dear.” said Uncle Prudent, as he handed to the inventor
+in return for his formal receipt the last installment of the hundred
+thousand paper dollars he had paid for his invention.
+
+Immediately the Weldon Institute set to work. When there comes along a
+project of practical utility the money leaps nimbly enough from
+American pockets. The funds flowed in even without its being necessary
+to form a syndicate. Three hundred thousand dollars came into the
+club’s account at the first appeal. The work began under the
+superintendence of the most celebrated aeronaut of the United States,
+Harry W. Tinder, immortalized by three of his ascents out of a
+thousand, one in which he rose to a height of twelve thousand yards,
+higher than Gay Lussac, Coxwell, Sivet, Crocé-Spinelli, Tissandier,
+Glaisher; another in which he had crossed America from New York to San
+Francisco, exceeding by many hundred leagues the journeys of Nadar,
+Godard, and others, to say nothing of that of John Wise, who
+accomplished eleven hundred and fifty miles from St. Louis to Jefferson
+county; the third, which ended in a frightful fall from fifteen hundred
+feet at the cost of a slight sprain in the right thumb, while the less
+fortunate Pilâtre de Rozier fell only seven hundred feet, and yet
+killed himself on the spot!
+
+At the time this story begins the Weldon Institute had got their work
+well in hand. In the Turner yard at Philadelphia there reposed an
+enormous aerostat, whose strength had been tried by highly compressed
+air. It well merited the name of the monster balloon.
+
+How large was Nadar’s Géant? Six thousand cubic meters. How large was
+John Wise’s balloon? Twenty thousand cubic meters. How large was the
+Giffard balloon at the 1878 Exhibition? Twenty-five thousand cubic
+meters. Compare these three aerostats with the aerial machine of the
+Weldon Institute, whose volume amounted to forty thousand cubic meters,
+and you will understand why Uncle Prudent and his colleagues were so
+justifiably proud of it.
+
+This balloon not being destined for the exploration of the higher
+strata of the atmosphere, was not called the Excelsior, a name which is
+rather too much held in honor among the citizens of America. No! It was
+called, simply, the “Go-Ahead.” and all it had to do was to justify its
+name by going ahead obediently to the wishes of its commander.
+
+The dynamo-electric machine, according to the patent purchased by the
+Weldon Institute, was nearly ready. In less than six weeks the
+“Go-Ahead” would start for its first cruise through space.
+
+But, as we have seen, all the mechanical difficulties had not been
+overcome. Many evenings had been devoted to discussing, not the form of
+its screw nor its dimensions, but whether it ought to be put behind, as
+the Tissandier brothers had done, or before as Captains Krebs and
+Renard had done. It is unnecessary to add that the partisans of the two
+systems had almost come to blows. The group of “Beforists” were equaled
+in number by the group of “Behindists.” Uncle Prudent, who ought to
+have given the casting vote—Uncle Prudent, brought up doubtless in the
+school of Professor Buridan—could not bring himself to decide.
+
+Hence the impossibility of getting the screw into place. The dispute
+might last for some time, unless the government interfered. But in the
+United States the government meddles with private affairs as little as
+it possibly can. And it is right.
+
+Things were in this state at this meeting on the 13th of June, which
+threatened to end in a riot—insults exchanged, fisticuffs succeeding
+the insults, cane thrashings succeeding the fisticuffs, revolver shots
+succeeding the cane thrashings—when at thirty-seven minutes past eight
+there occurred a diversion.
+
+The porter of the Weldon Institute coolly and calmly, like a policeman
+amid the storm of the meeting, approached the presidential desk. On it
+he placed a card. He awaited the orders that Uncle Prudent found it
+convenient to give.
+
+Uncle Prudent turned on the steam whistle, which did duty for the
+presidential bell, for even the Kremlin clock would have struck in
+vain! But the tumult slackened not.
+
+Then the president removed his hat. Thanks to this extreme measure a
+semi-silence was obtained.
+
+“A communication!” said Uncle Prudent, after taking a huge pinch from
+the snuff-box which never left him.
+
+“Speak up!” answered eighty-nine voices, accidentally in agreement on
+this one point.
+
+“A stranger, my dear colleagues, asks to be admitted to the meeting.”
+
+“Never!” replied every voice.
+
+“He desires to prove to us, it would appear.” continued Uncle Prudent,
+“that to believe in guiding balloons is to believe in the absurdest of
+Utopias!”
+
+“Let him in! Let him in!”
+
+“What is the name of this singular personage?” asked secretary Phil
+Evans.
+
+“Robur.” replied Uncle Prudent.
+
+“Robur! Robur! Robur!” yelled the assembly. And the welcome accorded so
+quickly to the curious name was chiefly due to the Weldon Institute
+hoping to vent its exasperation on the head of him who bore it!
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV
+IN WHICH A NEW CHARACTER APPEARS
+
+
+“Citizens of the United States! My name is Robur. I am worthy of the
+name! I am forty years old, although I look but thirty, and I have a
+constitution of iron, a healthy vigor that nothing can shake, a
+muscular strength that few can equal, and a digestion that would be
+thought first class even in an ostrich!”
+
+They were listening! Yes! The riot was quelled at once by the totally
+unexpected fashion of the speech. Was this fellow a madman or a hoaxer?
+Whoever he was, he kept his audience in hand. There was not a whisper
+in the meeting in which but a few minutes ago the storm was in full
+fury.
+
+And Robur looked the man he said he was. Of middle height and geometric
+breadth, his figure was a regular trapezium with the greatest of its
+parallel sides formed by the line of his shoulders. On this line
+attached by a robust neck there rose an enormous spheroidal head. The
+head of what animal did it resemble from the point of view of passional
+analogy? The head of a bull; but a bull with an intelligent face. Eyes
+which at the least opposition would glow like coals of fire; and above
+them a permanent contraction of the superciliary muscle, an invariable
+sign of extreme energy. Short hair, slightly woolly, with metallic
+reflections; large chest rising and falling like a smith’s bellows;
+arms, hands, legs, feet, all worthy of the trunk. No mustaches, no
+whiskers, but a large American goatee, revealing the attachments of the
+jaw whose masseter muscles were evidently of formidable strength. It
+has been calculated—what has not been calculated?—that the pressure of
+the jaw of an ordinary crocodile can reach four hundred atmospheres,
+while that of a hound can only amount to one hundred. From this the
+following curious formula has been deduced: If a kilogram of dog
+produces eight kilograms of masseteric force, a kilogram of crocodile
+could produce twelve. Now, a kilogram of, the aforesaid Robur would not
+produce less than ten, so that he came between the dog and the
+crocodile.
+
+From what country did this remarkable specimen come? It was difficult
+to say. One thing was noticeable, and that was that he expressed
+himself fluently in English without a trace of the drawling twang that
+distinguishes the Yankees of New England.
+
+He continued: “And now, honorable citizens, for my mental faculties.
+You see before you an engineer whose nerves are in no way inferior to
+his muscles. I have no fear of anything or anybody. I have a strength
+of will that has never had to yield. When I have decided on a thing,
+all America, all the world, may strive in vain to keep me from it. When
+I have an idea, I allow no one to share it, and I do not permit any
+contradiction. I insist on these details, honorable citizens, because
+it is necessary you should quite understand me. Perhaps you think I am
+talking too much about myself? It does not matter if you do! And now
+consider a little before you interrupt me, as I have come to tell you
+something that you may not be particularly pleased to hear.”
+
+A sound as of the surf on the beach began to rise along the first row
+of seats—a sign that the sea would not be long in getting stormy again.
+
+“Speak, stranger!” said Uncle Prudent, who had some difficulty in
+restraining himself.
+
+And Robur spoke as follows, without troubling himself any more about
+his audience.
+
+“Yes! I know it well! After a century of experiments that have led to
+nothing, and trials giving no results, there still exist ill-balanced
+minds who believe in guiding balloons. They imagine that a motor of
+some sort, electric or otherwise, might be applied to their pretentious
+skin bags which are at the mercy of every current in the atmosphere.
+They persuade themselves that they can be masters of an aerostat as
+they can be masters of a ship on the surface of the sea. Because a few
+inventors in calm or nearly calm weather have succeeded in working an
+angle with the wind, or even beating to windward in a gentle breeze,
+they think that the steering of aerial apparatus lighter than the air
+is a practical matter. Well, now, look here; You hundred, who believe
+in the realization of your dreams, are throwing your thousands of
+dollars not into water but into space! You are fighting the
+impossible!”
+
+Strange as it was that at this affirmation the members of the Weldon
+Institute did not move. Had they become as deaf as they were patient?
+Or were they reserving themselves to see how far this audacious
+contradictor would dare to go?
+
+Robur continued: “What? A balloon! When to obtain the raising of a
+couple of pounds you require a cubic yard of gas. A balloon pretending
+to resist the wind by aid of its mechanism, when the pressure of a
+light breeze on a vessel’s sails is not less than that of four hundred
+horsepower; when in the accident at the Tay Bridge you saw the storm
+produce a pressure of eight and a half hundredweight on a square yard.
+A balloon, when on such a system nature has never constructed anything
+flying, whether furnished with wings like birds, or membranes like
+certain fish, or certain mammalia—”
+
+“Mammalia?” exclaimed one of the members.
+
+“Yes! Mammalia! The bat, which flies, if I am not mistaken! Is the
+gentleman unaware that this flyer is a mammal? Did he ever see an
+omelette made of bat’s eggs?”
+
+The interrupter reserved himself for future interruption, and Robur
+resumed: “But does that mean that man is to give up the conquest of the
+air, and the transformation of the domestic and political manners of
+the old world, by the use of this admirable means of locomotion? By no
+means. As he has become master of the seas with the ship, by the oar,
+the sail, the wheel and the screw, so shall he become master of
+atmospherical space by apparatus heavier than the air—for it must be
+heavier to be stronger than the air!”
+
+And then the assembly exploded. What a broadside of yells escaped from
+all these mouths, aimed at Robur like the muzzles of so many guns! Was
+not this hurling a declaration of war into the very camp of the
+balloonists? Was not this a stirring up of strife between ‘the lighter’
+and ‘the heavier’ than air?
+
+Robur did not even frown. With folded arms he waited bravely till
+silence was obtained.
+
+By a gesture Uncle Prudent ordered the firing to cease.
+
+“Yes.” continued Robur, “the future is for the flying machine. The air
+affords a solid fulcrum. If you will give a column of air an
+ascensional movement of forty-five meters a second, a man can support
+himself on the top of it if the soles of his boots have a superficies
+of only the eighth of a square meter. And if the speed be increased to
+ninety meters, he can walk on it with naked feet. Or if, by means of a
+screw, you drive a mass of air at this speed, you get the same result.”
+
+What Robur said had been said before by all the partisans of aviation,
+whose work slowly but surely is leading on to the solution of the
+problem. To Ponton d’Amécourt, La Landelle, Nadar, De Luzy, De Louvrié,
+Liais, Beleguir, Moreau, the brothers Richard, Babinet, Jobert, Du
+Temple, Salives, Penaud, De Villeneuve, Gauchot and Tatin, Michael
+Loup, Edison, Planavergne, and so many others, belongs the honor of
+having brought forward ideas of such simplicity. Abandoned and resumed
+times without number, they are sure, some day to triumph. To the
+enemies of aviation, who urge that the bird only sustains himself by
+warming the air he strikes, their answer is ready. Have they not proved
+that an eagle weighing five kilograms would have to fill fifty cubic
+meters with his warm fluid merely to sustain himself in space?
+
+This is what Robur demonstrated with undeniable logic amid the uproar
+that arose on all sides. And in conclusion these are the words he
+hurled in the faces of the balloonists: “With your aerostats you can do
+nothing—you will arrive at nothing—you dare do nothing! The boldest of
+your aeronauts, John Wise, although he has made an aerial voyage of
+twelve hundred miles above the American continent, has had to give up
+his project of crossing the Atlantic! And you have not advanced one
+step—not one step—towards your end.”
+
+“Sir.” said the president, who in vain endeavored to keep himself cool,
+“you forget what was said by our immortal Franklin at the first
+appearance of the fire balloon, ‘It is but a child, but it will grow!’
+It was but a child, and it has grown.”
+
+“No, Mr. President, it has not grown! It has got fatter—and this is not
+the same thing!”
+
+This was a direct attack on the Weldon Institute, which had decreed,
+helped, and paid for the making of a monster balloon. And so
+propositions of the following kind began to fly about the room: “Turn
+him out!” “Throw him off the platform!” “Prove that he is heavier than
+the air!”
+
+But these were only words, not means to an end.
+
+Robur remained impassible, and continued: “There is no progress for
+your aerostats, my citizen balloonists; progress is for flying
+machines. The bird flies, and he is not a balloon, he is a piece of
+mechanism!”
+
+“Yes, he flies!” exclaimed the fiery Bat T. Fynn; “but he flies against
+all the laws of mechanics.”
+
+“Indeed!” said Robur, shrugging his shoulders, and resuming, “Since we
+have begun the study of the flight of large and small birds one simple
+idea has prevailed—to imitate nature, which never makes mistakes.
+Between the albatross, which gives hardly ten beats of the wing per
+minute, between the pelican, which gives seventy—”
+
+“Seventy-one.” said the voice of a scoffer.
+
+“And the bee, which gives one hundred and ninety-two per second—”
+
+“One hundred and ninety-three!” said the facetious individual.
+
+“And, the common house fly, which gives three hundred and thirty—”
+
+“And a half!”
+
+“And the mosquito, which gives millions—”
+
+“No, milliards!”
+
+But Robur, the interrupted, interrupted not his demonstration. “Between
+these different rates—” he continued.
+
+“There is a difference.” said a voice.
+
+“There is a possibility of finding a practical solution. When De Lucy
+showed that the stag beetle, an insect weighing only two grammes, could
+lift a weight of four hundred grammes, or two hundred times its own
+weight, the problem of aviation was solved. Besides, it has been shown
+that the wing surface decreases in proportion to the increase of the
+size and weight of the animal. Hence we can look forward to such
+contrivances—”
+
+“Which would never fly!” said secretary Phil Evans.
+
+“Which have flown, and which will fly.” said Robur, without being in
+the least disconcerted, “and which we can call streophores,
+helicopters, orthopters—or, in imitation of the word ‘nef,’ which comes
+from ‘navis,’ call them from ‘avis,’ ‘efs,’—by means of which man will
+become the master of space. The helix—”
+
+“Ah, the helix!” replied Phil Evans. “But the bird has no helix; that
+we know!”
+
+“So.” said Robur; “but Penaud has shown that in reality the bird makes
+a helix, and its flight is helicopteral. And the motor of the future is
+the screw—”
+
+“From such a maladee Saint Helix keep us free!” sung out one of the
+members, who had accidentally hit upon the air from Herold’s “Zampa.”
+
+And they all took up the chorus: “From such a maladee Saint Helix keep
+us free!” with such intonations and variations as would have made the
+French composer groan in his grave.
+
+As the last notes died away in a frightful discord Uncle Prudent took
+advantage of the momentary calm to say, “Stranger, up to now, we let
+you speak without interruption.” It seemed that for the president of
+the Weldon Institute shouts, yells, and catcalls were not
+interruptions, but only an exchange of arguments.
+
+“But I may remind you, all the same, that the theory of aviation is
+condemned beforehand, and rejected by the majority of American and
+foreign engineers. It is a system which was the cause of the death of
+the Flying Saracen at Constantinople, of the monk Volador at Lisbon, of
+De Leturn in 1852, of De Groof in 1864, besides the victims I forget
+since the mythological Icarus—”
+
+“A system.” replied Robur, “no more to be condemned than that whose
+martyrology contains the names of Pilâtre de Rozier at Calais, of
+Blanchard at Paris, of Donaldson and Grimwood in Lake Michigan, of
+Sivel and of Crocé-Spinelli, and others whom it takes good care, to
+forget.”
+
+This was a counter-thrust with a vengeance.
+
+“Besides.” continued Robur, “With your balloons as good as you can make
+them you will never obtain any speed worth mentioning. It would take
+you ten years to go round the world—and a flying machine could do it in
+a week!”
+
+Here arose a new tempest of protests and denials which lasted for three
+long minutes. And then Phil Evans look up the word.
+
+“Mr. Aviator.” he said “you who talk so much of the benefits of
+aviation, have you ever aviated?”
+
+“I have.”
+
+“And made the conquest of the air?”
+
+“Not unlikely.”
+
+“Hooray for Robur the Conqueror!” shouted an ironical voice.
+
+“Well, yes! Robur the Conqueror! I accept the name and I will bear it,
+for I have a right to it!”
+
+“We beg to doubt it!” said Jem Chip.
+
+“Gentlemen.” said Robur, and his brows knit, “when I have just
+seriously stated a serious thing I do not permit anyone to reply to me
+by a flat denial, and I shall be glad to know the name of the
+interrupter.”
+
+“My name is Chip, and I am a vegetarian.”
+
+“Citizen Chip.” said Robur, “I knew that vegetarians had longer
+alimentary canals than other men—a good foot longer at the least. That
+is quite long enough; and so do not compel me to make you any longer by
+beginning at your ears and—”
+
+“Throw him out.”
+
+“Into the street with him!”
+
+“Lynch him!”
+
+“Helix him!”
+
+The rage of the balloonists burst forth at last. They rushed at the
+platform. Robur disappeared amid a sheaf of hands that were thrown
+about as if caught in a storm. In vain the steam whistle screamed its
+fanfares on to the assembly. Philadelphia might well think that a fire
+was devouring one of its quarters and that all the waters of the
+Schuyllkill could not put it out.
+
+Suddenly there was a recoil in the tumult. Robur had put his hands into
+his pockets and now held them out at the front ranks of the infuriated
+mob.
+
+In each hand was one of those American institutions known as revolvers
+which the mere pressure of the fingers is enough to fire—pocket
+mitrailleuses in fact.
+
+And taking advantage not only of the recoil of his assailants but also
+of the silence which accompanied it.
+
+“Decidedly.” said he, “it was not Amerigo that discovered the New
+World, it was Cabot! You are not Americans, citizen balloonists! You
+are only Cabo—”
+
+Four or five shots cracked out, fired into space. They hurt nobody.
+Amid the smoke, the engineer vanished; and when it had thinned away
+there was no trace of him. Robur the Conqueror had flown, as if some
+apparatus of aviation had borne him into the air.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V
+ANOTHER DISAPPEARANCE
+
+
+This was not the first occasion on which, at the end of their stormy
+discussions, the members of the Weldon Institute had filled Walnut
+Street and its neighborhood with their tumult. Several times had the
+inhabitants complained of the noisy way in which the proceedings ended,
+and more than once had the policemen had to interfere to clear the
+thoroughfare for the passersby, who for the most part were supremely
+indifferent on the question of aerial navigation. But never before had
+the tumult attained such proportions, never had the complaints been
+better founded, never had the intervention of the police been more
+necessary.
+
+But there was some excuse for the members of the Weldon Institute. They
+had been attacked in their own house. To these enthusiasts for “lighter
+than air” a no less enthusiast for “heavier than air” had said things
+absolutely abhorrent. And at the moment they were about to treat him as
+he deserved, he had disappeared.
+
+So they cried aloud for vengeance. To leave such insults unpunished was
+impossible to all with American blood in their veins. Had not the sons
+of Amerigo been called the sons of Cabot? Was not that an insult as
+unpardonable as it happened to be just—historically?
+
+The members of the club in several groups rushed down Walnut Street,
+then into the adjoining streets, and then all over the neighborhood.
+They woke up the householders; they compelled them to search their
+houses, prepared to indemnify them later on for the outrage on their
+privacy. Vain were all their trouble and searching. Robur was nowhere
+to be found; there was no trace of him. He might have gone off in the
+“Go-Ahead.” the balloon of the Institute, for all they could tell.
+After an hour’s hunt the members had to give in and separate, not
+before they had agreed to extend their search over the whole territory
+of the twin Americas that form the new continent.
+
+By eleven o’clock quiet had been restored in the neighborhood of Walnut
+Street. Philadelphia was able to sink again into that sound sleep which
+is the privilege of non-manufacturing towns. The different members of
+the club parted to seek their respective houses. To mention the most
+distinguished amongst them, William T. Forbes sought his large sugar
+establishment, where Miss Doll and Miss Mat had prepared for him his
+evening tea, sweetened with his own glucose. Truck Milnor took the road
+to his factory in the distant suburb, where the engines worked day and
+night. Treasurer Jim Chip, publicly accused of possessing an alimentary
+canal twelve inches longer than that of other men, returned to the
+vegetable soup that was waiting for him.
+
+Two of the most important balloonists—two only—did not seem to think of
+returning so soon to their domicile. They availed themselves of the
+opportunity to discuss the question with more than usual acrimony.
+These were the irreconcilables, Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans, the
+president and secretary of the Weldon Institute.
+
+At the door of the club the valet Frycollin waited for Uncle Prudent,
+his master, and at last he went after him, though he cared but little
+for the subject which had set the two colleagues at loggerheads.
+
+It is only an euphemism that the verb “discuss” can be used to express
+the way in which the duet between the president and secretary was being
+performed. As a matter of fact they were in full wrangle with an energy
+born of their old rivalry.
+
+“No, Sir, no.” said Phil Evans. “If I had had the honor of being
+president of the Weldon Institute, there never, no, never, would have
+been such a scandal.”
+
+“And what would you have done, if you had had the honor?” demanded
+Uncle Prudent.
+
+“I would have stopped the insulter before he had opened his mouth.”
+
+“It seems to me it would have been impossible to stop him until he had
+opened his mouth.” replied Uncle Prudent.
+
+“Not in America, Sir; not in America.”
+
+And exchanging such observations, increasing in bitterness as they
+went, they walked on through the streets farther and farther from their
+homes, until they reached a part of the city whence they had to go a
+long way round to get back.
+
+Frycollin followed, by no means at ease to see his master plunging into
+such deserted spots. He did not like deserted spots, particularly after
+midnight. In fact the darkness was profound, and the moon was only a
+thin crescent just beginning its monthly life. Frycollin kept a lookout
+to the left and right of him to see if he was followed. And he fancied
+he could see five or six hulking follows dogging his footsteps.
+Instinctively he drew nearer to his master, but not for the world would
+he have dared to break in on the conversation of which the fragments
+reached him.
+
+In short it so chanced that the president and secretary of the Weldon
+Institute found themselves on the road to Fairmount Park. In the full
+heat of their dispute they crossed the Schuyllkill river by the famous
+iron bridge. They met only a few belated wayfarers, and pressed on
+across a wide open tract where the immense prairie was broken every now
+and then by the patches of thick woodland—which make the park different
+to any other in the world.
+
+There Frycollin’s terror became acute, particularly as he saw the five
+or six shadows gliding after him across the Schuyllkill bridge. The
+pupils of his eyes broadened out to the circumference of his iris, and
+his limbs seemed to diminish as if endowed with the contractility
+peculiar to the mollusca and certain of the articulate; for Frycollin,
+the valet, was an egregious coward.
+
+He was a pure South Carolina Negro, with the head of a fool and the
+carcass of an imbecile. Being only one and twenty, he had never been a
+slave, not even by birth, but that made no difference to him. Grinning
+and greedy and idle, and a magnificent poltroon, he had been the
+servant of Uncle Prudent for about three years. Over and over again had
+his master threatened to kick him out, but had kept him on for fear of
+doing worse. With a master ever ready to venture on the most audacious
+enterprises, Frycollin’s cowardice had brought him many arduous trials.
+But he had some compensation. Very little had been said about his
+gluttony, and still less about his laziness.
+
+Ah, Valet Frycollin, if you could only have read the future! Why, oh
+why, Frycollin, did you not remain at Boston with the Sneffels, and not
+have given them up when they talked of going to Switzerland? Was not
+that a much more suitable place for you than this of Uncle Prudent’s,
+where danger was daily welcomed?
+
+But here he was, and his master had become used to his faults. He had
+one advantage, and that was a consideration. Although he was a Negro by
+birth he did not speak like a Negro, and nothing is so irritating as
+that hateful jargon in which all the pronouns are possessive and all
+the verbs infinitive. Let it be understood, then, that Frycollin was a
+thorough coward.
+
+And now it was midnight, and the pale crescent of the moon began to
+sink in the west behind the trees in the park. The rays streaming
+fitfully through the branches made the shadows darker than ever.
+Frycollin looked around him anxiously. “Brrr!” he said, “There are
+those fellows there all the time. Positively they are getting nearer!
+Master Uncle!” he shouted.
+
+It was thus he called the president of the Weldon Institute, and thus
+did the president desire to be called.
+
+At the moment the dispute of the rivals had reached its maximum, and as
+they hurled their epithets at each other they walked faster and faster,
+and drew farther and farther away from the Schuyllkill bridge. They had
+reached the center of a wide clump of trees, whose summits were just
+tipped by the parting rays of the moon. Beyond the trees was a very
+large clearing—an oval field, a complete amphitheater. Not a hillock
+was there to hinder the gallop of the horses, not a bush to stop the
+view of the spectators.
+
+And if Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans had not been so deep in their
+dispute, and had used their eyes as they were accustomed to, they would
+have found the clearing was not in its usual state. Was it a flour mill
+that had anchored on it during the night? It looked like it, with its
+wings and sails—motionless and mysterious in the gathering gloom.
+
+But neither the president nor the secretary of the Weldon Institute
+noticed the strange modification in the landscape of Fairmount Park;
+and neither did Frycollin. It seemed to him that the thieves were
+approaching, and preparing for their attack; and he was seized with
+convulsive fear, paralyzed in his limbs, with every hair he could boast
+of on the bristle. His terror was extreme. His knees bent under him,
+but he had just strength enough to exclaim for the last time, “Master
+Uncle! Master Uncle!”
+
+“What is the matter with you?” asked Uncle Prudent.
+
+Perhaps the disputants would not have been sorry to have relieved their
+fury at the expense of the unfortunate valet. But they had no time; and
+neither even had he time to answer.
+
+A whistle was heard. A flash of electric light shot across the
+clearing.
+
+A signal, doubtless? The moment had come for the deed of violence. In
+less time that it takes to tell, six men came leaping across from under
+the trees, two onto Uncle Prudent, two onto Phil Evans, two onto
+Frycollin—there was no need for the last two, for the Negro was
+incapable of defending himself. The president and secretary of the
+Weldon Institute, although taken by surprise, would have resisted.
+
+They had neither time nor strength to do so. In a second they were
+rendered speechless by a gag, blind by a bandage, thrown down, pinioned
+and carried bodily off across the clearing. What could they think
+except that they had fallen into the hands of people who intended to
+rob them? The people did nothing of the sort, however. They did not
+even touch Uncle Prudent’s pockets, although, according to his custom,
+they were full of paper dollars.
+
+Within a minute of the attack, without a word being passed, Uncle
+Prudent, Phil Evans, and Frycollin felt themselves laid gently down,
+not on the grass, but on a sort of plank that creaked beneath them.
+They were laid down side by side.
+
+A door was shut; and the grating of a bolt in a staple told them that
+they were prisoners.
+
+Then there came a continuous buzzing, a quivering, a frrrr, with the
+rrr unending.
+
+And that was the only sound that broke the quiet of the night.
+
+Great was the excitement next morning in Philadelphia Very early was it
+known what had passed at the meeting of the Institute. Everyone knew of
+the appearance of the mysterious engineer named Robur—Robur the
+Conqueror—and the tumult among the balloonists, and his inexplicable
+disappearance. But it was quite another thing when all the town heard
+that the president and secretary of the club had also disappeared
+during the night.
+
+Long and keen was the search in the city and neighborhood! Useless! The
+newspapers of Philadelphia, the newspapers of Pennsylvania, the
+newspapers of the United States reported the facts and explained them
+in a hundred ways, not one of which was the right one. Heavy rewards
+were offered, and placards were pasted up, but all to no purpose. The
+earth seemed to have opened and bodily swallowed the president and
+secretary of the Weldon Institute.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI
+THE PRESIDENT AND SECRETARY SUSPEND HOSTILITIES
+
+
+A bandage over the eyes, a gag in the mouth, a cord round the wrists, a
+cord round the ankles, unable to see, to speak, or to move, Uncle
+Prudent, Phil Evans, and Frycollin were anything but pleased with their
+position. Knowing not who had seized them, nor in what they had been
+thrown like parcels in a goods wagon, nor where they were, nor what was
+reserved for them—it was enough to exasperate even the most patient of
+the ovine race, and we know that the members of the Weldon Institute
+were not precisely sheep as far as patience went. With his violence of
+character we can easily imagine how Uncle Prudent felt. One thing was
+evident, that Phil Evans and he would find it difficult to attend the
+club next evening.
+
+As to Frycollin, with his eyes shut and his mouth closed, it was
+impossible for him to think of anything. He was more dead than alive.
+
+For an hour the position of the prisoners remained unchanged. No one
+came to visit them, or to give them that liberty of movement and speech
+of which they lay in such need. They were reduced to stifled sighs, to
+grunts emitted over and under their gags, to everything that betrayed
+anger kept dumb and fury imprisoned, or rather bound down. Then after
+many fruitless efforts they remained for some time as though lifeless.
+Then as the sense of sight was denied them they tried by their sense of
+hearing to obtain some indication of the nature of this disquieting
+state of things. But in vain did they seek for any other sound than an
+interminable and inexplicable f-r-r-r which seemed to envelop them in a
+quivering atmosphere.
+
+At last something happened. Phil Evans, regaining his coolness, managed
+to slacken the cord which bound his wrists. Little by little the knot
+slipped, his fingers slipped over each other, and his hands regained
+their usual freedom.
+
+A vigorous rubbing restored the circulation. A moment after he had
+slipped off the bandage which bound his eyes, taken the gag out of his
+mouth, and cut the cords round his ankles with his knife. An American
+who has not a bowie-knife in his pocket is no longer an American.
+
+But if Phil Evans had regained the power of moving and speaking, that
+was all. His eyes were useless to him—at present at any rate. The
+prison was quite dark, though about six feet above him a feeble gleam
+of light came in through a kind of loophole.
+
+As may be imagined, Phil Evans did not hesitate to at once set free his
+rival. A few cuts with the bowie settled the knots which bound him foot
+and hand.
+
+Immediately Uncle Prudent rose to his knees and snatched away his
+bandage and gag.
+
+“Thanks.” said he, in stifled voice.
+
+“Phil Evans?”
+
+“Uncle Prudent?”
+
+“Here we are no longer the president and secretary of the Weldon
+Institute. We are adversaries no more.”
+
+“You are right.” answered Evans. “We are now only two men agreed to
+avenge ourselves on a third whose attempt deserves severe reprisals.
+And this third is—”
+
+“Robur!”
+
+“It is Robur!”
+
+On this point both were absolutely in accord. On this subject there was
+no fear of dispute.
+
+“And your servant?” said Phil Evans, pointing to Frycollin, who was
+puffing like a grampus. “We must set him free.”
+
+“Not yet.” said Uncle Prudent. “He would overwhelm us with his
+jeremiads, and we have something else to do than abuse each other.”
+
+“What is that, Uncle Prudent?”
+
+“To save ourselves if possible.”
+
+“You are right, even if it is impossible.”
+
+“And even if it is impossible.”
+
+There could be no doubt that this kidnapping was due to Robur, for an
+ordinary thief would have relieved them of their watches, jewelry, and
+purses, and thrown their bodies into the Schuyllkill with a good gash
+in their throats instead of throwing them to the bottom of—Of what?
+That was a serious question, which would have to be answered before
+attempting an escape with any chance of success.
+
+“Phil Evans.” began Uncle Prudent, “if, when we came away from our
+meeting, instead of indulging in amenities to which we need not recur,
+we had kept our eyes more open, this would not have happened. Had we
+remained in the streets of Philadelphia there would have been none of
+this. Evidently Robur foresaw what would happen at the club, and had
+placed some of his bandits on guard at the door. When we left Walnut
+Street these fellows must have watched us and followed us, and when we
+imprudently ventured into Fairmount Park they went in for their little
+game.”
+
+“Agreed.” said Evans. “We were wrong not to go straight home.”
+
+“It is always wrong not to be right.” said Prudent.
+
+Here a long-drawn sigh escaped from the darkest corner of the prison.
+“What is that?” asked Evans.
+
+“Nothing! Frycollin is dreaming.”
+
+“Between the moment we were seized a few steps out into the clearing
+and the moment we were thrown in here only two minutes elapsed. It is
+thus evident that those people did not take us out of Fairmount Park.”
+
+“And if they had done so we should have felt we were being moved.”
+
+“Undoubtedly; and consequently we must be in some vehicle, perhaps some
+of those long prairie wagons, or some show-caravan—”
+
+“Evidently! For if we were in a boat moored on the Schuyllkill we
+should have noticed the movement due to the current—”
+
+“That is so; and as we are still in the clearing, I think that now is
+the time to get away, and we can return later to settle with this
+Robur—”
+
+“And make him pay for this attempt on the liberty of two citizens of
+the United States.”
+
+“And he shall pay pretty dearly!”
+
+“But who is this man? Where does he come from? Is he English, or
+German, or French—”
+
+“He is a scoundrel, that is enough!” said Uncle Prudent. “Now to work.”
+And then the two men, with their hands stretched out and their fingers
+wide apart, began to feel round the walls to find a joint or crack.
+
+Nothing. Nothing; not even at the door. It was closely shut and it was
+impossible to shoot back the lock. All that could be done was to make a
+hole, and escape through the hole. It remained to be seen if the knives
+could cut into the walls.
+
+“But whence comes this never-ending rustling?” asked Evans, who was
+much impressed at the continuous f-r-r-r.
+
+“The wind, doubtless.” said Uncle Prudent.
+
+“The wind! But I thought the night was quite calm.”
+
+“So it was. But if it isn’t the wind, what can it be?”
+
+Phil Evans got out the best blade of his knife and set to work on the
+wall near the door. Perhaps he might make a hole which would enable him
+to open it from the outside should it be only bolted or should the key
+have been left in the lock. He worked away for some minutes. The only
+result was to nip up his knife, to snip off its point, and transform
+what was left of the blade into a saw.
+
+“Doesn’t it cut?” asked Uncle Prudent.
+
+“No.”
+
+“Is the wall made of sheet iron?”
+
+“No; it gives no metallic sound when you hit it.”
+
+“Is it of ironwood?”
+
+“No; it isn’t iron and it isn’t wood.”
+
+“What is it then?”
+
+“Impossible to say. But, anyhow, steel doesn’t touch it.” Uncle
+Prudent, in a sudden outburst of fury, began to rave and stamp on the
+sonorous planks, while his hands sought to strangle an imaginary Robur.
+
+“Be calm, Prudent, be calm! You have a try.”
+
+Uncle Prudent had a try, but the bowie-knife could do nothing against a
+wall which its best blades could not even scratch. The wall seemed to
+be made of crystal.
+
+So it became evident that all flight was impracticable except through
+the door, and for a time they must resign themselves to their fate—not
+a very pleasant thing for the Yankee temperament, and very much to the
+disgust of these eminently practical men. But this conclusion was not
+arrived at without many objurgations and loud-sounding phrases hurled
+at this Robur—who, from what had been seen of him at the Weldon
+Institute, was not the sort of man to trouble himself much about them.
+
+Suddenly Frycollin began to give unequivocal signs of being unwell. He
+began to writhe in a most lamentable fashion, either with cramp in his
+stomach or in his limbs; and Uncle Prudent, thinking it his duty to put
+an end to these gymnastics, cut the cords that bound him.
+
+He had cause to be sorry for it. Immediately there was poured forth an
+interminable litany, in which the terrors of fear were mingled with the
+tortures of hunger. Frycollin was no worse in his brain than in his
+stomach, and it would have been difficult to decide to which organ the
+chief cause of the trouble should be assigned.
+
+“Frycollin!” said Uncle Prudent.
+
+“Master Uncle! Master Uncle!” answered the Negro between two of his
+lugubrious howls.
+
+“It is possible that we are doomed to die of hunger in this prison, but
+we have made up our minds not to succumb until we have availed
+ourselves of every means of alimentation to prolong our lives.”
+
+“To eat me?” exclaimed Frycollin.
+
+“As is always done with a Negro under such circumstances! So you had
+better not make yourself too obvious—”
+
+“Or you’ll have your bones picked!” said Evans.
+
+And as Frycollin saw he might be used to prolong two existences more
+precious than his own, he contented himself thenceforth with groaning
+in quiet.
+
+The time went on and all attempts to force the door or get through the
+wall proved fruitless. What the wall was made of was impossible to say.
+It was not metal; it was not wood; it was not stone, And all the cell
+seemed to be made of the same stuff. When they stamped on the floor it
+gave a peculiar sound that Uncle Prudent found it difficult to
+describe; the floor seemed to sound hollow, as if it was not resting
+directly on the ground of the clearing. And the inexplicable f-r-r-r-r
+seemed to sweep along below it. All of which was rather alarming.
+
+“Uncle Prudent.” said Phil Evans.
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Do you think our prison has been moved at all?”
+
+“Not that I know of.”
+
+“Because when we were first caught I distinctly remember the fresh
+fragrance of the grass and the resinous odor of the park trees. While
+now, when I take in a good sniff of the air, it seems as though all
+that had gone.”
+
+“So it has.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“We cannot say why unless we admit that the prison has moved; and I say
+again that if the prison had moved, either as a vehicle on the road or
+a boat on the stream, we should have felt it.”
+
+Here Frycollin gave vent to a long groan, which might have been taken
+for his last had he not followed it up with several more.
+
+“I expect Robur will soon have us brought before him.” said Phil Evans.
+
+“I hope so.” said Uncle Prudent. “And I shall tell him—”
+
+“What?”
+
+“That he began by being rude and ended in being unbearable.”
+
+Here Phil Evans noticed that day was beginning to break. A gleam, still
+faint, filtered through the narrow window opposite the door. It ought
+thus to be about four o’clock in the morning for it is at that hour in
+the month of June in this latitude that the horizon of Philadelphia is
+tinged by the first rays of the dawn.
+
+But when Uncle Prudent sounded his repeater—which was a masterpiece
+from his colleague’s factory—the tiny gong only gave a quarter to
+three, and the watch had not stopped.
+
+“That is strange!” said Phil Evans. “At a quarter to three it ought
+still to be night.”
+
+“Perhaps my watch has got slow.” answered Uncle Prudent.
+
+“A watch of the Wheelton Watch Company!” exclaimed Phil Evans.
+
+Whatever might be the reason, there was no doubt that the day was
+breaking. Gradually the window became white in the deep darkness of the
+cell. However, if the dawn appeared sooner than the fortieth parallel
+permitted, it did not advance with the rapidity peculiar to lower
+latitudes. This was another observation—of Uncle Prudent’s—a new
+inexplicable phenomenon.
+
+“Couldn’t we get up to the window and see where we are?”
+
+“We might.” said Uncle Prudent. “Frycollin, get up!”
+
+The Negro arose.
+
+“Put your back against the wall.” continued Prudent, “and you, Evans,
+get on his shoulders while I buttress him up.”
+
+“Right!” said Evans.
+
+An instant afterwards his knees were on Frycollin’s shoulders, and his
+eyes were level with the window. The window was not of lenticular glass
+like those on shipboard, but was a simple flat pane. It was small, and
+Phil Evans found his range of view was much limited.
+
+“Break the glass.” said Prudent, “and perhaps you will be able to see
+better.”
+
+Phil Evans gave it a sharp knock with the handle of his bowie-knife. It
+gave back a silvery sound, but it did not break.
+
+Another and more violent blow. The same result.
+
+“It is unbreakable glass!” said Evans.
+
+It appeared as though the pane was made of glass toughened on the
+Siemens system—as after several blows it remained intact.
+
+The light had now increased, and Phil Evans could see for some distance
+within the radius allowed by the frame.
+
+“What do you see?” asked Uncle Prudent.
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“What? Not any trees?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Not even the top branches?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Then we are not in the clearing?”
+
+“Neither in the clearing nor in the park.”
+
+“Don’t you see any roofs of houses or monuments?” said Prudent, whose
+disappointment and anger were increasing rapidly.
+
+“No.”
+
+“What! Not a flagstaff, nor a church tower, nor a chimney?”
+
+“Nothing but space.”
+
+As he uttered the words the door opened. A man appeared on the
+threshold. It was Robur.
+
+“Honorable balloonists” he said, in a serious voice, “you are now free
+to go and come as you like.”
+
+“Free!” exclaimed Uncle Prudent.
+
+“Yes—within the limits of the “Albatross!”
+
+Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans rushed out of their prison. And what did
+they see?
+
+Four thousand feet below them the face of a country they sought in vain
+to recognize.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII
+ON BOARD THE ALBATROSS
+
+
+“When will man cease to crawl in the depths to live in the azure and
+quiet of the sky?”
+
+To this question of Camille Flammarion’s the answer is easy. It will be
+when the progress of mechanics has enabled us to solve the problem of
+aviation. And in a few years—as we can foresee—a more practical
+utilization of electricity will do much towards that solution.
+
+In 1783, before the Montgolfier brothers had built their fire-balloon,
+and Charles, the physician, had devised his first aerostat, a few
+adventurous spirits had dreamt of the conquest of space by mechanical
+means. The first inventors did not think of apparatus lighter than air,
+for that the science of their time did not allow them to imagine. It
+was to contrivances heavier than air, to flying machines in imitation
+of the birds, that they trusted to realize aerial locomotion.
+
+This was exactly what had been done by that madman Icarus, the son of
+Daedalus, whose wings, fixed together with wax, had melted as they
+approached the sun.
+
+But without going back to mythological times, without dwelling on
+Archytas of Tarentum, we find, in the works of Dante of Perugia, of
+Leonardo da Vinci and Guidotti, the idea of machines made to move
+through the air. Two centuries and a half afterwards inventors began to
+multiply. In 1742 the Marquis de Bacqueville designed a system of
+wings, tried it over the Seine, and fell and broke his arm. In 1768
+Paucton conceived the idea of an apparatus with two screws, suspensive
+and propulsive. In 1781 Meerwein, the architect of the Prince of Baden,
+built an orthopteric machine, and protested against the tendency of the
+aerostats which had just been invented. In 1784 Launoy and Bienvenu had
+maneuvered a helicopter worked by springs. In 1808 there were the
+attempts at flight by the Austrian Jacques Degen. In 1810 came the
+pamphlet by Denian of Nantes, in which the principles of “heavier than
+air” are laid down. From 1811 to 1840 came the inventions and
+researches of Derblinger, Vigual, Sarti, Dubochet, and Cagniard de
+Latour. In 1842 we have the Englishman Henson, with his system of
+inclined planes and screws worked by steam. In 1845 came Cossus and his
+ascensional screws. In 1847 came Camille Vert and his helicopter made
+of birds’ wings. In 1852 came Letur with his system of guidable
+parachutes, whose trial cost him his life; and in the same year came
+Michel Loup with his plan of gliding through the air on four revolving
+wings. In 1853 came Béléguic and his aeroplane with the traction
+screws, Vaussin-Chardannes with his guidable kite, and George Cauley
+with his flying machines driven by gas. From 1854 to 1863 appeared
+Joseph Pline with several patents for aerial systems. Bréant,
+Carlingford, Le Bris, Du Temple, Bright, whose ascensional screws were
+left-handed; Smythies, Panafieu, Crosnier, &c. At length, in 1863,
+thanks to the efforts of Nadar, a society of “heavier than air” was
+founded in Paris. There the inventors could experiment with the
+machines, of which many were patented. Ponton d’Amécourt and his steam
+helicopter, La Landelle and his system of combining screws with
+inclined planes and parachutes, Louvrié and his aeroscape, Esterno and
+his mechanical bird, Groof and his apparatus with wings worked by
+levers. The impetus was given, inventors invented, calculators
+calculated all that could render aerial locomotion practicable.
+Bourcart, Le Bris, Kaufmann, Smyth, Stringfellow, Prigent, Danjard,
+Pomés and De la Pauze, Moy, Pénaud, Jobert, Haureau de Villeneuve,
+Achenbach, Garapon, Duchesne, Danduran, Pariesel, Dieuaide, Melkiseff,
+Forlanini, Bearey, Tatin, Dandrieux, Edison, some with wings or screws,
+others with inclined planes, imagined, created, constructed, perfected,
+their flying machines, ready to do their work, once there came to be
+applied to thereby some inventor a motor of adequate power and
+excessive lightness.
+
+This list may be a little long, but that will be forgiven, for it is
+necessary to give the various steps in the ladder of aerial locomotion,
+on the top of which appeared Robur the Conqueror. Without these
+attempts, these experiments of his predecessors, how could the inquirer
+have conceived so perfect an apparatus? And though he had but contempt
+for those who obstinately worked away in the direction of balloons, he
+held in high esteem all those partisans of “heavier than air.” English,
+American, Italian, Austrian, French—and particularly French—whose work
+had been perfected by him, and led him to design and then to build this
+flying engine known as the “Albatross.” which he was guiding through
+the currents of the atmosphere.
+
+“The pigeon flies!” had exclaimed one of the most persistent adepts at
+aviation.
+
+“They will crowd the air as they crowd the earth!” said one of his most
+excited partisans.
+
+“From the locomotive to the aeromotive!” shouted the noisiest of all,
+who had turned on the trumpet of publicity to awaken the Old and New
+Worlds.
+
+Nothing, in fact, is better established, by experiment and calculation,
+than that the air is highly resistant. A circumference of only a yard
+in diameter in the shape of a parachute can not only impede descent in
+air, but can render it isochronous. That is a fact.
+
+It is equally well known that when the speed is great the work of the
+weight varies in almost inverse ratio to the square of the speed, and
+therefore becomes almost insignificant.
+
+It is also known that as the weight of a flying animal increases, the
+less is the proportional increase in the surface beaten by the wings in
+order to sustain it, although the motion of the wings becomes slower.
+
+A flying machine must therefore be constructed to take advantage of
+these natural laws, to imitate the bird, “that admirable type of aerial
+locomotion.” according to Dr. Marcy, of the Institute of France.
+
+In short the contrivances likely to solve the problem are of three
+kinds:—
+
+1. Helicopters or spiralifers, which are simply screws with vertical
+axes.
+
+2. Ornithopters, machines which endeavour to reproduce the natural
+flight of birds.
+
+3. Aeroplanes, which are merely inclined planes like kites, but towed
+or driven by screws.
+
+Each of these systems has had and still has it partisans obstinately
+resolved to give way in not the slightest particular. However, Robur,
+for many reasons, had rejected the two first.
+
+The ornithopter, or mechanical bird, offers certain advantages, no
+doubt. That the work and experiments of M. Renard in 1884 have
+sufficiently proved. But, as has been said, it is not necessary to copy
+Nature servilely. Locomotives are not copied from the hare, nor are
+ships copied from the fish. To the first we have put wheels which are
+not legs; to the second we have put screws which are not fins. And they
+do not do so badly. Besides, what is this mechanical movement in the
+flight of birds, whose action is so complex? Has not Doctor Marcy
+suspected that the feathers open during the return of the wings so as
+to let the air through them? And is not that rather a difficult
+operation for an artificial machine?
+
+On the other hand, aeroplanes have given many good results. Screws
+opposing a slanting plane to the bed of air will produce an ascensional
+movement, and the models experimented on have shown that the disposable
+weight, that is to say the weight it is possible to deal with as
+distinct from that of the apparatus, increases with the square of the
+speed. Herein the aeroplane has the advantage over the aerostat even
+when the aerostat is furnished with the means of locomotion.
+
+Nevertheless Robur had thought that the simpler his contrivance the
+better. And the screws—the Saint Helices that had been thrown in his
+teeth at the Weldon Institute—had sufficed for all the needs of his
+flying machine. One series could hold it suspended in the air, the
+other could drive it along under conditions that were marvelously
+adapted for speed and safety.
+
+If the ornithopter—striking like the wings of a bird—raised itself by
+beating the air, the helicopter raised itself by striking the air
+obliquely, with the fins of the screw as it mounted on an inclined
+plane. These fins, or arms, are in reality wings, but wings disposed as
+a helix instead of as a paddle wheel. The helix advances in the
+direction of its axis. Is the axis vertical? Then it moves vertically.
+Is the axis horizontal? Then it moves horizontally.
+
+The whole of Robur’s flying apparatus depended on these two movements,
+as will be seen from the following detailed description, which can be
+divided under three heads—the platform, the engines of suspension and
+propulsion, and the machinery.
+
+Platform.—This was a framework a hundred feet long and twelve wide, a
+ship’s deck in fact, with a projecting prow. Beneath was a hull solidly
+built, enclosing the engines, stores, and provisions of all sorts,
+including the watertanks. Round the deck a few light uprights supported
+a wire trellis that did duty for bulwarks. On the deck were three
+houses, whose compartments were used as cabins for the crew, or as
+machine rooms. In the center house was the machine which drove the
+suspensory helices, in that forward was the machine that drove the bow
+screw, in that aft was the machine that drove the stern screw. In the
+bow were the cook’s galley and the crew’s quarters; in the stern were
+several cabins, including that of the engineer, the saloon, and above
+them all a glass house in which stood the helmsman, who steered the
+vessel by means of a powerful rudder. All these cabins were lighted by
+port-holes filled with toughened glass, which has ten times the
+resistance of ordinary glass. Beneath the hull was a system of flexible
+springs to ease off the concussion when it became advisable to land.
+
+Engines of suspension and propulsion.—Above the deck rose thirty-seven
+vertical axes, fifteen along each side, and seven, more elevated, in
+the centre. The “Albatross” might be called a clipper with thirty-seven
+masts. But these masts instead of sails bore each two horizontal
+screws, not very large in spread or diameter, but driven at prodigious
+speed. Each of these axes had its own movement independent of the rest,
+and each alternate one spun round in a different direction from the
+others, so as to avoid any tendency to gyration. Hence the screws as
+they rose on the vertical column of air retained their equilibrium by
+their horizontal resistance. Consequently the apparatus was furnished
+with seventy-four suspensory screws, whose three branches were
+connected by a metallic circle which economized their motive force. In
+front and behind, mounted on horizontal axes, were two propelling
+screws, each with four arms. These screws were of much larger diameter
+than the suspensory ones, but could be worked at quite their speed. In
+fact, the vessel combined the systems of Cossus, La Landelle, and
+Ponton d’Amécourt, as perfected by Robur. But it was in the choice and
+application of his motive force that he could claim to be an inventor.
+
+Machinery.—Robur had not availed himself of the vapor of water or other
+liquids, nor compressed air and other mechanical motion. He employed
+electricity, that agent which one day will be the soul of the
+industrial world. But he required no electro-motor to produce it. All
+he trusted to was piles and accumulators. What were the elements of
+these piles, and what were the acids he used, Robur only knew. And the
+construction of the accumulators was kept equally secret. Of what were
+their positive and negative plates? None can say. The engineer took
+good care—and not unreasonably—to keep his secret unpatented. One thing
+was unmistakable, and that was that the piles were of extraordinary
+strength; and the accumulators left those of Faure-Sellon-Volckmar very
+far behind in yielding currents whose ampères ran into figures up to
+then unknown. Thus there was obtained a power to drive the screws and
+communicate a suspending and propelling force in excess of all his
+requirements under any circumstances.
+
+But—it is as well to repeat it—this belonged entirely to Robur. He kept
+it a close secret. And, if the president and secretary of the Weldon
+Institute did not happen to discover it, it would probably be lost to
+humanity.
+
+It need not be shown that the apparatus possessed sufficient stability.
+Its center of gravity proved that at once. There was no danger of its
+making alarming angles with the horizontal, still less of its
+capsizing.
+
+And now for the metal used by Robur in the construction of his
+aeronef—a name which can be exactly applied to the “Albatross.” What
+was this material, so hard that the bowie-knife of Phil Evans could not
+scratch it, and Uncle Prudent could not explain its nature? Simply
+paper!
+
+For some years this fabrication had been making considerable progress.
+Unsized paper, with the sheets impregnated with dextrin and starch and
+squeezed in hydraulic presses, will form a material as hard as steel.
+There are made of it pulleys, rails, and wagon-wheels, much more solid
+than metal wheels, and far lighter. And it was this lightness and
+solidity which Robur availed himself of in building his aerial
+locomotive. Everything—framework, hull, houses, cabins—were made of
+straw-paper turned hard as metal by compression, and—what was not to be
+despised in an apparatus flying at great heights—incombustible. The
+different parts of the engines and the screws were made of gelatinized
+fiber, which combined in sufficient degree flexibility with resistance.
+This material could be used in every form. It was insoluble in most
+gases and liquids, acids or essences, to say nothing of its insulating
+properties, and it proved most valuable in the electric machinery of
+the “Albatross.”
+
+Robur, his mate Tom Turner, an engineer and two assistants, two
+steersman and a cook—eight men all told—formed the crew of the aeronef,
+and proved ample for all the maneuvers required in aerial navigation.
+There were arms of the chase and of war; fishing appliances; electric
+lights; instruments of observation, compasses, and sextants for
+checking the course, thermometers for studying the temperature,
+different barometers, some for estimating the heights attained, others
+for indicating the variations of atmospheric pressure; a storm-glass
+for forecasting tempests; a small library; a portable printing press; a
+field-piece mounted on a pivot; breech loading and throwing a
+three-inch shell; a supply of powder, bullets, dynamite cartridges; a
+cooking-stove, warmed by currents from the accumulators; a stock of
+preserves, meats and vegetables sufficient to last for months. Such
+were the outfit and stores of the aeronef—in addition to the famous
+trumpet.
+
+There was besides a light india-rubber boat, insubmersible, which could
+carry eight men on the surface of a river, a lake, or a calm sea.
+
+But were there any parachutes in case of accident? No. Robur did not
+believe in accidents of that kind. The axes of the screws were
+independent. The stoppage of a few would not affect the motion of the
+others; and if only half were working, the “Albatross” could still keep
+afloat in her natural element.
+
+“And with her.” said Robur to his guests—guests in spite of
+themselves—“I am master of the seventh part of the world, larger than
+Africa, Oceania, Asia, America, and Europe, this aerial Icarian sea,
+which millions of Icarians will one day people.”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII
+THE BALLOONISTS REFUSE TO BE CONVINCED
+
+
+The President of the Weldon Institute was stupefied; his companion was
+astonished. But neither of them would allow any of their very natural
+amazement to be visible.
+
+The valet Frycollin did not conceal his terror at finding himself borne
+through space on such a machine, and he took no pains whatever to hide
+it.
+
+The suspensory screws were rapidly spinning overhead. Fast as they were
+going, they would have to triple their speed if the “Albatross” was to
+ascend to higher zones. The two propellers were running very easily and
+driving the ship at about eleven knots an hour.
+
+As they leaned over the rail the passengers of the “Albatross” could
+perceive a long sinuous liquid ribbon which meandered like a mere brook
+through a varied country amid the gleaming of many lagoons obliquely
+struck by the rays of the sun. The brook was a river, one of the most
+important in that district. Along its left bank was a chain of
+mountains extending out of sight.
+
+“And will you tell us where we are?” asked Uncle Prudent, in a voice
+tremulous with anger.
+
+“I have nothing to teach you.” answered Robur.
+
+“And will you tell us where we are going?” asked Phil Evans.
+
+“Through space.”
+
+“And how long will that last?”
+
+“Until it ends.”
+
+“Are we going round the world?” asked Phil Evans ironically.
+
+“Further than that.” said Robur.
+
+“And if this voyage does not suit us?” asked Uncle Prudent.
+
+“It will have to suit you.”
+
+That is a foretaste of the nature of the relations that were to obtain
+between the master of the “Albatross” and his guests, not to say his
+prisoners. Manifestly he wished to give them time to cool down, to
+admire the marvelous apparatus which was bearing them through the air,
+and doubtless to compliment the inventor. And so he went off to the
+other end of the deck, leaving them to examine the arrangement of the
+machinery and the management of the ship or to give their whole
+attention to the landscape which was unrolling beneath them.
+
+“Uncle Prudent.” said Evans, “unless I am mistaken we are flying over
+Central Canada. That river in the northwest is the St. Lawrence. That
+town we are leaving behind is Quebec.”
+
+It was indeed the old city of Champlain, whose zinc roofs were shining
+like reflectors in the sun. The “Albatross” must thus have reached the
+forty-sixth degree of north latitude, and thus was explained the
+premature advance of the day with the abnormal prolongation of the
+dawn.
+
+“Yes.” said Phil Evans, “There is the town in its amphitheater, the
+hill with its citadel, the Gibraltar of North America. There are the
+cathedrals. There is the Custom House with its dome surmounted by the
+British flag!”
+
+Phil Evans had not finished before the Canadian city began to slip into
+the distance.
+
+The clipper entered a zone of light clouds, which gradually shut off a
+view of the ground.
+
+Robur, seeing that the president and secretary of the Weldon Institute
+had directed their attention to the external arrangements of the
+“Albatross.” walked up to them and said: “Well, gentlemen, do you
+believe in the possibility of aerial locomotion by machines heavier
+than air?”
+
+It would have been difficult not to succumb to the evidence. But Uncle
+Prudent and Phil Evans did not reply.
+
+“You are silent.” continued the engineer. “Doubtless hunger makes you
+dumb! But if I undertook to carry you through the air, I did not think
+of feeding you on such a poorly nutritive fluid. Your first breakfast
+is waiting for you.”
+
+As Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans were feeling the pangs of hunger
+somewhat keenly they did not care to stand upon ceremony. A meal would
+commit them to nothing; and when Robur put them back on the ground they
+could resume full liberty of action.
+
+And so they followed into a small dining-room in the aftermost house.
+There they found a well-laid table at which they could take their meals
+during the voyage. There were different preserves; and, among other
+things, was a sort of bread made of equal parts of flour and meat
+reduced to powder and worked together with a little lard, which boiled
+in water made excellent soup; and there were rashers of fried ham, and
+for drink there was tea.
+
+Neither had Frycollin been forgotten. He was taken forward and there
+found some strong soup made of this bread. In truth he had to be very
+hungry to eat at all, for his jaws shook with fear, and almost refused
+to work. “If it was to break! If it was to break!” said the unfortunate
+Negro. Hence continual faintings. Only think! A fall of over four
+thousand feet, which would smash him to a jelly!
+
+An hour afterwards Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans appeared on the deck.
+Robur was no longer there. At the stem the man at the wheel in his
+glass cage, his eyes fixed on the compass, followed imperturbably
+without hesitation the route given by the engineer.
+
+As for the rest of the crew, breakfast probably kept them from their
+posts. An assistant engineer, examining the machinery, went from one
+house to the other.
+
+If the speed of the ship was great the two colleagues could only
+estimate it imperfectly, for the “Albatross” had passed through the
+cloud zone which the sun showed some four thousand feet below.
+
+“I can hardly believe it.” said Phil Evans.
+
+“Don’t believe it!” said Uncle Prudent. And going to the bow they
+looked out towards the western horizon.
+
+“Another town.” said Phil Evans.
+
+“Do you recognize it?”
+
+“Yes! It seems to me to be Montreal.”
+
+“Montreal? But we only left Quebec two hours ago!”
+
+“That proves that we must be going at a speed of seventy-five miles an
+hour.”
+
+Such was the speed of the aeronef; and if the passengers were not
+inconvenienced by it, it was because they were going with the wind. In
+a calm such speed would have been difficult and the rate would have
+sunk to that of an express. In a head-wind the speed would have been
+unbearable.
+
+Phil Evans was not mistaken. Below the “Albatross” appeared Montreal,
+easily recognizable by the Victoria Bridge, a tubular bridge thrown
+over the St. Lawrence like the railway viaduct over the Venice lagoon.
+Soon they could distinguish the town’s wide streets, its huge shops,
+its palatial banks, its cathedral, recently built on the model of St.
+Peter’s at Rome, and then Mount Royal, which commands the city and
+forms a magnificent park.
+
+Luckily Phil Evans had visited the chief towns of Canada, and could
+recognize them without asking Robur. After Montreal they passed Ottawa,
+whose falls, seen from above, looked like a vast cauldron in
+ebullition, throwing off masses of steam with grand effect.
+
+“There is the Parliament House.”
+
+And he pointed out a sort of Nuremburg toy planted on a hill top. This
+toy with its polychrome architecture resembled the House of Parliament
+in London much as the Montreal cathedral resembles St. Peter’s at Rome.
+But that was of no consequence; there could be no doubt it was Ottawa.
+
+Soon the city faded off towards the horizon, and formed but a luminous
+spot on the ground.
+
+It was almost two hours before Robur appeared. His mate, Tom Turner,
+accompanied him. He said only three words. These were transmitted to
+the two assistant engineers in the fore and aft engine-houses. At a
+sign the helmsman changed the-direction of the “Albatross” a couple of
+points to the southwest; at the same time Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans
+felt that a greater speed had been given to the propellers.
+
+In fact, the speed had been doubled, and now surpassed anything that
+had ever been attained by terrestrial Engines. Torpedo-boats do their
+twenty-two knots an hour; railway trains do their sixty miles an hour;
+the ice-boats on the frozen Hudson do their sixty-five miles an hour; a
+machine built by the Patterson company, with a cogged wheel, has done
+its eighty miles; and another locomotive between Trenton and Jersey
+City has done its eighty-four.
+
+But the “Albatross.” at full speed, could do her hundred and twenty
+miles an hour, or 176 feet per second. This speed is that of the storm
+which tears up trees by the roots. It is the mean speed of the carrier
+pigeon, and is only surpassed by the flight of the swallow (220 feet
+per second) and that of the swift (274 feet per second).
+
+In a word, as Robur had said, the “Albatross.” by using the whole force
+of her screws, could make the tour of the globe in two hundred hours,
+or less than eight days.
+
+Is it necessary to say so? The phenomenon whose appearance had so much
+puzzled the people of both worlds was the aeronef of the engineer. The
+trumpet which blared its startling fanfares through the air was that of
+the mate, Tom Turner. The flag planted on the chief monuments of
+Europe, Asia, America, was the flag of Robur the Conqueror and his
+“Albatross.”
+
+And if up to then the engineer had taken many precautions against being
+recognized, if by preference he traveled at night, clearing the way
+with his electric lights, and during the day vanishing into the zones
+above the clouds, he seemed now to have no wish to keep his secret
+hidden. And if he had come to Philadelphia and presented himself at the
+meeting of the Weldon Institute, was it not that they might share in
+his prodigious discovery, and convince “ipso facto” the most
+incredulous? We know how he had been received, and we see what
+reprisals he had taken on the president and secretary of the club.
+
+Again did Robur approach his prisoners, who affected to be in no way
+surprised at what they saw, of what had succeeded in spite of them.
+Evidently beneath the cranium of these two Anglo-Saxon heads there was
+a thick crust of obstinacy, which would not be easy to remove.
+
+On his part, Robur did not seem to notice anything particular, and
+coolly continued the conversation which he had begun two hours before.
+
+“Gentlemen.” said he, “you ask yourselves doubtless if this apparatus,
+so marvelously adapted for aerial locomotion, is susceptible of
+receiving greater speed. It is not worth while to conquer space if we
+cannot devour it. I wanted the air to be a solid support to me, and it
+is. I saw that to struggle against the wind I must be stronger than the
+wind, and I am. I had no need of sails to drive me, nor oars nor wheels
+to push me, nor rails to give me a faster road. Air is what I wanted,
+that was all. Air surrounds me as it surrounds the submarine boat, and
+in it my propellers act like the screws of a steamer. That is how I
+solved the problem of aviation. That is what a balloon will never do,
+nor will any machine that is lighter than air.”
+
+Silence, absolute, on the part of the colleagues, which did not for a
+moment disconcert the engineer. He contented himself with a half-smile,
+and continued in his interrogative style, “Perhaps you ask if to this
+power of the “Albatross” to move horizontally there is added an equal
+power of vertical movement—in a word, if, when, we visit the higher
+zones of the atmosphere, we can compete with an aerostat? Well, I
+should not advise you to enter the “Go-Ahead” against her!”
+
+The two colleagues shrugged their shoulders. That was probably what the
+engineer was waiting for.
+
+Robur made a sign. The propelling screws immediately stopped, and after
+running for a mile the “Albatross” pulled up motionless.
+
+At a second gesture from Robur the suspensory helices revolved at a
+speed that can only be compared to that of a siren in acoustical
+experiments. Their f-r-r-r-r rose nearly an octave in the scale of
+sound, diminishing gradually in intensity as the air became more
+rarified, and the machine rose vertically, like a lark singing his song
+in space.
+
+“Master! Master!” shouted Frycollin. “See that it doesn’t break!”
+
+A smile of disdain was Robur’s only reply. In a few minutes the
+“Albatross” had attained the height of 8,700 feet, and extended the
+range of vision by seventy miles, the barometer having fallen 480
+millimeters.
+
+Then the “Albatross” descended. The diminution of the pressure in high
+altitudes leads to the diminution of oxygen in the air, and
+consequently in the blood. This has been the cause of several serious
+accidents which have happened to aeronauts, and Robur saw no reason to
+run any risk.
+
+The “Albatross” thus returned to the height she seemed to prefer, and
+her propellers beginning again, drove her off to the southwest.
+
+“Now, sirs, if that is what you wanted you can reply.” Then, leaning
+over the rail, he remained absorbed in contemplation.
+
+When he raised his head the president and secretary of the Weldon
+Institute stood by his side.
+
+“Engineer Robur.” said Uncle Prudent, in vain endeavoring to control
+himself, “we have nothing to ask about what you seem to believe, but we
+wish to ask you a question which we think you would do well to answer.”
+
+“Speak.”
+
+“By what right did you attack us in Philadelphia in Fairmount Park? By
+what right did you shut us up in that prison? By what right have you
+brought us against our will on board this flying machine?”
+
+“And by what right, Messieurs Balloonists, did you insult and threaten
+me in your club in such a way that I am astonished I came out of it
+alive?”
+
+“To ask is not to answer.” said Phil Evans, “and I repeat, by what
+right?”
+
+“Do you wish to know?”
+
+“If you please.”
+
+“Well, by the right of the strongest!”
+
+“That is cynical.”
+
+“But it is true.”
+
+“And for how long, citizen engineer.” asked Uncle Prudent, who was
+nearly exploding, “for how long do you intend to exercise that right?”
+
+“How can you?” said Robur, ironically, “how can you ask me such a
+question when you have only to cast down your eyes to enjoy a spectacle
+unparalleled in the world?”
+
+The “Albatross” was then sweeping across the immense expanse of Lake
+Ontario. She had just crossed the country so poetically described by
+Cooper. Then she followed the southern shore and headed for the
+celebrated river which pours into it the waters of Lake Erie, breaking
+them to powder in its cataracts.
+
+In an instant a majestic sound, a roar as of the tempest, mounted
+towards them and, as if a humid fog had been projected into the air,
+the atmosphere sensibly freshened. Below were the liquid masses. They
+seemed like an enormous flowing sheet of crystal amid a thousand
+rainbows due to refraction as it decomposed the solar rays. The sight
+was sublime.
+
+Before the falls a foot-bridge, stretching like a thread, united one
+bank to the other. Three miles below was a suspension-bridge, across
+which a train was crawling from the Canadian to the American bank.
+
+“The falls of Niagara!” exclaimed Phil Evans. And as the exclamation
+escaped him, Uncle Prudent was doing all could do to admire nothing of
+these wonders.
+
+A minute afterwards the “Albatross” had crossed the river which
+separates the United States from Canada, and was flying over the vast
+territories of the West.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX
+ACROSS THE PRAIRIE
+
+
+In one, of the cabins of the after-house Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans
+had found two excellent berths, with clean linen, change of clothes,
+and traveling-cloaks and rugs. No Atlantic liner could have offered
+them more comfort. If they did not sleep soundly it was that they did
+not wish to do so, or rather that their very real anxiety prevented
+them. In what adventure had they embarked? To what series of
+experiments had they been invited? How would the business end? And
+above all, what was Robur going to do with them?
+
+Frycollin, the valet, was quartered forward in a cabin adjoining that
+of the cook. The neighborhood did not displease him; he liked to rub
+shoulders with the great in this world. But if he finally went to sleep
+it was to dream of fall after fall, of projections through space, which
+made his sleep a horrible nightmare.
+
+However, nothing could be quieter than this journey through the
+atmosphere, whose currents had grown weaker with the evening. Beyond
+the rustling of the blades of the screws there was not a sound, except
+now and then the whistle from some terrestrial locomotive, or the
+calling of some animal. Strange instinct! These terrestrial beings felt
+the aeronef glide over them, and uttered cries of terror as it passed.
+On the morrow, the 14th of June, at five o’clock, Uncle Prudent and
+Phil Evans were walking on the deck of the “Albatross.”
+
+Nothing had changed since the evening; there was a lookout forward, and
+the helmsman was in his glass cage. Why was there a look-out? Was there
+any chance of collision with another such machine? Certainly not. Robur
+had not yet found imitators. The chance of encountering an aerostat
+gliding through the air was too remote to be regarded. In any case it
+would be all the worse for the aerostat—the earthen pot and the iron
+pot. The “Albatross” had nothing to fear from the collision.
+
+But what could happen? The aeronef might find herself like a ship on a
+lee shore if a mountain that could not be outflanked or passed barred
+the way. These are the reefs of the air, and they have to be avoided as
+a ship avoids the reefs of the sea. The engineer, it is true, had given
+the course, and in doing so had taken into account the altitude
+necessary to clear the summits of the high lands in the district. But
+as the aeronef was rapidly nearing a mountainous country, it was only
+prudent to keep a good lookout, in case some slight deviation from the
+course became necessary.
+
+Looking at the country beneath them, Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans
+noticed a large lake, whose lower southern end the “Albatross” had just
+reached. They concluded, therefore, that during the night the whole
+length of Lake Erie had been traversed, and that, as they were going
+due west, they would soon be over Lake Michigan. “There can be no doubt
+of it.” said Phil Evans, “and that group of roofs on the horizon is
+Chicago.”
+
+He was right. It was indeed the city from which the seventeen railways
+diverge, the Queen of the West, the vast reservoir into which flow the
+products of Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, Missouri, and all the States
+which form the western half of the Union.
+
+Uncle Prudent, through an excellent telescope he had found in his
+cabin, easily recognized the principal buildings. His colleague pointed
+out to him the churches and public edifices, the numerous “elevators”
+or mechanical, granaries, and the huge Sherman Hotel, whose windows
+seemed like a hundred glittering points on each of its faces.
+
+“If that is Chicago.” said Uncle Prudent, “it is obvious that we are
+going farther west than is convenient for us if we are to return to our
+starting-place.”
+
+And, in fact, the “Albatross” was traveling in a straight line from the
+Pennsylvania capital.
+
+But if Uncle Prudent wished to ask Robur to take him eastwards he could
+not then do so. That morning the engineer did not leave his cabin.
+Either he was occupied in some work, or else he was asleep, and the two
+colleagues sat down to breakfast without seeing him.
+
+The speed was the same as that during last evening. The wind being
+easterly the rate was not interfered with at all, and as the
+thermometer only falls a degree centigrade for every seventy meters of
+elevation the temperature was not insupportable. And so, in chatting
+and thinking and waiting for the engineer, Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans
+walked about beneath the forest of screws, whose gyratory movement gave
+their arms the appearance of semi-diaphanous disks.
+
+The State of Illinois was left by its northern frontier in less than
+two hours and a half; and they crossed the Father of Waters, the
+Mississippi, whose double-decked steam-boats seemed no bigger than
+canoes. Then the “Albatross” flew over Iowa after having sighted Iowa
+City about eleven o’clock in the morning.
+
+A few chains of hills, “bluffs” as they are called, curved across the
+face of the country trending from the south to the northwest, whose
+moderate height necessitated no rise in the course of the aeronef. Soon
+the bluffs gave place to the large plains of western Iowa and
+Nebraska—immense prairies extending all the way to the foot of the
+Rocky Mountains. Here and there were many rios, affluents or minor
+affluents of the Missouri. On their banks were towns and villages,
+growing more scattered as the “Albatross” sped farther west.
+
+Nothing particular happened during this day. Uncle Prudent and Phil
+Evans were left entirely to themselves. They hardly noticed Frycollin
+sprawling at full length in the bow, keeping his eyes shut so that he
+could see nothing. And they were not attacked by vertigo, as might have
+been expected. There was no guiding mark, and there was nothing to
+cause the vertigo, as there would have been on the top of a lofty
+building. The abyss has no attractive power when it is gazed at from
+the car of a balloon or deck of an aeronef. It is not an abyss that
+opens beneath the aeronaut, but an horizon that rises round him on all
+sides like a cup.
+
+In a couple of hours the “Albatross” was over Omaha, on the Nebraskan
+frontier—Omaha City, the real head of the Pacific Railway, that long
+line of rails, four thousand five hundred miles in length, stretching
+from New York to San Francisco. For a moment they could see the yellow
+waters of the Missouri, then the town, with its houses of wood and
+brick in the center of a rich basin, like a buckle in the iron belt
+which clasps North America round the waist. Doubtless, also, as the
+passengers in the aeronef could observe all these details, the
+inhabitants of Omaha noticed the strange machine. Their astonishment at
+seeing it gliding overhead could be no greater than that of the
+president and secretary of the Weldon Institute at finding themselves
+on board.
+
+Anyhow, the journals of the Union would be certain to notice the fact.
+It would be the explanation of the astonishing phenomenon which the
+whole world had been wondering over for some time.
+
+In an hour the “Albatross” had left Omaha and crossed the Platte River,
+whose valley is followed by the Pacific Railway in its route across the
+prairie. Things looked serious for Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans.
+
+“It is serious, then, this absurd project of taking us to the
+Antipodes.”
+
+“And whether we like it or not!” exclaimed the other.
+
+“Robur had better take care! I am not the man to stand that sort of
+thing.”
+
+“Nor am I!” replied Phil Evans. “But be calm, Uncle Prudent, be calm.”
+
+“Be calm!”
+
+“And keep your temper until it is wanted.”
+
+By five o’clock they had crossed the Black Mountains covered with pines
+and cedars, and the “Albatross” was over the appropriately named Bad
+Lands of Nebraska—a chaos of ochre-colored hills, of mountainous
+fragments fallen on the soil and broken in their fall. At a distance
+these blocks take the most fantastic shapes. Here and there amid this
+enormous game of knucklebones there could be traced the imaginary ruins
+of medieval cities with forts and dungeons, pepper-box turrets, and
+machicolated towers. And in truth these Bad Lands are an immense
+ossuary where lie bleaching in the sun myriads of fragments of
+pachyderms, chelonians, and even, some would have us believe, fossil
+men, overwhelmed by unknown cataclysms ages and ages ago.
+
+When evening came the whole basin of the Platte River had been crossed,
+and the plain extended to the extreme limits of the horizon, which rose
+high owing to the altitude of the “Albatross.”
+
+During the night there were no more shrill whistles of locomotives or
+deeper notes of the river steamers to trouble the quiet of the starry
+firmament. Long bellowing occasionally reached the aeronef from the
+herds of buffalo that roamed over the prairie in search of water and
+pasturage. And when they ceased, the trampling of the grass under their
+feet produced a dull roaring similar to the rushing of a flood, and
+very different from the continuous f-r-r-r-r of the screws.
+
+Then from time to time came the howl of a wolf, a fox, a wild cat, or a
+coyote, the “Canis latrans.” whose name is justified by his sonorous
+bark.
+
+Occasionally came penetrating odors of mint, and sage, and absinthe,
+mingled with the more powerful fragrance of the conifers which rose
+floating through the night air.
+
+At last came a menacing yell, which was not due to the coyote. It was
+the shout of a Redskin, which no Tenderfoot would confound with the cry
+of a wild beast.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X
+WESTWARD—BUT WHITHER?
+
+
+The next day, the 15th of June, about five o’clock in the morning, Phil
+Evans left his cabin. Perhaps he would today have a chance of speaking
+to Robur? Desirous of knowing why he had not appeared the day before,
+Evans addressed himself to the mate, Tom Turner.
+
+Tom Turner was an Englishman of about forty-five, broad in the
+shoulders and short in the legs, a man of iron, with one of those
+enormous characteristic heads that Hogarth rejoiced in.
+
+“Shall we see Mr. Robur to-day?” asked Phil Evans.
+
+“I don’t know.” said Turner.
+
+“I need not ask if he has gone out.”
+
+“Perhaps he has.”
+
+“And when will he come back?”
+
+“When he has finished his cruise.”
+
+And Tom went into his cabin.
+
+With this reply they had to be contented. Matters did not look
+promising, particularly as on reference to the compass it appeared that
+the “Albatross” was still steering southwest.
+
+Great was the contrast between the barren tract of the Bad Lands passed
+over during the night and the landscape then unrolling beneath them.
+
+The aeronef was now more than six hundred miles from Omaha, and over a
+country which Phil Evans could not recognize because he had never been
+there before. A few forts to keep the Indians in order crowned the
+bluffs with their geometric lines, formed oftener of palisades than
+walls. There were few villages, and few inhabitants, the country
+differing widely from the auriferous lands of Colorado many leagues to
+the south.
+
+In the distance a long line of mountain crests, in great confusion as
+yet, began to appear. They were the Rocky Mountains.
+
+For the first time that morning Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans were
+sensible of a certain lowness of temperature which was not due to a
+change in the weather, for the sun shone in superb splendor.
+
+“It is because of the “Albatross” being higher in the air.” said Phil
+Evans.
+
+In fact the barometer outside the central deck-house had fallen 540
+millimeters, thus indicating an elevation of about 10,000 feet above
+the sea. The aeronef was at this altitude owing to the elevation of the
+ground. An hour before she had been at a height of 13,000 feet, and
+behind her were mountains covered with perpetual snow.
+
+There was nothing Uncle Prudent and his companion could remember which
+would lead them to discover where they were. During the night the
+“Albatross” had made several stretches north and south at tremendous
+speed, and that was what had put them out of their reckoning.
+
+After talking over several hypotheses more or less plausible they came
+to the conclusion that this country encircled with mountains must be
+the district declared by an Act of Congress in March, 1872, to be the
+National Park of the United States. A strange region it was. It well
+merited the name of a park—a park with mountains for hills, with lakes
+for ponds, with rivers for streamlets, and with geysers of marvelous
+power instead of fountains.
+
+In a few minutes the “Albatross” glided across the Yellowstone River,
+leaving Mount Stevenson on the right, and coasting the large lake which
+bears the name of the stream. Great was the variety on the banks of
+this basin, ribbed as they were with obsidian and tiny crystals,
+reflecting the sunlight on their myriad facets. Wonderful was the
+arrangement of the islands on its surface; magnificent were the blue
+reflections of the gigantic mirror. And around the lake, one of the
+highest in the globe, were multitudes of pelicans, swans, gulls and
+geese, bernicles and divers. In places the steep banks were clothed
+with green trees, pines and larches, and at the foot of the escarpments
+there shot upwards innumerable white fumaroles, the vapor escaping from
+the soil as from an enormous reservoir in which the water is kept in
+permanent ebullition by subterranean fire.
+
+The cook might have seized the opportunity of securing an ample supply
+of trout, the only fish the Yellowstone Lake contains in myriads. But
+the “Albatross” kept on at such a height that there was no chance of
+indulging in a catch which assuredly would have been miraculous.
+
+In three quarters of an hour the lake was overpassed, and a little
+farther on the last was seen of the geyser region, which rivals the
+finest in Iceland. Leaning over the rail, Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans
+watched the liquid columns which leaped up as though to furnish the
+aeronef with a new element. There were the Fan, with the jets shot
+forth in rays, the Fortress, which seemed to be defended by
+waterspouts, the Faithful Friend, with her plume crowned with the
+rainbows, the Giant, spurting forth a vertical torrent twenty feet
+round and more than two hundred feet high.
+
+Robur must evidently have been familiar with this incomparable
+spectacle, unique in the world, for he did not appear on deck. Was it,
+then, for the sole pleasure of his guests that he had brought the
+aeronef above the national domain? If so, he came not to receive their
+thanks. He did not even trouble himself during the daring passage of
+the Rocky Mountains, which the “Albatross” approached at about seven
+o’clock.
+
+By increasing the speed of her wings, as a bird rising in its flight,
+the “Albatross” would clear the highest ridges of the chain, and sink
+again over Oregon or Utah, But the maneuver was unnecessary. The passes
+allowed the barrier to be crossed without ascending for the higher
+ridges. There are many of these canyons, or steep valleys, more or less
+narrow, through which they could glide, such as Bridger Gap, through
+which runs the Pacific Railway into the Mormon territory, and others to
+the north and south of it.
+
+It was through one of these that the “Albatross” headed, after
+slackening speed so as not to dash against the walls of the canyon. The
+steersman, with a sureness of hand rendered more effective by the
+sensitiveness of the rudder, maneuvered his craft as if she were a
+crack racer in a Royal Victoria match. It was really extraordinary. In
+spite of all the jealousy of the two enemies of “lighter than air.”
+they could not help being surprised at the perfection of this engine of
+aerial locomotion.
+
+In less than two hours and a half they were through the Rockies, and
+the “Albatross” resumed her former speed of sixty-two miles an hour.
+She was steering southwest so as to cut across Utah diagonally as she
+neared the ground. She had even dropped several hundred yards when the
+sound of a whistle attracted the attention of Uncle Prudent and Phil
+Evans. It was a train on the Pacific Railway on the road to Salt Lake
+City.
+
+And then, in obedience to an order secretly given, the “Albatross”
+dropped still lower so as to chase the train, which was going at full
+speed. She was immediately sighted. A few heads showed themselves at
+the doors of the cars. Then numerous passengers crowded the gangways.
+Some did not hesitate to climb on the roof to get a better view of the
+flying machine. Cheers came floating up through the air; but no Robur
+appeared in answer to them.
+
+The “Albatross” continued her descent, slowing her suspensory screws
+and moderating her speed so as not to leave the train behind. She flew
+about it like an enormous beetle or a gigantic bird of prey. She headed
+off, to the right and left, and swept on in front, and hung behind, and
+proudly displayed her flag with the golden sun, to which the conductor
+of the train replied by waving the Stars and Stripes.
+
+In vain the prisoners, in their desire to take advantage of the
+opportunity, endeavored to make themselves known to those below. In
+vain the president of the Weldon Institute roared forth at the top of
+his voice, “I am Uncle Prudent of Philadelphia!” And the secretary
+followed suit with, “I am Phil Evans, his colleague!” Their shouts were
+lost in the thousand cheers with which the passengers greeted the
+aeronef.
+
+Three or four of the crew of the “Albatross” had appeared on the deck,
+and one of them, like sailors when passing a ship less speedy than
+their own, held out a rope, an ironical way of offering to tow them.
+
+And then the “Albatross” resumed her original speed, and in half an
+hour the express was out of sight. About one o’clock there appeared a
+vast disk, which reflected the solar rays as if it were an immense
+mirror.
+
+“That ought to be the Mormon capital, Salt Lake City.” said Uncle
+Prudent. And so it was, and the disk was the roof of the Tabernacle,
+where ten thousand saints can worship at their ease. This vast dome,
+like a convex mirror, threw off the rays of the sun in all directions.
+
+It vanished like a shadow, and the “Albatross” sped on her way to the
+southwest with a speed that was not felt, because it surpassed that of
+the chasing wind. Soon she was in Nevada over the silver regions, which
+the Sierra separates from the golden lands of California.
+
+“We shall certainly reach San Francisco before night.” said Phil Evans.
+
+“And then?” asked Uncle Prudent.
+
+It was six o’clock precisely when the Sierra Nevada was crossed by the
+same pass as that taken by the railway. Only a hundred and eighty miles
+then separated them from San Francisco, the Californian capital.
+
+At the speed the “Albatross” was going she would be over the dome by
+eight o’clock.
+
+At this moment Robur appeared on deck. The colleagues walked up to him.
+
+“Engineer Robur.” said Uncle Prudent, “we are now on the very confines
+of America! We think the time has come for this joke to end.”
+
+“I never joke.” said Robur.
+
+He raised his hand. The “Albatross” swiftly dropped towards the ground,
+and at the same time such speed was given her as to drive the prisoners
+into their cabin. As soon as the door was shut, Uncle Prudent
+exclaimed,
+
+“I could strangle him!”
+
+“We must try to escape.” said Phil Evans.
+
+“Yes; cost what it may!”
+
+A long murmur greeted their ears. It was the beating of the surf on the
+seashore. It was the Pacific Ocean!
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI
+THE WIDE PACIFIC
+
+
+Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans had quite made up their minds to escape.
+If they had not had to deal with the eight particularly vigorous men
+who composed the crew of the aeronef they might have tried to succeed
+by main force. But as they were only two—for Frycollin could only be
+considered as a quantity of no importance—force was not to be thought
+of. Hence recourse must be had to strategy as soon as the “Albatross”
+again took the ground. Such was what Phil Evans endeavored to impress
+on his irascible colleague, though he was in constant fear of Prudent
+aggravating matters by some premature outbreak.
+
+In any case the present was not the time to attempt anything of the
+sort. The aeronef was sweeping along over the North Pacific. On the
+following morning, that of June 16th, the coast was out of sight. And
+as the coast curves off from Vancouver Island up to the
+Aleutians—belonging to that portion of America ceded by Russia to the
+United States in 1867—it was highly probable that the “Albatross” would
+cross it at the end of the curve, if her course remained unchanged.
+
+How long the night appeared to be to the two friends! How eager they
+were to get out of their cabins! When they came on deck in the morning
+the dawn had for some hours been silvering the eastern horizon. They
+were nearing the June solstice, the longest day of the year in the
+northern hemisphere, when there is hardly any night along the sixtieth
+parallel.
+
+Either from custom or intention Robur was in no hurry to leave his
+deck-house, When he came out this morning be contented himself with
+bowing to his two guests as he passed them in the stern of the aeronef.
+
+And now Frycollin ventured out of his cabin. His eyes red with
+sleeplessness, and dazed in their look, he tottered along, like a man
+whose foot feels it is not on solid ground. His first glance was at the
+suspensory screws, which were working with gratifying regularity
+without any signs of haste. That done, the Negro stumbled along to the
+rail, and grasped it with both hands, so as to make sure of his
+balance. Evidently he wished to view the country over which the
+“Albatross” was flying at the height of seven hundred feet or more.
+
+At first he kept himself well back behind the rail. Then he shook it to
+make sure it was firm; then he drew himself up; then he bent forward;
+then he stretched out his head. It need not be said that while he was
+executing these different maneuvers he kept his eyes shut. At last he
+opened them.
+
+What a shout! And how quickly he fled! And how deeply his head sank
+back into his shoulders! At the bottom of the abyss he had seen the
+immense ocean. His hair would have risen on end—if it had not been
+wool.
+
+“The sea! The sea!” he cried. And Frycollin would have fallen on the
+deck had not the cook opened his arms to receive him.
+
+This cook was a Frenchman, and probably a Gascon, his name being
+Francois Tapage. If he was not a Gascon he must in his infancy have
+inhaled the breezes of the Garonne. How did this Francois Tapage find
+himself in the service of the engineer? By what chain of accidents had
+he become one of the crew of the “Albatross?” We can hardly say; but in
+any case be spoke English like a Yankee. “Eh, stand up!” he said,
+lifting the Negro by a vigorous clutch at the waist.
+
+“Master Tapage!” said the poor fellow, giving a despairing look at the
+screws.
+
+“At your service, Frycollin.”
+
+“Did this thing ever smash?”
+
+“No, but it will end by smashing.”
+
+“Why? Why?”
+
+“Because everything must end.
+
+“And the sea is beneath us!”
+
+“If we are to fall, it is better to fall in the sea.”
+
+“We shall be drowned.”
+
+“We shall be drowned, but we shall not be smashed to a jelly.”
+
+The next moment Frycollin was on all fours, creeping to the back of his
+cabin.
+
+During this day the aeronef was only driven at moderate speed. She
+seemed to skim the placid surface of the sea, which lay beneath. Uncle
+Prudent and his companion remained in their cabin, so that they did not
+meet with Robur, who walked about smoking alone or talking to the mate.
+Only half the screws were working, yet that was enough to keep the
+apparatus afloat in the lower zones of the atmosphere.
+
+The crew, as a change from the ordinary routine, would have endeavored
+to catch a few fish had there been any sign of them; but all that could
+be seen on the surface of the sea were a few of those yellow-bellied
+whales which measure about eighty feet in length. These are the most
+formidable cetaceans in the northern seas, and whalers are very careful
+in attacking them, for their strength is prodigious. However, in
+harpooning one of these whales, either with the ordinary harpoon, the
+Fletcher fuse, or the javelin-bomb, of which there was an assortment on
+board, there would have been danger to the men of the “Albatross.”
+
+But what was the good of such useless massacre? Doubtless to show off
+the powers of the aeronef to the members of the Weldon Institute. And
+so Robur gave orders for the capture of one of these monstrous
+cetaceans.
+
+At the shout of “A whale! A whale!” Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans came
+out of their cabin. Perhaps there was a whaler in sight! In that case
+all they had to do to escape from their flying prison was to jump into
+the sea, and chance being picked up by the vessel.
+
+The crew were all on deck. “Shall we try, sir?” asked Tom Turner.
+
+“Yes.” said Robur.
+
+In the engine-room the engineer and his assistant were at their posts
+ready to obey the orders signaled to them. The “Albatross” dropped
+towards the sea, and remained, about fifty feet above it.
+
+There was no ship in sight—of that the two colleagues soon assured
+themselves—nor was there any land to be seen to which they could swim,
+providing Robur made no attempt to recapture them.
+
+Several jets of water from the spout holes soon announced the presence
+of the whales as they came to the surface to breathe. Tom Turner and
+one of the men were in the bow. Within his reach was one of those
+javelin-bombs, of Californian make, which are shot from an arquebus and
+which are shaped as a metallic cylinder terminated by a cylindrical
+shell armed with a shaft having a barbed point. Robur was a little
+farther aft, and with his right hand signaled to the engineers, while
+with his left, he directed the steersman. He thus controlled the
+aeronef in every way, horizontally and vertically, and it is almost
+impossible to conceive with what speed and precision the “Albatross”
+answered to his orders. She seemed a living being, of which he was the
+soul.
+
+“A whale! A whale!” shouted Tom Turner, as the back of a cetacean
+emerged from the surface about four cable-lengths in front of the
+“Albatross.”
+
+The “Albatross” swept towards it, and when she was within sixty feet of
+it she stopped dead.
+
+Tom Turner seized the arquebus, which was resting against a cleat on
+the rail. He fired, and the projectile, attached to a long line,
+entered the whale’s body. The shell, filled with an explosive compound,
+burst, and shot out a small harpoon with two branches, which fastened
+into the animal’s flesh.
+
+“Look out!” shouted Turner.
+
+Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans, much against their will, became greatly
+interested in the spectacle.
+
+The whale, seriously wounded, gave the sea such a slap with his tail,
+that the water dashed up over the bow of the aeronef. Then he plunged
+to a great depth, while the line, which had been previously wetted in a
+tub of water to prevent its taking fire, ran out like lightning. When
+the whale rose to the surface he started off at full speed in a
+northerly direction.
+
+It may be imagined with what speed the “Albatross” was towed in
+pursuit. Besides, the propellers had been stopped. The whale was let go
+as he would, and the ship followed him. Turner stood ready to cut the
+line in case a fresh plunge should render this towing dangerous.
+
+For half an hour, and perhaps for a distance of six miles, the
+“Albatross” was thus dragged along, but it was obvious that the whale
+was tiring. Then, at a gesture from Robur the assistant engineers
+started the propellers astern, so as to oppose a certain resistance to
+the whale, who was gradually getting closer.
+
+Soon the aeronef was gliding about twenty-five feet above him. His tail
+was beating the waters with incredible violence, and as he turned over
+on his back an enormous wave was produced.
+
+Suddenly the whale turned up again, so as to take a header, as it were,
+and then dived with such rapidity that Turner had barely time to cut
+the line.
+
+The aeronef was dragged to the very surface of the water. A whirlpool
+was formed where the animal had disappeared. A wave dashed up on to the
+deck as if the aeronef were a ship driving against wind and tide.
+
+Luckily, with a blow of the hatchet the mate severed the line, and the
+“Albatross.” freed from her tug, sprang aloft six hundred feet under
+the impulse of her ascensional screws. Robur had maneuvered his ship
+without losing his coolness for a moment.
+
+A few minutes afterwards the whale returned to the surface—dead. From
+every side the birds flew down on to the carcass, and their cries were
+enough to deafen a congress. The “Albatross.” without stopping to share
+in the spoil, resumed her course to the west.
+
+In the morning of the 17th of June, at about six o’clock, land was
+sighted on the horizon. This was the peninsula of Alaska, and the long
+range of breakers of the Aleutian Islands.
+
+The “Albatross” glided over the barrier where the fur seals swarm for
+the benefit of the Russo-American Company. An excellent business is the
+capture of these amphibians, which are from six to seven feet long,
+russet in color, and weigh from three hundred to four hundred pounds.
+There they were in interminable files, ranged in line of battle, and
+countable by thousands.
+
+Although they did not move at the passage of the “Albatross.” it was
+otherwise with the ducks, divers, and loons, whose husky cries filled
+the air as they disappeared beneath the waves and fled terrified from
+the aerial monster.
+
+The twelve hundred miles of the Behring Sea between the first of the
+Aleutians and the extreme end of Kamtschatka were traversed during the
+twenty-four hours of this day and the following night. Uncle Prudent
+and Phil Evans found that here was no present chance of putting their
+project of escape into execution. Flight was not to be thought of among
+the deserts of Eastern Asia, nor on the coast of the sea of Okhotsk.
+Evidently the “Albatross” was bound for Japan or China, and there,
+although it was not perhaps quite safe to trust themselves to the
+mercies of the Chinese or Japanese, the two friends had made up their
+minds to run if the aeronef stopped.
+
+But would she stop? She was not like a bird which grows fatigued by too
+long a flight, or like a balloon which has to descend for want of gas.
+She still had food for many weeks and her organs were of marvelous
+strength, defying all weakness and weariness.
+
+During the 18th of June she swept over the peninsula of Kamtschatka,
+and during the day there was a glimpse of Petropaulovski and the
+volcano of Kloutschew. Then she rose again to cross the Sea of Okhotsk,
+running down by the Kurile Isles, which seemed to be a breakwater
+pierced by hundreds of channels. On the 19th, in the morning, the
+“Albatross” was over the strait of La Perouse between Saghalien and
+Northern Japan, and had reached the mouth of the great Siberian river,
+the Amoor.
+
+Then there came a fog so dense that the aeronef had to rise above it.
+At the altitude she was there was no obstacle to be feared, no elevated
+monuments to hinder her passage, no mountains against which there was
+risk of being shattered in her flight. The country was only slightly
+varied. But the fog was very disagreeable, and made everything on board
+very damp.
+
+All that was necessary was to get above this bed of mist, which was
+nearly thirteen hundred feet thick, and the ascensional screws being
+increased in speed, the “Albatross” was soon clear of the fog and in
+the sunny regions of the sky. Under these circumstances, Uncle Prudent
+and Phil Evans would have found some difficulty in carrying out their
+plan of escape, even admitting that they could leave the aeronef.
+
+During the day, as Robur passed them he stopped for a moment, and
+without seeming to attach any importance to what he said, addressed
+them carelessly as follows: “Gentlemen, a sailing-ship or a steamship
+caught in a fog from which it cannot escape is always much delayed. It
+must not move unless it keeps its whistle or its horn going. It must
+reduce its speed, and any instant a collision may be expected. The
+“Albatross” has none of these things to fear. What does fog matter to
+her? She can leave it when she chooses. The whole of space is hers.”
+And Robur continued his stroll without waiting for an answer, and the
+puffs of his pipe were lost in the sky.
+
+“Uncle Prudent.” said Phil Evans, “it seems that this astonishing
+“Albatross” never has anything to fear.”
+
+“That we shall see!” answered the president of the Weldon Institute.
+
+The fog lasted three days, the 19th, 20th, and 21st of June, with
+regrettable persistence. An ascent had to be made to clear the Japanese
+mountain of Fujiyama. When the curtain of mist was drawn aside there
+lay below them an immense city, with palaces, villas, gardens, and
+parks. Even without seeing it Robur had recognized it by the barking of
+the innumerable dogs, the cries of the birds of prey, and above all, by
+the cadaverous odor which the bodies of its executed criminals gave off
+into space.
+
+The two colleagues were out on the deck while the engineer was taking
+his observations in case he thought it best to continue his course
+through the fog.
+
+“Gentlemen.” said he, “I have no reason for concealing from you that
+this town is Tokyo, the capital of Japan.”
+
+Uncle Prudent did not reply. In the presence of the engineer he was
+almost choked, as if his lungs were short of air.
+
+“This view of Tokyo.” continued Robur, “is very curious.”
+
+“Curious as it may be—” replied Phil Evans.
+
+“It is not as good as Peking?” interrupted the engineer.
+
+“That is what I think, and very shortly you shall have an opportunity
+of judging.”
+
+Impossible to be more agreeable!
+
+The “Albatross” then gliding southeast, had her course changed four
+points, so as to head to the eastward.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII
+THROUGH THE HIMALAYAS
+
+
+During the night the fog cleared off. There were symptoms of an
+approaching typhoon—a rapid fall of the barometer, a disappearance of
+vapor, large clouds of ellipsoid form clinging to a copper sky, and, on
+the opposite horizon, long streaks of carmine on a slate-colored field,
+with a large sector quite clear in the north. Then the sea was smooth
+and calm and at sunset assumed a deep scarlet hue.
+
+Fortunately the typhoon broke more to the south, and had no other
+result than to sweep away the mist which had been accumulating during
+the last three days.
+
+In an hour they had traversed the hundred and twenty-five miles of the
+Korean strait, and while the typhoon was raging on the coast of China,
+the “Albatross” was over the Yellow Sea. During the 22nd and 23rd she
+was over the Gulf of Pechelee, and on the 24th she was ascending the
+valley of the Peiho on her way to the capital of the Celestial Empire.
+
+Leaning over the rail, the two colleagues, as the engineer had told
+them, could see distinctly the immense city, the wall which divides it
+into two parts—the Manchu town, and the Chinese town—the twelve suburbs
+which surround it, the large boulevards which radiate from its center,
+the temples with their green and yellow roofs bathed in the rising sun,
+the grounds surrounding the houses of the mandarins; then in the middle
+of the Manchu town the eighteen hundred acres of the Yellow town, with
+its pagodas, its imperial gardens, its artificial lakes, its mountain
+of coal which towers above the capital; and in the center of the Yellow
+town, like a square of Chinese puzzle enclosed in another, the Red
+town, that is the imperial palace, with all the peaks of its outrageous
+architecture.
+
+Below the “Albatross” the air was filled with a singular harmony. It
+seemed to be a concert of Aeolian harps. In the air were a hundred
+kites of different forms, made of sheets of palm-leaf, and having at
+their upper end a sort of bow of light wood with a thin slip of bamboo
+beneath. In the breath of the wind these slips, with all their notes
+varied like those of a harmonicon, gave forth a most melancholy
+murmuring. It seemed as though they were breathing musical oxygen.
+
+It suited Robur’s whim to run close up to this aerial orchestra, and
+the “Albatross” slowed as she glided through the sonorous waves which
+the kites gave off through the atmosphere.
+
+But immediately an extraordinary effect was produced amongst the
+innumerable population. Beatings of the tomtoms and sounds of other
+formidable instruments of the Chinese orchestra, gun reports by the
+thousand, mortars fired in hundreds, all were brought into play to
+scare away the aeronef. Although the Chinese astronomers may have
+recognized the aerial machine as the moving body that had given rise to
+such disputes, it was to the Celestial million, from the humblest
+tankader to the best-buttoned mandarin, an apocalyptical monster
+appearing in the sky of Buddha.
+
+The crew of the “Albatross” troubled themselves very little about these
+demonstrations. But the strings which held the kites, and were tied to
+fixed pegs in the imperial gardens, were cut or quickly hauled in; and
+the kites were either drawn in rapidly, sounding louder as they sank,
+or else fell like a bird shot through both wings, whose song ends with
+its last sigh.
+
+A noisy fanfare escaped from Tom Turner’s trumpet, and drowned the
+final notes of the aerial concert. It did not interrupt the terrestrial
+fusillade. At last a shell exploded a few feet below the “Albatross.”
+and then she mounted into the inaccessible regions of the sky.
+
+Nothing happened during the few following days of which the prisoners
+could take advantage. The aeronef kept on her course to the southwest,
+thereby showing that it was intended to take her to India. Twelve hours
+after leaving Peking, Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans caught a glimpse of
+the Great Wall in the neighborhood of Chen-Si. Then, avoiding the Lung
+Mountains, they passed over the valley of the Hoangho and crossed the
+Chinese border on the Tibet side.
+
+Tibet consists of high table-lands without vegetation, with here and
+there snowy peaks and barren ravines, torrents fed by glaciers,
+depressions with glittering beds of salt, lakes surrounded by luxurious
+forests, with icy winds sweeping over all.
+
+The barometer indicated an altitude of thirteen thousand feet above the
+level of the sea. At that height the temperature, although it was in
+the warmest months of the northern hemisphere, was only a little above
+freezing. This cold, combined with the speed of the “Albatross.” made
+the voyage somewhat trying, and although the friends had warm traveling
+wraps, they preferred to keep to their cabin.
+
+It need hardly be said that to keep the aeronef in this rarefied
+atmosphere the suspensory screws had to be driven at extreme speed. But
+they worked with perfect regularity, and the sound of their wings
+almost acted as a lullaby.
+
+During this day, appearing from below about the size of a carrier
+pigeon, she passed over Garlock, a town of western Tibet, the capital
+of the province of Cari Khorsum.
+
+On the 27th of June, Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans sighted an enormous
+barrier, broken here and there by several peaks, lost in the snows that
+bounded the horizon.
+
+Leaning against the fore-cabin, so as to keep their places
+notwithstanding the speed of the ship, they watched these colossal
+masses, which seemed to be running away from the aeronef.
+
+“The Himalayas, evidently.” said Phil Evans; “and probably Robur is
+going round their base, so as to pass into India.”
+
+“So much the worse.” answered Uncle Prudent. “On that immense territory
+we shall perhaps be able to—”
+
+“Unless he goes round by Burma to the east, or Nepal to the west.”
+
+“Anyhow, I defy him to go through them.”
+
+“Indeed!” said a voice.
+
+The next day, the 28th of June, the “Albatross” was in front of the
+huge mass above the province of Zang. On the other side of the chain
+was the province of Nepal. These ranges block the road into India from
+the north. The two northern ones, between which the aeronef was gliding
+like a ship between enormous reefs are the first steps of the Central
+Asian barrier. The first was the Kuen Lung, the other the Karakorum,
+bordering the longitudinal valley parallel to the Himalayas, from which
+the Indus flows to the west and the Brahmapootra to the east.
+
+What a superb orographical system! More than two hundred summits have
+been measured, seventeen of which exceed twenty-five thousand feet. In
+front of the “Albatross.” at a height of twenty-nine thousand feet,
+towered Mount Everest. To the right was Dhawalagiri, reaching
+twenty-six thousand eight hundred feet, and relegated to second place
+since the measurement of Mount Everest.
+
+Evidently Robur did not intend to go over the top of these peaks; but
+probably he knew the passes of the Himalayas, among others that of Ibi
+Ganim, which the brothers Schlagintweit traversed in 1856 at a height
+of twenty-two thousand feet. And towards it he went.
+
+Several hours of palpitation, becoming quite painful, followed; and
+although the rarefaction of the air was not such as to necessitate
+recourse being had to the special apparatus for renewing oxygen in the
+cabins, the cold was excessive.
+
+Robur stood in the bow, his sturdy figure wrapped in a great-coat. He
+gave the orders, while Tom Turner was at the helm. The engineer kept an
+attentive watch on his batteries, the acid in which fortunately ran no
+risk of congelation. The screws, running at the full strength of the
+current, gave forth a note of intense shrillness in spite of the
+trifling density of the air. The barometer showed twenty-three thousand
+feet in altitude.
+
+Magnificent was the grouping of the chaos of mountains! Everywhere were
+brilliant white summits. There were no lakes, but glaciers descending
+ten thousand feet towards the base. There was no herbage, only a few
+phanerogams on the limit of vegetable life. Down on the lower flanks of
+the range were splendid forests of pines and cedars. Here were none of
+the gigantic ferns and interminable parasites stretching from tree to
+tree as in the thickets of the jungle. There were no animals—no wild
+horses, or yaks, or Tibetan bulls. Occasionally a scared gazelle showed
+itself far down the slopes. There were no birds, save a couple of those
+crows which can rise to the utmost limits of the respirable air.
+
+The pass at last was traversed. The “Albatross” began to descend.
+Coming from the hills out of the forest region there was now beneath
+them an immense plain stretching far and wide.
+
+Then Robur stepped up to his guests, and in a pleasant voice remarked,
+“India, gentlemen!”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII
+OVER THE CASPIAN
+
+
+The engineer had no intention of taking his ship over the wondrous
+lands of Hindustan. To cross the Himalayas was to show how admirable
+was the machine he commanded; to convince those who would not be
+convinced was all he wished to do.
+
+But if in their hearts Uncle Prudent and his colleague could not help
+admiring so perfect an engine of aerial locomotion, they allowed none
+of their admiration to be visible. All they thought of was how to
+escape. They did not even admire the superb spectacle that lay beneath
+them as the “Albatross” flew along the river banks of the Punjab.
+
+At the base of the Himalayas there runs a marshy belt of country, the
+home of malarious vapors, the Terai, in which fever is endemic. But
+this offered no obstacle to the “Albatross.” or, in any way, affected
+the health of her crew. She kept on without undue haste towards the
+angle where India joins on to China and Turkestan, and on the 29th of
+June, in the early hours of the morning, there opened to view the
+incomparable valley of Cashmere.
+
+Yes! Incomparable is this gorge between the major and the minor
+Himalayas—furrowed by the buttresses in which the mighty range dies out
+in the basin of the Hydaspes, and watered by the capricious windings of
+the river which saw the struggle between the armies of Porus and
+Alexander, when India and Greece contended for Central Asia. The
+Hydaspes is still there, although the two towns founded by the
+Macedonian in remembrance of his victory have long since disappeared.
+
+During the morning the aeronef was over Serinuggur, which is better
+known under the name of Cashmere. Uncle Prudent and his companion
+beheld the superb city clustered along both banks of the river; its
+wooden bridges stretching across like threads, its villas and their
+balconies standing out in bold outline, its hills shaded by tall
+poplars, its roofs grassed over and looking like molehills; its
+numerous canals, with boats like nut-shells, and boatmen like ants; its
+palaces, temples, kiosks, mosques, and bungalows on the outskirts; and
+its old citadel of Hari-Pawata on the slope of the hill like the most
+important of the forts of Paris on the slope of Mont Valerien.
+
+“That would be Venice.” said Phil Evans, “if we were in Europe.”
+
+“And if we were in Europe.” answered Uncle Prudent, “we should know how
+to find the way to America.”
+
+The “Albatross” did not linger over the lake through which the river
+flows, but continued her flight down the valley of the Hydaspes.
+
+For half an hour only did she descend to within thirty feet of the
+river and remained stationary. Then, by means of an india-rubber pipe,
+Tom Turner and his men replenished their water supply, which was drawn
+up by a pump worked by the accumulators. Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans
+stood watching the operation. The same idea occurred to each of them.
+They were only a few feet from the surface of the stream. They were
+both good swimmers. A plunge would give them their liberty; and once
+they had reached the river, how could Robur get them back again? For
+his propellers to work, he must keep at least six feet above the
+ground.
+
+In a moment all the chances pro and con were run over in their heads.
+In a moment they were considered, and the prisoners rushed to throw
+themselves overboard, when several pairs of hands seized them by the
+shoulders.
+
+They had been watched; and flight was utterly impossible.
+
+This time they did not yield without resisting. They tried to throw off
+those who held them. But these men of the “Albatross” were no children.
+
+“Gentlemen.” said the engineer, “when people, have the pleasure of
+traveling with Robur the Conqueror, as you have so well named him, on
+board his admirable “Albatross.” they do not leave him in that way. I
+may add you never leave him.”
+
+Phil Evans drew away his colleague, who was about to commit some act of
+violence. They retired to their cabin, resolved to escape, even if it
+cost them their lives.
+
+Immediately the “Albatross” resumed her course to the west. During the
+day at moderate speed she passed over the territory of Cabulistan,
+catching a momentary glimpse of its capital, and crossed the frontier
+of the kingdom of Herat, nearly seven hundred miles from Cashmere.
+
+In these much-disputed countries, the open road for the Russians to the
+English possessions in India, there were seen many columns and convoys,
+and, in a word, everything that constitutes in men and material an army
+on the march. There were heard also the roar of the cannon and the
+crackling of musketry. But the engineer never meddled with the affairs
+of others where his honor or humanity was not concerned. He passed
+above them. If Herat as we are told, is the key of Central Asia, it
+mattered little to him if it was kept in an English or Muscovite
+pocket. Terrestrial interests were nothing to him who had made the air
+his domain.
+
+Besides, the country soon disappeared in one of those sandstorms which
+are so frequent in these regions. The wind called the “tebbad” bears
+along the seeds of fever in the impalpable dust it raises in its
+passage. And many are the caravans that perish in its eddies.
+
+To escape this dust, which might have interfered with the working of
+the screws, the “Albatross” shot up some six thousand feet into a purer
+atmosphere.
+
+And thus vanished the Persian frontier and the extensive plains. The
+speed was not excessive, although there were no rocks ahead, for the
+mountains marked on the map are of very moderate altitude. But as the
+ship approached the capital, she had to steer clear of Demavend, whose
+snowy peak rises some twenty-two thousand feet, and the chain of
+Elbruz, at whose foot is built Teheran.
+
+As soon as the day broke on the 2nd of July the peak of Demavend
+appeared above the sandstorm, and the “Albatross” was steered so as to
+pass over the town, which the wind had wrapped in a mantle of dust.
+
+However, about six o’clock her crew could see the large ditches that
+surround it, and the Shah’s palace, with its walls covered with
+porcelain tiles, and its ornamental lakes, which seemed like huge
+turquoises of beautiful blue.
+
+It was but a hasty glimpse. The “Albatross” now headed for the north,
+and a few hours afterwards she was over a little hill at the northern
+angle of the Persian frontier, on the shores of a vast extent of water
+which stretched away out of sight to the north and east.
+
+The town was Ashurada, the most southerly of the Russian stations. The
+vast extent of water was a sea. It was the Caspian.
+
+The eddies of sand had been passed. There was a view of a group of
+European houses rising along a promontory, with a church tower in the
+midst of them.
+
+The “Albatross” swooped down towards the surface of the sea. Towards
+evening she was running along the coast—which formerly belonged to
+Turkestan, but now belongs to Russia—and in the morning of the 3rd of
+July she was about three hundred feet above the Caspian.
+
+There was no land in sight, either on the Asiatic or European side. On
+the surface of the sea a few white sails were bellying in the breeze.
+These were native vessels recognizable by their peculiar rig—kesebeys,
+with two masts; kayuks, the old pirate-boats, with one mast; teimils,
+and smaller craft for trading and fishing. Here and there a few puffs
+of smoke rose up to the “Albatross” from the funnels of the Ashurada
+steamers, which the Russians keep as the police of these Turcoman
+waters.
+
+That morning Tom Turner was talking to the cook, Tapage, and to a
+question of his replied, “Yes; we shall be about forty-eight hours over
+the Caspian.”
+
+“Good!” said the cook; “Then we can have some fishing.”
+
+“Just so.”
+
+They were to remain for forty-eight hours over the Caspian, which is
+some six hundred and twenty-five miles long and two hundred wide,
+because the speed of the “Albatross” had been much reduced, and while
+the fishing was going on she would be stopped altogether.
+
+The reply was heard by Phil Evans, who was then in the bow, where
+Frycollin was overwhelming him with piteous pleadings to be put “on the
+ground.”
+
+Without replying to this preposterous request, Evans returned aft to
+Uncle Prudent; and there, taking care not to be overheard, he reported
+the conversation that had taken place.
+
+“Phil Evans.” said Uncle Prudent, “I think there can be no mistake as
+to this scoundrel’s intention with regard to us.”
+
+“None.” said Phil Evans. “He will only give us our liberty when it
+suits him, and perhaps not at all.”
+
+“In that case we must do all we can to get away from the ‘Albatross’.”
+
+“A splendid craft, she is, I must admit.”
+
+“Perhaps so.” said Uncle Prudent; “but she belongs to a scoundrel who
+detains us on board in defiance of all right. For us and ours she is a
+constant danger. If we do not destroy her—”
+
+“Let us begin by saving ourselves” answered Phil Evans; “we can see
+about the destruction afterwards.”
+
+“Just so.” said Uncle Prudent. “And we must avail ourselves of every
+chance that comes, along. Evidently the “Albatross” is going to cross
+the Caspian into Europe, either by the north into Russia or by the west
+into the southern countries. Well, no matter where we stop, before we
+get to the Atlantic, we shall be safe. And we ought to be ready at any
+moment.”
+
+“But.” asked Evans, “how are we to get out?”
+
+“Listen to me.” said Uncle Prudent. “It may happen during the night
+that the “Albatross” may drop to within a few hundred feet of the
+ground. Now there are on board several ropes of that length, and, with
+a little pluck we might slip down them—”
+
+“Yes.” said Evans. “If the case is desperate I don’t mind—”
+
+“Nor I. During the night there’s no one about except the man at the
+wheel. And if we can drop one of the ropes forward without being seen
+or heard—”
+
+“Good! I am glad to see you are so cool; that means business. But just
+now we are over the Caspian. There are several ships in sight. The
+“Albatross” is going down to fish. Cannot we do something now?”
+
+“Sh! They are watching us much more than you think.” said Uncle
+Prudent. “You saw that when we tried to jump into the Hydaspes.”
+
+“And who knows that they don’t watch us at night?” asked Evans.
+
+“Well, we must end this; we must finish with this “Albatross” and her
+master.”
+
+It will be seen how in the excitement of their anger the
+colleagues—Uncle Prudent in particular—were prepared to attempt the
+most hazardous things. The sense of their powerlessness, the ironical
+disdain with which Robur treated them, the brutal remarks he indulged
+in—all contributed towards intensifying the aggravation which daily
+grew more manifest.
+
+This very day something occurred which gave rise to another most
+regrettable altercation between Robur and his guests. This was provoked
+by Frycollin, who, finding himself above the boundless sea, was seized
+with another fit of terror. Like a child, like the Negro he was, he
+gave himself over to groaning and protesting and crying, and writhing
+in a thousand contortions and grimaces.
+
+“I want to get out! I want to get out! I am not a bird! Boohoo! I don’t
+want to fly, I want to get out!”
+
+Uncle Prudent, as may be imagined, did not attempt to quiet him. In
+fact, he encouraged him, and particularly as the incessant howling
+seemed to have a strangely irritating effect on Robur.
+
+When Tom Turner and his companions were getting ready for fishing, the
+engineer ordered them to shut up Frycollin in his cabin. But the Negro
+never ceased his jumping about, and began to kick at the wall and yell
+with redoubled power.
+
+It was noon. The “Albatross” was only about fifteen or twenty feet
+above the water. A few ships, terrified at the apparition, sought
+safety in flight.
+
+As may be guessed, a sharp look-out was kept on the prisoners, whose
+temptation to escape could not but be intensified. Even supposing they
+jumped overboard they would have been picked up by the india-rubber
+boat. As there was nothing to do during the fishing, in which Phil
+Evans intended to take part, Uncle Prudent, raging furiously as usual,
+retired to his cabin.
+
+The Caspian Sea is a volcanic depression. Into it flow the waters of
+the Volga, the Ural, the Kour, the Kouma, the Jemba, and others.
+Without the evaporation which relieves it of its overflow, this basin,
+with an area of 17,000 square miles, and a depth of from sixty to four
+hundred feet, would flood the low marshy ground to its north and east.
+Although it is not in communication with the Black Sea or the Sea of
+Aral, being at a much lower level than they are, it contains an immense
+number of fish—such fish, be it understood, as can live in its bitter
+waters, the bitterness being due to the naphtha which pours in from the
+springs on the south.
+
+The crew of the “Albatross” made no secret of their delight at the
+change in their food the fishing would bring them.
+
+“Look out!” shouted Turner, as he harpooned a good-size fish, not
+unlike a shark.
+
+It was a splendid sturgeon seven feet long, called by the Russians
+beluga, the eggs of which mixed up with salt, vinegar, and white wine
+form caviar. Sturgeons from the river are, it may be, rather better
+than those from the sea; but these were welcomed warmly enough on board
+the “Albatross.”
+
+But the best catches were made with the drag-nets, which brought up at
+each haul carp, bream, salmon, saltwater pike, and a number of
+medium-sized sterlets, which wealthy gourmets have sent alive to
+Astrakhan, Moscow, and Petersburg, and which now passed direct from
+their natural element into the cook’s kettle without any charge for
+transport.
+
+An hour’s work sufficed to fill up the larders of the aeronef, and she
+resumed her course to the north.
+
+During the fishing Frycollin had continued shouting and kicking at his
+cabin wall, and making a tremendous noise.
+
+“That wretched nigger will not be quiet, then?” said Robur, almost out
+of patience.
+
+“It seems to me, sir, he has a right to complain.” said Phil Evans.
+
+“Yes, and I have a right to look after my ears.” replied Robur.
+
+“Engineer Robur!” said Uncle Prudent, who had just appeared on deck.
+
+“President of the Weldon Institute!”
+
+They had stepped up to one another, and were looking into the whites of
+each other’s eyes. Then Robur shrugged his shoulders. “Put him at the
+end of a line.” he said.
+
+Turner saw his meaning at once. Frycollin was dragged out of his cabin.
+Loud were his cries when the mate and one of the men seized him and
+tied him into a tub, which they hitched on to a rope—one of those very
+ropes, in fact, that Uncle Prudent had intended to use as we know.
+
+The Negro at first thought he was going to be hanged. Not he was only
+going to be towed!
+
+The rope was paid out for a hundred feet and Frycollin found himself
+hanging in space.
+
+He could then shout at his ease. But fright contracted his larynx, and
+he was mute.
+
+Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans endeavored to prevent this performance.
+They were thrust aside.
+
+“It is scandalous! It is cowardly!” said Uncle Prudent, quite beside
+himself with rage.
+
+“Indeed!” said Robur.
+
+“It is an abuse of power against which I protest.”
+
+“Protest away!”
+
+“I will be avenged, Mr. Robur.”
+
+“Avenge when you like, Mr. Prudent.”
+
+“I will have my revenge on you and yours.”
+
+The crew began to close up with anything but peaceful intentions. Robur
+motioned them away.
+
+“Yes, on you and yours!” said Uncle Prudent, whom his colleague in vain
+tried to keep quiet.
+
+“Whenever you please!” said the engineer.
+
+“And in every possible way!”
+
+“That is enough now.” said Robur, in a threatening tone. “There are
+other ropes on board. And if you don’t be quiet I’ll treat you as I
+have done your servant!”
+
+Uncle Prudent was silent, not because he was afraid, but because his
+wrath had nearly choked him; and Phil Evans led him off to his cabin.
+
+During the last hour the air had been strangely troubled. The symptoms
+could not be mistaken. A storm was threatening. The electric saturation
+of the atmosphere had become so great that about half-past two o’clock
+Robur witnessed a phenomenon that was new to him.
+
+In the north, whence the storm was traveling, were spirals of
+half-luminous vapor due to the difference in the electric charges of
+the various beds of cloud. The reflections of these bands came running
+along the waves in myriads of lights, growing in intensity as the sky
+darkened.
+
+The “Albatross” and the storm were sure to meet, for they were exactly
+in front of each other.
+
+And Frycollin? Well! Frycollin was being towed—and towed is exactly the
+word, for the rope made such an angle, with the aeronef, now going at
+over sixty knots an hour, that the tub was a long way behind her.
+
+The crew were busy in preparing for the storm, for the “Albatross”
+would either have to rise above it or drive through its lowest layers.
+She was about three thousand feet above the sea when a clap of thunder
+was heard. Suddenly the squall struck her. In a few seconds the fiery
+clouds swept on around her.
+
+Phil Evans went to intercede for Frycollin, and asked for him to be
+taken on board again. But Robur had already given orders to that
+effect, and the rope was being hauled in, when suddenly there took
+place an inexplicable slackening in the speed of the screws.
+
+The engineer rushed to the central deck-house. “Power! More power!” he
+shouted. “We must rise quickly and get over the storm!”
+
+“Impossible, sir!”
+
+“What is the matter?”
+
+“The currents are troubled! They are intermittent!” And, in fact, the
+“Albatross” was falling fast.
+
+As with the telegraph wires on land during a storm, so was it with the
+accumulators of the aeronef. But what is only an inconvenience in the
+case of messages was here a terrible danger.
+
+“Let her down, then.” said Robur, “and get out of the electric zone!
+Keep cool, my lads!”
+
+He stepped on to his quarter-deck and his crew went to their stations.
+
+Although the “Albatross” had sunk several hundred feet she was still in
+the thick of the cloud, and the flashes played across her as if they
+were fireworks. It seemed as though she was struck. The screws ran more
+and more slowly, and what began as a gentle descent threatened to
+become a collapse.
+
+In less than a minute it was evident they would get down to the surface
+of the sea. Once they were immersed no power could drag them from the
+abyss.
+
+Suddenly the electric cloud appeared above them. The “Albatross” was
+only sixty feet from the crest of the waves. In two or three seconds
+the deck would be under water.
+
+But Robur, seizing the propitious moment, rushed to the central house
+and seized the levers. He turned on the currents from the piles no
+longer neutralized by the electric tension of the surrounding
+atmosphere. In a moment the screws had regained their normal speed and
+checked the descent; and the “Albatross” remained at her slight
+elevation while her propellers drove her swiftly out of reach of the
+storm.
+
+Frycollin, of course, had a bath—though only for a few seconds. When he
+was dragged on deck he was as wet as if he had been to the bottom of
+the sea. As may be imagined, he cried no more.
+
+In the morning of the 4th of July the “Albatross” had passed over the
+northern shore of the Caspian.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIV
+THE AERONEF AT FULL SPEED
+
+
+If ever Prudent and Evans despaired on escaping from the “Albatross” it
+was during the two days that followed. It may be that Robur considered
+it more difficult to keep a watch on his prisoners while he was
+crossing Europe, and he knew that they had made up their minds to get
+away.
+
+But any attempt to have done so would have been simply committing
+suicide. To jump from an express going sixty miles an hour is to risk
+your life, but to jump from a machine going one hundred and twenty
+miles an hour would be to seek your death.
+
+And it was at this speed, the greatest that could be given to her, that
+the “Albatross” tore along. Her speed exceeded that of the swallow,
+which is one hundred and twelve miles an hour.
+
+At first the wind was in the northeast, and the “Albatross” had it
+fair, her general course being a westerly one. But the wind began to
+drop, and it soon became impossible for the colleagues to remain on the
+deck without having their breath taken away by the rapidity of the
+flight. And on one occasion they would have been blown overboard if
+they had not been dashed up against the deck-house by the pressure of
+the wind.
+
+Luckily the steersman saw them through the windows of his cage, and by
+the electric bell gave the alarm to the men in the fore-cabin. Four of
+them came aft, creeping along the deck.
+
+Those who have been at sea, beating to windward in half a gale of wind,
+will understand what the pressure was like. But here it was the
+“Albatross” that by her incomparable speed made her own wind.
+
+To allow Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans to get back to their cabin the
+speed had to be reduced. Inside the deck-house the “Albatross” bore
+with her a perfectly breathable atmosphere. To stand such driving the
+strength of the apparatus must have been prodigious. The propellers
+spun round so swiftly that they seemed immovable, and it was with
+irresistible power that they screwed themselves through the air.
+
+The last town that had been noticed was Astrakhan, situated at the
+north end of the Caspian Sea. The Star of the Desert—it must have been
+a poet who so called it—has now sunk from the first rank to the fifth
+or sixth. A momentary glance was afforded at its old walls, with their
+useless battlements, the ancient towers in the center of the city, the
+mosques and modern churches, the cathedral with its five domes, gilded
+and dotted with stars as if it were a piece of the sky, as they rose
+from the bank of the Volga, which here, as it joins the sea, is over a
+mile in width.
+
+Thenceforward the flight of the “Albatross” became quite a race through
+the heights of the sky, as if she had been harnessed to one of those
+fabulous hippogriffs which cleared a league at every sweep of the wing.
+
+At ten o’clock in the morning, of the 4th of July the aeronef, heading
+northwest, followed for a little the valley of the Volga. The steppes
+of the Don and the Ural stretched away on each side of the river. Even
+if it had been possible to get a glimpse of these vast territories
+there would have been no time to count the towns and villages. In the
+evening the aeronef passed over Moscow without saluting the flag on the
+Kremlin. In ten hours she had covered the twelve hundred miles which
+separate Astrakhan from the ancient capital of all the Russias.
+
+From Moscow to St. Petersburg the railway line measures about seven
+hundred and fifty miles. This was but a half-day’s journey, and the
+“Albatross.” as punctual as the mail, reached St. Petersburg and the
+banks of the Neva at two o’clock in the morning.
+
+Then came the Gulf of Finland, the Archipelago of Abo, the Baltic,
+Sweden in the latitude of Stockholm, and Norway in the latitude of
+Christiania. Ten hours only for these twelve hundred miles! Verily it
+might be thought that no human power would henceforth be able to check
+the speed of the “Albatross.” and as if the resultant of her force of
+projection and the attraction of the earth would maintain her in an
+unvarying trajectory round the globe.
+
+But she did stop nevertheless, and that was over the famous fall of the
+Rjukanfos in Norway. Gousta, whose summit dominates this wonderful
+region of Tellermarken, stood in the west like a gigantic barrier
+apparently impassable. And when the “Albatross” resumed her journey at
+full speed her head had been turned to the south.
+
+And during this extraordinary flight what was Frycollin doing? He
+remained silent in a corner of his cabin, sleeping as well as he could,
+except at meal times.
+
+Tapage then favored him with his company and amused himself at his
+expense. “Eh! eh! my boy!” said he. “So you are not crying any more?
+Perhaps it hurt you too much? That two hours hanging cured you of it?
+At our present rate, what a splendid air-bath you might have for your
+rheumatics!”
+
+“It seems to me we shall soon go to pieces!”
+
+“Perhaps so; but we shall go so fast we shan’t have time to fall! That
+is some comfort!”
+
+“Do you think so?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+To tell the truth, and not to exaggerate like Tapage, it was only
+reasonable that owing to the excessive speed the work of the suspensory
+screws should be somewhat lessened. The “Albatross” glided on its bed
+of air like a Congreve rocket.
+
+“And shall we last long like that?” asked Frycollin.
+
+“Long? Oh, no, only as long as we live!”
+
+“Oh!” said the Negro, beginning his lamentations.
+
+“Take care, Fry, take care! For, as they say in my country, the master
+may send you to the seesaw!” And Frycollin gulped down his sobs as he
+gulped down the meat which, in double doses, he was hastily swallowing.
+
+Meanwhile Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans, who were not men to waste time
+in wrangling when nothing could come of it, agreed upon doing
+something. It was evident that escape was not to be thought of. But if
+it was impossible for them to again set foot on the terrestrial globe,
+could they not make known to its inhabitants what had become of them
+since their disappearance, and tell them by whom they had been carried
+off, and provoke—how was not very clear—some audacious attempt on the
+part of their friends to rescue them from Robur?
+
+Communicate? But how? Should they follow the example of sailors in
+distress and enclose in a bottle a document giving the place of
+shipwreck and throw it into the sea? But here the sea was the
+atmosphere. The bottle would not swim. And if it did not fall on
+somebody and crack his skull it might never be found.
+
+The colleagues were about to sacrifice one of the bottles on board when
+an idea occurred to Uncle Prudent. He took snuff, as we know, and we
+may pardon this fault in an American, who might do worse. And as a
+snuff-taker he possessed a snuff-box, which was now empty. This box was
+made of aluminum. If it was thrown overboard any honest citizen that
+found it would pick it up, and, being an honest citizen, he would take
+it to the police-office, and there they would open it and discover from
+the document what had become of the two victims of Robur the Conqueror!
+
+And this is what was done. The note was short, but it told all, and it
+gave the address of the Weldon Institute, with a request that it might
+be forwarded. Then Uncle Prudent folded up the note, shut it in the
+box, bound the box round with a piece of worsted so as to keep it from
+opening it as it fell. And then all that had to be done was to wait for
+a favorable opportunity.
+
+During this marvelous flight over Europe it was not an easy thing to
+leave the cabin and creep along the deck at the risk of being suddenly
+and secretly blown away, and it would not do for the snuff-box to fall
+into the sea or a gulf or a lake or a watercourse, for it would then
+perhaps be lost. At the same time it was not impossible that the
+colleagues might in this way get into communication with the habitable
+globe.
+
+It was then growing daylight, and it seemed as though it would be
+better to wait for the night and take advantage of a slackening speed
+or a halt to go out on deck and drop the precious snuff-box into some
+town.
+
+When all these points had been thought over and settled, the prisoners,
+found they could not put their plan into execution—on that day, at all
+events—for the “Albatross.” after leaving Gousta, had kept her
+southerly course, which took her over the North Sea, much to the
+consternation of the thousands of coasting craft engaged in the
+English, Dutch, French, and Belgian trade. Unless the snuff-box fell on
+the deck of one of these vessels there was every chance of its going to
+the bottom of the sea, and Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans were obliged to
+wait for a better opportunity. And, as we shall immediately see, an
+excellent chance was soon to be offered them.
+
+At ten o’clock that evening the “Albatross” reached the French coast
+near Dunkirk. The night was rather dark. For a moment they could see
+the lighthouse at Grisnez cross its electric beam with the lights from
+Dover on the other side of the strait. Then the “Albatross” flew over
+the French territory at a mean height of three thousand feet.
+
+There was no diminution in her speed. She shot like a rocket over the
+towns and villages so numerous in northern France. She was flying
+straight on to Paris, and after Dunkirk came Doullens, Amiens, Creil,
+Saint Denis. She never left the line; and about midnight she was over
+the “city of light.” which merits its name even when its inhabitants
+are asleep or ought to be.
+
+By what strange whim was it that she was stopped over the city of
+Paris? We do not know; but down she came till she was within a few
+hundred feet of the ground. Robur then came out of his cabin, and the
+crew came on to the deck to breathe the ambient air.
+
+Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans took care not to miss such an excellent
+opportunity. They left their deck-house and walked off away from the
+others so as to be ready at the propitious moment. It was important
+their action should not be seen.
+
+The “Albatross.” like a huge coleopter, glided gently over the mighty
+city. She took the line of the boulevards, then brilliantly lighted by
+the Edison lamps. Up to her there floated the rumble of the vehicles as
+they drove along the streets, and the roll of the trains on the
+numerous railways that converge into Paris. Then she glided over the
+highest monuments as if she was going to knock the ball off the
+Pantheon or the cross off the Invalides. She hovered over the two
+minarets of the Trocadero and the metal tower of the Champ de Mars,
+where the enormous reflector was inundating the whole capital with its
+electric rays.
+
+This aerial promenade, this nocturnal loitering, lasted for about an
+hour. It was a halt for breath before the voyage was resumed.
+
+And probably Robur wished to give the Parisians the sight of a meteor
+quite unforeseen by their astronomers. The lamps of the “Albatross”
+were turned on. Two brilliant sheaves of light shot down and moved
+along over the squares, the gardens, the palaces, the sixty thousand
+houses, and swept the space from one horizon to the other.
+
+Assuredly the “Albatross” was seen this time—and not only well seen but
+heard, for Tom Turner brought out his trumpet and blew a rousing
+tarantaratara.
+
+At this moment Uncle Prudent leant over the rail, opened his hand, and
+let his snuff-box fall.
+
+Immediately the “Albatross” shot upwards, and past her, higher still,
+there mounted the noisy cheering of the crowd then thick on the
+boulevards—a hurrah of stupefaction to greet the imaginary meteor.
+
+The lamps of the aeronef were turned off, and the darkness and the
+silence closed in around as the voyage was resumed at the rate of one
+hundred and twenty miles an hour.
+
+This was all that was to be seen of the French capital. At four o’clock
+in the morning the “Albatross” had crossed the whole country obliquely;
+and so as to lose no time in traversing the Alps or the Pyrenees, she
+flew over the face of Provence to the cape of Antibes. At nine o’clock
+next morning the San Pietrini assembled on the terrace of St. Peter at
+Rome were astounded to see her pass over the eternal city. Two hours
+afterwards she crossed the Bay of Naples and hovered for an instant
+over the fuliginous wreaths of Vesuvius. Then, after cutting obliquely
+across the Mediterranean, in the early hours of the afternoon she was
+signaled by the look-outs at La Goulette on the Tunisian coast.
+
+After America, Asia! After Asia, Europe! More than eighteen thousand
+miles had this wonderful machine accomplished in less than twenty-three
+days!
+
+And now she was off over the known and unknown regions of Africa!
+
+It may be interesting to know what had happened to the famous snuff-box
+after its fall?
+
+It had fallen in the Rue de Rivoli, opposite No. 200, when the street
+was deserted. In the morning it was picked up by an honest sweeper, who
+took it to the prefecture of police. There it was at first supposed to
+be an infernal machine. And it was untied, examined, and opened with
+care.
+
+Suddenly a sort of explosion took place. It was a terrific sneeze on
+the part of the inspector.
+
+The document was then extracted from the snuff-box, and to the general
+surprise, read as follows:
+
+“Messrs. Prudent and Evans, president and secretary of the Weldon
+Institute, Philadelphia, have been carried off in the aeronef Albatross
+belonging to Robur the engineer.”
+
+“Please inform our friends and acquaintances.”
+
+“P. and P. E.”
+
+Thus was the strange phenomenon at last explained to the people of the
+two worlds. Thus was peace given to the scientists of the numerous
+observatories on the surface of the terrestrial globe.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XV
+A SKIRMISH IN DAHOMEY
+
+
+At this point in the circumnavigatory voyage of the “Albatross” it is
+only natural that some such questions as the following should be asked.
+Who was this Robur, of whom up to the present we know nothing but the
+name? Did he pass his life in the air? Did his aeronef never rest? Had
+he not some retreat in some inaccessible spot in which, if he had need
+of repose or revictualing, he could betake himself? It would be very
+strange if it were not so. The most powerful flyers have always an
+eyrie or nest somewhere.
+
+And what was the engineer going to do with his prisoners? Was he going
+to keep them in his power and condemn them to perpetual aviation? Or
+was he going to take them on a trip over Africa, South America,
+Australasia, the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic and the Pacific, to
+convince them against their will, and then dismiss them with, “And now
+gentlemen, I hope you will believe a little more in heavier than air?”
+
+To these questions, it is now impossible to reply. They are the secrets
+of the future. Perhaps the answers will be revealed. Anyhow the
+bird-like Robur was not seeking his nest on the northern frontier of
+Africa. By the end of the day he had traversed Tunis from Cape Bon to
+Cape Carthage, sometimes hovering, and sometimes darting along at top
+speed. Soon he reached the interior, and flew down the beautiful valley
+of Medjeida above its yellow stream hidden under its luxuriant bushes
+of cactus and oleander; and scared away the hundreds of parrots that
+perch on the telegraph wires and seem to wait for the messages to pass
+to bear them away beneath their wings.
+
+Two hours after sunset the helm was put up and the “Albatross” bore off
+to the southeast; and on the morrow, after clearing the Tell Mountains,
+she saw the rising of the morning star over the sands of the Sahara.
+
+On the 30th of July there was seen from the aeronef the little village
+of Geryville, founded like Laghouat on the frontier of the desert to
+facilitate the future conquest of Kabylia. Next, not without
+difficulty, the peaks of Stillero were passed against a somewhat
+boisterous wind. Then the desert was crossed, sometimes leisurely over
+the Ksars or green oases, sometimes at terrific speed that far
+outstripped the flight of the vultures. Often the crew had to fire into
+the flocks of these birds which, a dozen or so at a time, fearlessly
+hurled them selves on to the aeronef to the extreme terror of
+Frycollin.
+
+But if the vultures could only reply with cries and blows of beaks and
+talons, the natives, in no way less savage, were not sparing of their
+musket-shots, particularly when crossing the Mountain of Sel, whose
+green and violet slope bore its cape of white. Then the “Albatross” was
+at last over the grand Sahara; and at once she rose into the higher
+zones so as to escape from a simoom which was sweeping a wave of ruddy
+sand along the surface of the ground like a bore on the surface of the
+sea.
+
+Then the desolate tablelands of Chetka scattered their ballast in
+blackish waves up to the fresh and verdant valley of Ain-Massin. It is
+difficult to conceive the variety of the territories which could be
+seen at one view. To the green hills covered with trees and shrubs
+there succeeded long gray undulations draped like the folds of an Arab
+burnous and broken in picturesque masses. In the distance could be seen
+the wadys with their torrential waters, their forests of palm-trees,
+and blocks of small houses grouped on a hill around a mosque, among
+them Metlili, where there vegetates a religious chief, the grand
+marabout Sidi Chick.
+
+Before night several hundred miles had been accomplished above a
+flattish country ridged occasionally with large sandhills. If the
+“Albatross” had halted, she would have come to the earth in the depths
+of the Wargla oasis hidden beneath an immense forest of palm-trees. The
+town was clearly enough displayed with its three distinct quarters, the
+ancient palace of the Sultan, a kind of fortified Kasbah, houses of
+brick which had been left to the sun to bake, and artesian wells dug in
+the valley—where the aeronef could have renewed her water supply. But,
+thanks to her extraordinary speed, the waters of the Hydaspes taken in
+the vale of Cashmere still filled her tanks in the center of the
+African desert.
+
+Was the “Albatross” seen by the Arabs, the Mozabites, and the Negroes
+who share amongst them the town of Wargla? Certainly, for she was
+saluted with many hundred gunshot, and the bullets fell back before
+they reached her.
+
+Then came the night, that silent night in the desert of which Felicien
+David has so poetically told us the secrets.
+
+During the following hours the course lay southwesterly, cutting across
+the routes of El Golea, one of which was explored in 1859 by the
+intrepid Duveyrier.
+
+The darkness was profound. Nothing could be seen of the Trans-Saharan
+Railway constructing on the plans of Duponchel—a long ribbon of iron
+destined to bind together Algiers and Timbuktu by way of Laghouat and
+Gardaia, and destined eventually to run down into the Gulf of Guinea.
+
+Then the “Albatross” entered the equatorial region below the tropic of
+Cancer. Six hundred miles from the northern frontier of the Sahara she
+crossed the route on which Major Laing met his, death in 1846, and
+crossed the road of the caravans from Morocco to the Sudan, and that
+part of the desert swept by the Tuaregs, where could be heard what is
+called “the song of the sand.” a soft and plaintive murmur that seems
+to escape from the ground.
+
+Only one thing happened. A cloud of locusts came flying along, and
+there fell such a cargo of them on board as to threaten to sink the
+ship. But all hands set to work to clear the deck, and the locusts were
+thrown over except a few hundred kept by Tapage for his larder. And he
+served them up in so succulent a fashion that Frycollin forgot for the
+moment his perpetual trances and said, “these are as good as prawns.”
+
+The aeronef was then eleven hundred miles from the Wargla oasis and
+almost on the northern frontier of the Sudan. About two o’clock in the
+afternoon a city appeared in the bend of a large river. The river was
+the Niger. The city was Timbuktu.
+
+If, up to then, this African Mecca had only been visited by the
+travelers of the ancient world Batouta, Khazan, Imbert, Mungo Park,
+Adams, Laing, Caillé, Barth, Lenz, on that day by a most singular
+chance the two Americans could boast of having seen, heard, and smelt
+it, on their return to America—if they ever got back there.
+
+Of having seen it, because their view included the whole triangle of
+three or four miles in circumference; of having heard it, because the
+day was one of some rejoicing and the noise was terrible; of having
+smelt it, because the olfactory nerve could not but be very
+disagreeably affected by the odors of the Youbou-Kamo square, where the
+meatmarket stands close to the palace of the ancient Somai kings.
+
+The engineer had no notion of allowing the president and secretary of
+the Weldon Institute to be ignorant that they had the honor of
+contemplating the Queen of the Sudan, now in the power of the Tuaregs
+of Taganet.
+
+“Gentlemen, Timbuktu!” he said, in the same tone as twelve days before
+he had said, “Gentlemen, India!” Then he continued, “Timbuktu is an
+important city of from twelve to thirteen thousand inhabitants,
+formerly illustrious in science and art. Perhaps you would like to stay
+there for a day or two?”
+
+Such a proposal could only have been made ironically. “But.” continued
+he, “it would be dangerous among the Negroes, Berbers, and Foullanes
+who occupy, it—particularly as our arrival in an aeronef might
+prejudice them against you.”
+
+“Sir.” said Phil Evans, in the same tone, “for the pleasure of leaving
+you we would willingly risk an unpleasant reception from the natives.
+Prison for prison, we would rather be in Timbuktu than on the
+“Albatross.””
+
+“That is a matter of taste.” answered the engineer. “Anyhow, I shall
+not try the adventure, for I am responsible for the safety of the
+guests who do me the honor to travel with me.”
+
+“And so.” said Uncle Prudent, explosively, “you are not content with
+being our jailer, but you insult us.”
+
+“Oh! a little irony, that is all!”
+
+“Are there any weapons on board?”
+
+“Oh, quite an arsenal.”
+
+“Two revolvers will do, if I hold one and you the other.”
+
+“A duel!” exclaimed Robur, “a duel, which would perhaps cause the death
+of one of us.”
+
+“Which certainly would cause it.”
+
+“Well! No, Mr. President of the Weldon Institute, I very much prefer
+keeping you alive.”
+
+“To be sure of living yourself. That is wise.”
+
+“Wise or not, it suits me. You are at liberty to think as you like, and
+to complain to those who have the power to help you—if you can.”
+
+“And that we have done, Mr. Robur.”
+
+“Indeed!”
+
+“Was it so difficult when we were crossing the inhabited part of Europe
+to drop a letter overboard?”
+
+“Did you do that?” said Robur, in a paroxysm of rage.
+
+“And if we have done it?”
+
+“If you have done it—you deserve—”
+
+“What, sir?”
+
+“To follow your letter overboard.”
+
+“Throw us over, then. We did do it.”
+
+Robur stepped towards them. At a gesture from him Tom Turner and some
+of the crew ran up. The engineer was seriously tempted to put his
+threat into execution, and, fearful perhaps of yielding to it, he
+precipitately rushed into his cabin.
+
+“Good!” exclaimed Phil Evans.
+
+“And what he will dare not do.” said Uncle Prudent, “I Will do! Yes, I
+Will do!”
+
+At the moment the population of Timbuktu were crowding onto the squares
+and roads and the terraces built like amphitheaters. In the rich
+quarters of Sankere and Sarahama, as in the miserable huts at Raguidi,
+the priests from the minarets were thundering their loudest
+maledictions against the aerial monster. These were more harmless than
+the rifle-bullets; though assuredly, if the aeronef had come to earth
+she would have certainly been torn to pieces.
+
+For some miles noisy flocks of storks, francolins, and ibises escorted
+the “Albatross” and tried to race her, but in her rapid flight she soon
+distanced them.
+
+The evening came. The air was troubled by the roarings of the numerous
+herds of elephants and buffaloes which wander over this land, whose
+fertility is simply marvelous. For forty-eight hours the whole of the
+region between the prime meridian and the second degree, in the bend of
+the Niger, was viewed from the “Albatross.”
+
+If a geographer had only such an apparatus at his command, with what
+facility could he map the country, note the elevations, fix the courses
+of the rivers and their affluents, and determine the positions of the
+towns and villages! There would then be no huge blanks on the map of
+Africa, no dotted lines, no vague designations which are the despair of
+cartographers.
+
+In the morning of the 11th the “Albatross” crossed the mountains of
+northern Guinea, between the Sudan and the gulf which bears their name.
+On the horizon was the confused outline of the Kong mountains in the
+kingdom of Dahomey.
+
+Since the departure from Timbuktu Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans noticed
+that the course had been due south. If that direction was persisted in
+they would cross the equator in six more degrees. The “Albatross” would
+then abandon the continents and fly not over the Bering Sea, or the
+Caspian Sea, or the North Sea, or the Mediterranean, but over the
+Atlantic Ocean.
+
+This look-out was not particularly pleasing to the two friends, whose
+chances of escape had sunk to below zero. But the “Albatross” had
+slackened speed as though hesitating to leave Africa behind. Was Robur
+thinking of going back? No; but his attention had been particularly
+attracted to the country which he was then crossing.
+
+We know—and he knew—that the kingdom of Dahomey is one of the most
+powerful on the West Coast of Africa. Strong enough to hold its own
+with its neighbor Ashantee, its area is somewhat small, being contained
+within three hundred and sixty leagues from north to south, and one
+hundred and eighty from east to west. But its population numbers some
+seven or eight hundred thousand, including the neighboring independent
+territories of Whydah and Ardrah.
+
+If Dahomey is not a large country, it is often talked about. It is
+celebrated for the frightful cruelties which signalize its annual
+festivals, and by its human sacrifices—fearful hecatombs intended to
+honor the sovereign it has lost and the sovereign who has succeeded
+him. It is even a matter of politeness when the King of Dahomey
+receives a visit from some high personage or some foreign ambassador to
+give him a surprise present of a dozen heads, cut off in his honor by
+the minister of justice, the “minghan.” who is wonderfully skillful in
+that branch of his duties.
+
+When the “Albatross” came flying over Dahomey, the old King Bahadou had
+just died, and the whole population was proceeding to the
+enthronization of his successor. Hence there was great agitation all
+over the country, and it did not escape Robur that everybody was on the
+move.
+
+Long lines of Dahomians were hurrying along the roads from the country
+into the capital, Abomey. Well kept roads radiating among vast plains
+clothed with giant trees, immense fields of manioc, magnificent forests
+of palms, cocoa-trees, mimosas, orange-trees, mango-trees—such was the
+country whose perfumes mounted to the “Albatross.” while many parrots
+and cardinals swarmed among the trees.
+
+The engineer, leaning over the rail, seemed deep in thought, and
+exchanged but a few words with Tom Turner. It did not look as though
+the “Albatross” had attracted the attention of those moving masses,
+which were often invisible under the impenetrable roof of trees. This
+was doubtless due to her keeping at a good altitude amid a bank of
+light cloud.
+
+About eleven o’clock in the morning the capital was sighted, surrounded
+by its walls, defended by a fosse measuring twelve miles round, with
+wide, regular streets on the flat plain, and a large square on the
+northern side occupied by the king’s palace. This huge collection of
+buildings is commanded by a terrace not far from the place of
+sacrifice. During the festival days it is from this high terrace that
+they throw the prisoners tied up in wicker baskets, and it can be
+imagined with what fury these unhappy wretches are cut in pieces.
+
+In one of the courtyards which divide the king’s palace there were
+drawn up four thousand warriors, one of the contigents of the royal
+army—and not the least courageous one. If it is doubtful if there are
+any Amazons an the river of that name, there is no doubt of there being
+Amazons at Dahomey. Some have a blue shirt with a blue or red scarf,
+with white-and-blue striped trousers and a white cap; others, the
+elephant-huntresses, have a heavy carbine, a short-bladed dagger, and
+two antelope horns fixed to their heads by a band of iron. The
+artillery-women have a blue-and-red tunic, and, as weapons,
+blunderbusses and old cast cannons; and another brigade, consisting of
+vestal virgins, pure as Diana, have blue tunics and white trousers. If
+we add to these Amazons, five or six thousand men in cotton drawers and
+shirts, with a knotted tuft to increase their stature, we shall have
+passed in review the Dahomian army.
+
+Abomey on this day was deserted. The sovereign, the royal family, the
+masculine and feminine army, and the population had all gone out of the
+capital to a vast plain a few miles away surrounded by magnificent
+forests.
+
+On this plain the recognition of the new king was to take place. Here
+it was that thousands of prisoners taken during recent razzias were to
+be immolated in his honor.
+
+It was about two o’clock when the “Albatross” arrived over the plain
+and began to descend among the clouds which still hid her from the
+Dahomians.
+
+There were sixteen thousand people at least come from all parts of the
+kingdom, from Whydah, and Kerapay, and Ardrah, and Tombory, and the
+most distant villages.
+
+The new king—a sturdy fellow named Bou-Nadi—some five-and-twenty years
+old, was seated on a hillock shaded by a group of wide-branched trees.
+Before him stood his male army, his Amazons, and his people.
+
+At the foot of the mound fifty musicians were playing on their
+barbarous instruments, elephants’ tusks giving forth a husky note,
+deerskin drums, calabashes, guitars, bells struck with an iron clapper,
+and bamboo flutes, whose shrill whistle was heard over all. Every other
+second came discharges of guns and blunderbusses, discharges of cannons
+with the carriages jumping so as to imperil the lives of the
+artillery-women, and a general uproar so intense that even the thunder
+would be unheard amidst it.
+
+In one corner of the plain, under a guard of soldiers, were grouped the
+prisoners destined to accompany the defunct king into the other world.
+At the obsequies of Ghozo, the father of Bahadou, his son had
+dispatched three thousand, and Bou-Nadi could not do less than his
+predecessor. For an hour there was a series of discourses, harangues,
+palavers and dances, executed not only by professionals, but by the
+Amazons, who displayed much martial grace.
+
+But the time for the hecatomb was approaching. Robur, who knew the
+customs of Dahomey, did not lose sight of the men, women, and children
+reserved for butchery.
+
+The minghan was standing at the foot of the hillock. He was brandishing
+his executioner’s sword, with its curved blade surmounted by a metal
+bird, whose weight rendered the cut more certain.
+
+This time he was not alone. He could not have performed the task. Near
+him were grouped a hundred executioners, all accustomed to cut off
+heads at one blow.
+
+The “Albatross” came slowly down in an oblique direction. Soon she
+emerged from the bed of clouds which hid her till she was within three
+hundred feet of the ground, and for the first time she was visible from
+below.
+
+Contrary to what had hitherto happened, the savages saw in her a
+celestial being come to render homage to King Baha-dou. The enthusiasm
+was indescribable, the shouts were interminable, the prayers were
+terrific—prayers addressed to this supernatural hippogriff, which “had
+doubtless come to” take the king’s body to the higher regions of the
+Dahomian heaven. And now the first head fell under the minghan’s sword,
+and the prisoners were led up in hundreds before the horrible
+executioners.
+
+Suddenly a gun was fired from the “Albatross.” The minister of justice
+fell dead on his face!
+
+“Well aimed, Tom!” said Robur,
+
+His comrades, armed as he was, stood ready to fire when the order was
+given.
+
+But a change came over the crowd below. They had understood. The winged
+monster was not a friendly spirit, it was a hostile spirit. And after
+the fall of the minghan loud shouts for revenge arose on all sides.
+Almost immediately a fusillade resounded over the plain.
+
+These menaces did not prevent the “Albatross” from descending boldly to
+within a hundred and fifty feet of the ground. Uncle Prudent and Phil
+Evans, whatever were their feelings towards Robur, could not help
+joining him in such a work of humanity.
+
+“Let us free the prisoners!” they shouted.
+
+“That is what I am going to do!” said the engineer.
+
+And the magazine rifles of the “Albatross” in the hands of the
+colleagues, as in the hands of the crew, began to rain down the
+bullets, of which not one was lost in the masses below. And the little
+gun shot forth its shrapnel, which really did marvels.
+
+The prisoners, although they did not understand how the help had come
+to them, broke their bonds, while the soldiers were firing at the
+aeronef. The stern screw was shot through by a bullet, and a few holes
+were made in the hull. Frycollin, crouching in his cabin, received a
+graze from a bullet that came through the deck-house.
+
+“Ah! They will have them!” said Tom Turner. And, rushing to the
+magazine, he returned with a dozen dynamite cartridges, which he
+distributed to the men. At a sign from Robur, these cartridges were
+fired at the hillock, and as they reached the ground exploded like so
+many small shells.
+
+The king and his court and army and people were stricken with fear at
+the turn things had taken. They fled under the trees, while the
+prisoners ran off without anybody thinking of pursuing them.
+
+In this way was the festival interfered with. And in this way did Uncle
+Prudent and, Phil Evans recognize the power of the aeronef and the
+services it could render to humanity.
+
+Soon the “Albatross” rose again to a moderate height, and passing over
+Whydah lost to view this savage coast which the southwest wind hems
+round with an inaccessible surf. And she flew out over the Atlantic.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVI
+OVER THE ATLANTIC
+
+
+Yes, the Atlantic! The fears of the two colleagues were realized; but
+it did not seem as though Robur had the least anxiety about venturing
+over this vast ocean. Both he and his men seemed quite unconcerned
+about it and had gone back to their stations.
+
+Whither was the “Albatross” bound? Was she going more than round the
+world as Robur had said? Even if she were, the voyage must end
+somewhere. That Robur spent his life in the air on board the aeronef
+and never came to the ground was impossible. How could he make up his
+stock of provisions and the materials required for working his
+machines? He must have some retreat, some harbor of refuge—in some
+unknown and inaccessible spot where the “Albatross” could revictual.
+That he had broken off all connections with the inhabitants of the land
+might be true, but with every point on the surface of the earth,
+certainly not.
+
+That being the case, where was this point? How had the engineer come to
+choose it? Was he expected by a little colony of which he was the
+chief? Could he there find a new crew?
+
+What means had he that he should be able to build so costly a vessel as
+the “Albatross” and keep her building secret? It is true his living was
+not expensive. But, finally, who was this Robur? Where did he come
+from? What had been his history? Here were riddles impossible to solve;
+and Robur was not the man to assist willingly in their solution.
+
+It is not to be wondered at that these insoluble problems drove the
+colleagues almost to frenzy. To find themselves whipped off into the
+unknown without knowing what the end might be doubting even if the
+adventure would end, sentenced to perpetual aviation, was this not
+enough to drive the President and secretary of the Weldon Institute to
+extremities?
+
+Meanwhile the “Albatross” drove along above the Atlantic, and in the
+morning when the sun rose there was nothing to be seen but the circular
+line where earth met sky. Not a spot of land was insight in this huge
+field of vision. Africa had vanished beneath the northern horizon.
+
+When Frycollin ventured out of his cabin and saw all this water beneath
+him, fear took possession of him.
+
+Of the hundred and forty-five million square miles of which the area of
+the world’s waters consists, the Atlantic claims about a quarter; and
+it seemed as though the engineer was in no hurry to cross it. There was
+now no going at full speed, none of the hundred and twenty miles an
+hour at which the “Albatross” had flown over Europe. Here, where the
+southwest winds prevail, the wind was ahead of them, and though it was
+not very strong, it would not do to defy it and the “Albatross” was
+sent along at a moderate speed, which, however, easily outstripped that
+of the fastest mail-boat.
+
+On the 13th of July she crossed the line, and the fact was duly
+announced to the crew. It was then that Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans
+ascertained that they were bound for the southern hemisphere. The
+crossing of the line took place without any of the Neptunian ceremonies
+that still linger on certain ships. Tapage was the only one to mark the
+event, and he did so by pouring a pint of water down Frycollin’s neck.
+
+On the 18th of July, when beyond the tropic of Capricorn, another
+phenomenon was noticed, which would have been somewhat alarming to a
+ship on the sea. A strange succession of luminous waves widened out
+over the surface of the ocean with a speed estimated at quite sixty
+miles an hour. The waves ran along at about eight feet from one
+another, tracing two furrows of light. As night fell a bright
+reflection rose even to the “Albatross.” so that she might have been
+taken for a flaming aerolite. Never before had Robur sailed on a sea of
+fire—fire without heat—which there was no need to flee from as it
+mounted upwards into the sky.
+
+The cause of this light must have been electricity; it could not be
+attributed to a bank of fish spawn, nor to a crowd of those animalculae
+that give phosphorescence to the sea, and this showed that the
+electrical tension of the atmosphere was considerable.
+
+In the morning an ordinary ship would probably have been lost. But the
+“Albatross” played with the winds and waves like the powerful bird
+whose name she bore. If she did not walk on their surface like the
+petrels, she could like the eagles find calm and sunshine in the higher
+zones.
+
+They had now passed the forty-seventh parallel. The day was but little
+over seven hours long, and would become even less as they approached
+the Pole.
+
+About one o’clock in the afternoon the “Albatross” was floating along
+in a lower current than usual, about a hundred feet from the level of
+the sea. The air was calm, but in certain parts of the sky were thick
+black clouds, massed in mountains, on their upper surface, and ruled
+off below by a sharp horizontal line. From these clouds a few lengthy
+protuberances escaped, and their points as they fell seemed to draw up
+hills of foaming water to meet them.
+
+Suddenly the water shot up in the form of a gigantic hourglass, and the
+“Albatross” was enveloped in the eddy of an enormous waterspout, while
+twenty others, black as ink, raged around her. Fortunately the gyratory
+movement of the water was opposite to that of the suspensory screws,
+otherwise the aeronef would have been hurled into the sea. But she
+began to spin round on herself with frightful rapidity. The danger was
+immense, and perhaps impossible to escape, for the engineer could not
+get through the spout which sucked him back in defiance of his
+propellers. The men, thrown to the ends of the deck by centrifugal
+force, were grasping the rail to save themselves from being shot off.
+
+“Keep cool!” shouted Robur.
+
+They wanted all their coolness, and their patience, too. Uncle Prudent
+and Phil Evans, who had just come out of their cabin, were hurled back
+at the risk of flying overboard. As she spun the “Albatross” was
+carried along by the spout, which pirouetted along the waves with a
+speed enough to make the helices jealous. And if she escaped from the
+spout she might be caught by another, and jerked to pieces with the
+shock.
+
+“Get the gun ready!” said Robur.
+
+The order was given to Tom Turner, who was crouching behind the swivel
+amidships where the effect of the centrifugal force was least felt. He
+understood. In a moment he had opened the breech and slipped a
+cartridge from the ammunition-box at hand. The gun went off, and the
+waterspouts collapsed, and with them vanished the platform of cloud
+they seemed to bear above them.
+
+“Nothing broken on board?” asked Robur.
+
+“No.” answered Tom Turner. “But we don’t want to have another game of
+humming-top like that!”
+
+For ten minutes or so the “Albatross” had been in extreme peril. Had it
+not been for her extraordinary strength of build she would have been
+lost.
+
+During this passage of the Atlantic many were the hours whose monotony
+was unbroken by any phenomenon whatever. The days grew shorter and
+shorter, and the cold became keen. Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans saw
+little of Robur. Seated in his cabin, the engineer was busy laying out
+his course and marking it on his maps, taking his observations whenever
+he could, recording the readings of his barometers, thermometers, and
+chronometers, and making full entries in his log-book.
+
+The colleagues wrapped themselves well up and eagerly watched for the
+sight of land to the southward. At Uncle Prudent’s request Frycollin
+tried to pump the cook as to whither the engineer was bound, but what
+reliance could be placed on the information given by this Gascon?
+Sometimes Robur was an ex-minister of the Argentine Republic, sometimes
+a lord of the Admiralty, sometimes an ex-President of the United
+States, sometimes a Spanish general temporarily retired, sometimes a
+Viceroy of the Indies who had sought a more elevated position in the
+air. Sometimes he possessed millions, thanks to successful razzias in
+the aeronef, and he had been proclaimed for piracy. Sometimes he had
+been ruined by making the aeronef, and had been forced to fly aloft to
+escape from his creditors. As to knowing if he were going to stop
+anywhere, no! But if he thought of going to the moon, and found there a
+convenient anchorage, he would anchor there! “Eh! Fry! My boy! That
+would just suit you to see what was going on up there.”
+
+“I shall not go! I refuse!” said the Negro, who took all these things
+seriously.
+
+“And why, Fry, why? You might get married to some pretty bouncing
+Lunarian!”
+
+Frycollin reported this conversation to his master, who saw it was
+evident that nothing was to be learnt about Robur. And so he thought
+still more of how he could have his revenge on him.
+
+“Phil.” said he one day, “is it quite certain that escape is
+impossible?”
+
+“Impossible.”
+
+“Be it so! But a man is always his own property; and if necessary, by
+sacrificing his life—”
+
+“If we are to make that sacrifice.” said Phil Evans, “the sooner the
+better. It is almost time to end this. Where is the “Albatross” going?
+Here we are flying obliquely over the Atlantic, and if we keep on we
+shall get to the coast of Patagonia or Tierra del Fuego. And what are
+we to do then? Get into the Pacific, or go to the continent at the
+South Pole? Everything is possible with this Robur. We shall be lost in
+the end. It is thus a case of legitimate self-defence, and if we must
+perish—”
+
+“Which we shall not do.” answered Uncle Prudent, “without being
+avenged, without annihilating this machine and all she carries.”
+
+The colleagues had reached a stage of impotent fury, and were prepared
+to sacrifice themselves if they could only destroy the inventor and his
+secret. A few months only would then be the life of this prodigious
+aeronef, of whose superiority in aerial locomotion they had such
+convincing proofs! The idea took such hold of them that they thought of
+nothing else but how to put it into execution. And how? By seizing on
+some of the explosives on board and simply blowing her up. But could
+they get at the magazines?
+
+Fortunately for them, Frycollin had no suspicion of their scheme. At
+the thought of the “Albatross” exploding in midair, he would not have
+shrunk from betraying his master.
+
+It was on the 23rd of July that the land reappeared in the southwest
+near Cape Virgins at the entrance of the Straits of Magellan. Under the
+fifty-second parallel at this time of year the night was eighteen hours
+long and the temperature was six below freezing.
+
+At first the “Albatross.” instead of keeping on to the south, followed
+the windings of the coast as if to enter the Pacific. After passing
+Lomas Bay, leaving Mount Gregory to the north and the Brecknocks to the
+west, they sighted Puerto Arena, a small Chilean village, at the moment
+the churchbells were in full swing; and a few hours later they were
+over the old settlement at Port Famine.
+
+If the Patagonians, whose fires could be seen occasionally, were really
+above the average in stature, the passengers in the aeronef were unable
+to say, for to them they seemed to be dwarfs. But what a magnificent
+landscape opened around during these short hours of the southern day!
+Rugged mountains, peaks eternally capped with snow, with thick forests
+rising on their flanks, inland seas, bays deep set amid the peninsulas,
+and islands of the Archipelago. Clarence Island, Dawson Island, and the
+Land of Desolation, straits and channels, capes and promontories, all
+in inextricable confusion, and bound by the ice in one solid mass from
+Cape Forward, the most southerly point of the American continent, to
+Cape Horn the most southerly point of the New World.
+
+When she reached Fort Famine the “Albatross” resumed her course to the
+south. Passing between Mount Tam on the Brunswick Peninsula and Mount
+Graves, she steered for Mount Sarmiento, an enormous peak wrapped in
+snow, which commands the Straits of Magellan, rising six thousand four
+hundred feet from the sea. And now they were over the land of the
+Fuegians, Tierra del Fuego, the land of fire. Six months later, in the
+height of summer, with days from fifteen to sixteen hours long, how
+beautiful and fertile would most of this country be, particularly in
+its northern portion! Then, all around would be seen valleys and
+pasturages that could form the feeding-grounds of thousands of animals;
+then would appear virgin forests, gigantic trees-birches, beeches,
+ash-trees, cypresses, tree-ferns—and broad plains overrun by herds of
+guanacos, vicunas, and ostriches. Now there were armies of penguins and
+myriads of birds; and, when the “Albatross” turned on her electric
+lamps the guillemots, ducks, and geese came crowding on board enough to
+fill Tapage’s larder a hundred times and more.
+
+Here was work for the cook, who knew how to bring out the flavor of the
+game and keep down its peculiar oiliness. And here was work for
+Frycollin in plucking dozen after dozen of such interesting feathered
+friends.
+
+That day, as the sun was setting about three o’clock in the afternoon,
+there appeared in sight a large lake framed in a border of superb
+forest. The lake was completely frozen over, and a few natives with
+long snowshoes on their feet were swiftly gliding over it.
+
+At the sight of the “Albatross.” the Fuegians, overwhelmed with
+terror—scattered in all directions, and when they could not get away
+they hid themselves, taking, like the animals, to the holes in the
+ground.
+
+The “Albatross” still held her southerly course, crossing the Beagle
+Channel, and Navarin Island and Wollaston Island, on the shores of the
+Pacific. Then, having accomplished 4,700 miles since she left Dahomey,
+she passed the last islands of the Magellanic archipelago, whose most
+southerly outpost, lashed by the everlasting surf, is the terrible Cape
+Horn.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVII
+THE SHIPWRECKED CREW
+
+
+Next day was the 24th of July; and the 24th of July in the southern
+hemisphere corresponds to the 24th of January in the northern. The
+fifty-sixth degree of latitude had been left behind. The similar
+parallel in northern Europe runs through Edinburgh.
+
+The thermometer kept steadily below freezing, so that the machinery was
+called upon to furnish a little artificial heat in the cabins. Although
+the days begin to lengthen after the 21st day of June in the southern
+hemisphere, yet the advance of the “Albatross” towards the Pole more
+than neutralized this increase, and consequently the daylight became
+very short. There was thus very little to be seen. At night time the
+cold became very keen; but as there was no scarcity of clothing on
+board, the colleagues, well wrapped up, remained a good deal on deck
+thinking over their plans of escape, and watching for an opportunity.
+Little was seen of Robur; since the high words that had been exchanged
+in the Timbuktu country, the engineer had left off speaking to his
+prisoners. Frycollin seldom came out of the cook-house, where Tapage
+treated him most hospitably, on condition that he acted as his
+assistant. This position was not without its advantages, and the Negro,
+with his master’s permission, very willingly accepted it. Shut up in
+the galley, he saw nothing of what was passing outside, and might even
+consider himself beyond the reach of danger. He was, in fact, very like
+the ostrich, not only in his stomach, but in his folly.
+
+But whither went the “Albatross?” Was she in mid-winter bound for the
+southern seas or continents round the Pole? In this icy atmosphere,
+even granting that the elements of the batteries were unaffected by
+such frost, would not all the crew succumb to a horrible death from the
+cold? That Robur should attempt to cross the Pole in the warm season
+was bad enough, but to attempt such a thing in the depth of the winter
+night would be the act of a madman.
+
+Thus reasoned the President and Secretary of the Weldon Institute, now
+they had been brought to the end of the continent of the New World,
+which is still America, although it does not belong to the United
+States.
+
+What was this intractable Robur going to do? Had not the time arrived
+for them to end the voyage by blowing up the ship?
+
+It was noticed that during the 24th of July the engineer had frequent
+consultations with his mate. He and Tom Turner kept constant watch on
+the barometer—not so much to keep themselves informed of the height at
+which they were traveling as to be on the look-out for a change in the
+weather. Evidently some indications had been observed of which it was
+necessary to make careful note.
+
+Uncle Prudent also remarked that Robur had been taking stock of the
+provisions and stores, and everything seemed to show that he was
+contemplating turning back.
+
+“Turning back!” said Phil Evans. “But where to?”
+
+“Where he can reprovision the ship.” said Uncle Prudent.
+
+“That ought to be in some lonely island in the Pacific with a colony of
+scoundrels worthy of their chief.”
+
+“That is what I think. I fancy he is going west, and with the speed he
+can get up it would not take, him long to get home.”
+
+“But we should not be able to put our plan into execution. If we get
+there—”
+
+“We shall not get there!”
+
+The colleagues had partly guessed the engineer’s intentions. During the
+day it became no longer doubtful that when the “Albatross” reached the
+confines of the Antarctic Sea her course was to be changed. When the
+ice has formed about Cape Horn the lower regions of the Pacific are
+covered with icefields and icebergs. The floes then form an
+impenetrable barrier to the strongest ships and the boldest navigators.
+Of course, by increasing the speed of her wings the “Albatross” could
+clear the mountains of ice accumulated on the ocean as she could the
+mountains of earth on the polar continent—if it is a continent that
+forms the cap of the southern pole. But would she attempt it in the
+middle of the polar night, in an atmosphere of sixty below freezing?
+
+After she had advanced about a hundred miles to the south the
+“Albatross” headed westerly, as if for some unknown island of the
+Pacific. Beneath her stretched the liquid plain between Asia and
+America. The waters now had assumed that singular color which has
+earned for them the name of the Milky Sea. In the half shadow, which
+the enfeebled rays of the sun were unable to dissipate, the surface of
+the Pacific was a milky white. It seemed like a vast snowfield, whose
+undulations were imperceptible at such a height. If the sea had been
+solidified by the cold, and converted into an immense icefield, its
+aspect could not have been much different. They knew that the
+phenomenon was produced by myriads of luminous particles of
+phosphorescent corpuscles; but it was surprising to come across such an
+opalescent mass beyond the limits of the Indian Ocean.
+
+Suddenly the barometer fell after keeping somewhat high during the
+earlier hours of the day. Evidently the indications were such as a
+shipmaster might feel anxious at, though the master of an aeronef might
+despise them. There was every sign that a terrible storm had recently
+raged in the Pacific.
+
+It was one o’clock in the afternoon when Tom Turner came up to the
+engineer and said, “Do you see that black spot on the horizon,
+sir—there away to due north of us? That is not a rock?”
+
+“No, Tom; there is no land out there.”
+
+“Then it must be a ship or a boat.”
+
+Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans, who were in the bow, looked in the
+direction pointed out by the mate.
+
+Robur asked for the glass and attentively observed the object.
+
+“It is a boat.” said he, “and there are some men in it.”
+
+“Shipwrecked?” asked Tom.
+
+“Yes! They have had to abandon their ship, and, knowing nothing of the
+nearest land, are perhaps dying of hunger and thirst! Well, it shall
+not be said that the “Albatross” did not come to their help!”
+
+The orders were given, and the aeronef began to sink towards the sea.
+At three hundred yards from it the descent was stopped, and the
+propellers drove ahead full speed towards the north.
+
+It was a boat. Her sail flapped against the mast as she rose and fell
+on the waves. There was no wind, and she was making no progress.
+Doubtless there was no one on board with strength enough left to work
+the oars. In the boat were five men asleep or helpless, if they were
+not dead.
+
+The “Albatross” had arrived above them, and slowly descended. On the
+boat’s stern was the name of the ship to which she belonged—the
+“Jeannette” of Nantes.
+
+“Hallo, there!” shouted Turner, loud enough for the men to hear, for
+the boat was only eighty feet below him.
+
+There was no answer. “Fire a gun!” said Robur.
+
+The gun was fired and the report rang out over the sea.
+
+One of the men looked up feebly. His eyes were haggard and his face was
+that of a skeleton. As he caught sight of the “Albatross” he made a
+gesture as of fear.
+
+“Don’t be afraid.” said Robur in French, “we have come to help you. Who
+are you?”
+
+“We belong to the barque “Jeannette.” and I am the mate. We left her a
+fortnight ago as she was sinking. We have no water and no food.”
+
+The four other men had now sat up. Wan and exhausted, in a terrible
+state of emaciation, they lifted their hands towards the “Albatross.”
+
+“Look-out!” shouted Robur.
+
+A line was let down, and a pail of fresh water was lowered into the
+boat. The men snatched at it and drank it with an eagerness awful to
+see.
+
+“Bread, bread!” they exclaimed.
+
+Immediately a basket with some food and five pints of coffee descended
+towards them. The mate with difficulty restrained them in their
+ravenousness.
+
+“Where are we?” asked the mate at last.
+
+“Fifty miles from the Chili coast and the Chonos Archipelago.” answered
+Robur.
+
+“Thanks. But we are becalmed, and—?”
+
+“We are going to tow you.”
+
+“Who are you?”
+
+“People who are glad to be of assistance to you.” said Robur.
+
+The mate understood that the incognito was to be respected. But had the
+flying machine sufficient power to tow them through the water?
+
+Yes; and the boat, attached to a hundred feet of rope, began to move
+off towards the east. At ten o’clock at night the land was sighted—or
+rather they could see the lights which indicated its position. This
+rescue from the sky had come just in time for the survivors of the
+“Jeannette.” and they had good reason to believe it miraculous.
+
+When they had been taken to the mouth of the channel leading among the
+Chonos Islands, Robur shouted to them to cast off the tow-line. This,
+with many a blessing to those who had saved them, they did, and the
+“Albatross” headed out to the offing.
+
+Certainly there was some good in this aeronef, which could thus help
+those who were lost at sea! What balloon, perfect as it might be, would
+be able to perform such a service? And between themselves Uncle Prudent
+and Phil Evans could not but admire it, although they were quite
+disposed to deny the evidence of their senses.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVIII
+OVER THE VOLCANO
+
+
+The sea was as rough as ever, and the symptoms became alarming. The
+barometer fell several millimeters. The wind came in violent gusts, and
+then for a moment or so failed altogether. Under such circumstances a
+sailing vessel would have had to reef in her topsails and her foresail.
+Everything showed that the wind was rising in the northwest. The
+storm-glass became much troubled and its movements were most
+disquieting.
+
+At one o’clock in the morning the wind came on again with extreme
+violence. Although the aeronef was going right in its teeth she was
+still making progress at a rate of from twelve to fifteen miles an
+hour. But that was the utmost she could do.
+
+Evidently preparations must be made for a cyclone, a very rare
+occurrence in these latitudes. Whether it be called a hurricane, as in
+the Atlantic, a typhoon, as in Chinese waters a simoom, as in the
+Sahara, or a tornado, as on the western coast, such a storm is always a
+gyratory one, and most dangerous for any ship caught in the current
+which increases from the circumference to the center, and has only one
+spot of calm, the middle of the vortex.
+
+Robur knew this. He also knew it was best to escape from the cyclone
+and get beyond its zone of attraction by ascending to the higher
+strata. Up to then he had always succeeded in doing this, but now he
+had not an hour, perhaps not a minute, to lose.
+
+In fact the violence of the wind sensibly increased. The crests of the
+waves were swept off as they rose and blown into white dust on the
+surface of the sea. It was manifest that the cyclone was advancing with
+fearful velocity straight towards the regions of the pole.
+
+“Higher!” said Robur.
+
+“Higher it is.” said Tom Tumor.
+
+An extreme ascensional power was communicated to the aeronef, and she
+shot up slantingly as if she was traveling on a plane sloping downwards
+from the southwest. Suddenly the barometer fell more than a dozen
+millimeters and the “Albatross” paused in her ascent.
+
+What was the cause of the stoppage? Evidently she was pulled back by
+the air; some formidable current had diminished the resistance to the
+screws. When a steamer travels upstream more work is got out of her
+screw than when the water is running between the blades. The recoil is
+then considerable, and may perhaps be as great as the current. It was
+thus with the “Albatross” at this moment.
+
+But Robur was not the man to give in. His seventy-four screws, working
+perfectly together, were driven at their maximum speed. But the aeronef
+could not escape; the attraction of the cyclone was irresistible.
+During the few moments of calm she began to ascend, but the heavy pull
+soon drew her back, and she sunk like a ship as she founders.
+
+Evidently if the violence of the cyclone went on increasing the
+“Albatross” would be but as a straw caught in one of those whirlwinds
+that root up the trees, carry off roofs, and blow down walls.
+
+Robur and Tom could only speak by signs. Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans
+clung to the rail and wondered if the cyclone was not playing their
+game in destroying the aeronef and with her the inventor—and with the
+inventor the secret of his invention.
+
+But if the “Albatross” could not get out of the cyclone vertically
+could she not do something else? Could she not gain the center, where
+it was comparatively calm, and where they would have more control over
+her? Quite so, but to do this she would have to break through the
+circular currents which were sweeping her round with them. Had she
+sufficient mechanical power to escape through them?
+
+Suddenly the upper part of the cloud fell in. The vapor condensed in
+torrents of rain. It was two o’clock in the morning. The barometer,
+oscillating over a range of twelve millimeters, had now fallen to
+27.91, and from this something should be taken on account of the height
+of the aeronef above the level of the sea.
+
+Strange to say, the cyclone was out of the zone to which such storms
+are generally restricted, such zone being bounded by the thirtieth
+parallel of north latitude and the twenty-sixth parallel of south
+latitude. This may perhaps explain why the eddying storm suddenly
+turned into a straight one. But what a hurricane! The tempest in
+Connecticut on the 22nd of March, 1882, could only have been compared
+to it, and the speed of that was more than three hundred miles an hour.
+
+The “Albatross” had thus to fly before the wind or rather she had to be
+left to be driven by the current, from which she could neither mount
+nor escape. But in following this unchanging trajectory she was bearing
+due south, towards those polar regions which Robur had endeavored to
+avoid. And now he was no longer master of her course; she would go
+where the hurricane took her.
+
+Tom Turner was at the helm, and it required all his skill to keep her
+straight. In the first hours of the morning—if we can so call the vague
+tint which began to rise over the horizon—the “Albatross” was fifteen
+degrees below Cape Horn; twelve hundred miles more and she would cross
+the antarctic circle. Where she was, in this month of July, the night
+lasted nineteen hours and a half. The sun’s disk—without warmth,
+without light—only appeared above the horizon to disappear almost
+immediately. At the pole the night lengthened into one of a hundred and
+seventy-nine days. Everything showed that the “Albatross” was about to
+plunge into an abyss.
+
+During the day an observation, had it been possible, would have given
+66° 40′ south latitude. The aeronef was within fourteen hundred miles
+of the pole.
+
+Irresistibly was she drawn towards this inaccessible corner of the
+globe, her speed eating up, so to speak, her weight, although she
+weighed less than before, owing to the flattening of the earth at the
+pole. It seemed as though she could have dispensed altogether with her
+suspensory screws. And soon the fury of the storm reached such a height
+that Robur thought it best to reduce the speed of her helices as much
+as possible, so as to avoid disaster. And only enough speed was given
+to keep the aeronef under control of the rudder.
+
+Amid these dangers the engineer retained his imperturbable coolness,
+and the crew obeyed him as if their leader’s mind had entered into
+them. Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans had not for a moment left the deck;
+they could remain without being disturbed. The air made but slight
+resistance. The aeronef was like an aerostat, which drifts with the
+fluid masses in which it is plunged.
+
+Is the domain of the southern pole a continent or an archipelago? Or is
+it a palaeocrystic sea, whose ice melts not even during the long
+summer? We know not. But what we do know is that the southern pole is
+colder than the northern one—a phenomenon due to the position of the
+earth in its orbit during winter in the antarctic regions.
+
+During this day there was nothing to show that the storm was abating.
+It was by the seventy-fifth meridian to the west that the “Albatross”
+crossed into the circumpolar region. By what meridian would she come
+out—if she ever came out?
+
+As she descended more to the south the length of the day diminished.
+Before long she would be plunged in that continuous night which is
+illuminated only by the rays of the moon or the pale streamers of the
+aurora. But the moon was then new, and the companions of Robur might
+see nothing of the regions whose secret has hitherto defied human
+curiosity, There was not much inconvenience on board from the cold, for
+the temperature was not nearly so low as was expected.
+
+It seemed as though the hurricane was a sort of Gulf Stream, carrying a
+certain amount of heat along with it.
+
+Great was the regret that the whole region was in such profound
+obscurity. Even if the moon had been in full glory but few observations
+could have been made. At this season of the year an immense curtain of
+snow, an icy carapace, covers up the polar surface. There was none of
+that ice “blink” to be seen, that whitish tint of which the reflection
+is absent from dark horizons. Under such circumstances, how could they
+distinguish the shape of the ground, the extent of the seas, the
+position of the islands? How could they recognize the hydrographic
+network of the country or the orographic configuration, and distinguish
+the hills and mountains from the icebergs and floes?
+
+A little after midnight an aurora illuminated the darkness. With its
+silver fringes and spangles radiating over space, it seemed like a huge
+fan open over half the sky. Its farthest electric effluences were lost
+in the Southern Cross, whose four bright stars were gleaming overhead.
+The phenomenon was one of incomparable magnificence, and the light
+showed the face of the country as a confused mass of white.
+
+It need not be said that they had approached so near to the pole that
+the compass was constantly affected, and gave no precise indication of
+the course pursued. Its inclination was such that at one time Robur
+felt certain they were passing over the magnetic pole discovered by Sir
+James Ross. And an hour later, in calculating the angle the needle made
+with the vertical, he exclaimed: “the South Pole is beneath us!”
+
+A white cap appeared, but nothing could be seen of what it bid under
+its ice.
+
+A few minutes afterwards the aurora died away, and the point where all
+the world’s meridians cross is still to be discovered.
+
+If Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans wished to bury in the most mysterious
+solitudes the aeronef and all she bore, the moment was propitious. If
+they did not do so it was doubtless because the explosive they required
+was still denied to them.
+
+The hurricane still raged and swept along with such rapidity that had a
+mountain been met with the aeronef would have been dashed to pieces
+like a ship on a lee shore. Not only had the power gone to steer her
+horizontally, but the control of her elevation had also vanished.
+
+And it was not unlikely that mountains did exist in these antarctic
+lands. Any instant a shock might happen which would destroy the
+“Albatross.” Such a catastrophe became more probable as the wind
+shifted more to the east after they passed the prime meridian. Two
+luminous points then showed themselves ahead of the “Albatross.” There
+were the two volcanos of the Ross Mountains—Erebus and Terror. Was the
+“Albatross” to be shriveled up in their flames like a gigantic
+butterfly?
+
+An hour of intense excitement followed. One of the volcanoes, Erebus,
+seemed to be rushing at the aeronef, which could not move from the bed
+of the hurricane. The cloud of flame grew as they neared it. A network
+of fire barred their road. A brilliant light shone round over all. The
+figures on board stood out in the bright light as if come from another
+world. Motionless, without a sound or a gesture, they waited for the
+terrible moment when the furnace would wrap them in its fires.
+
+But the storm that bore the “Albatross” saved them from such a fearful
+fate. The flames of Erebus were blown down by the hurricane as it
+passed, and the “Albatross” flew over unhurt. She swept through a hail
+of ejected material, which was fortunately kept at bay by the
+centrifugal action of the suspensory screws. And she harmlessly passed
+over the crater while it was in full eruption.
+
+An hour afterwards the horizon hid from their view the two colossal
+torches which light the confines of the world during the long polar
+night.
+
+At two o’clock in the morning Balleny Island was sighted on the coast
+of Discovery Land, though it could not be recognized owing to its being
+bound to the mainland by a cement of ice.
+
+And the “Albatross” emerged from the polar circle on the hundred and
+seventy-fifth meridian. The hurricane had carried her over the icebergs
+and icefloes, against which she was in danger of being dashed a hundred
+times or more. She was not in the hands of the helmsman, but in the
+hand of God—and God is a good pilot.
+
+The aeronef sped along to the north, and at the sixtieth parallel the
+storm showed signs of dying away. Its violence sensibly diminished. The
+“Albatross” began to come under control again. And, what was a great
+comfort, had again entered the lighted regions of the globe; and the
+day reappeared about eight o’clock in the morning.
+
+Robur had been carried by the storm into the Pacific over the polar
+region, accomplishing four thousand three hundred and fifty miles in
+nineteen hours, or about three miles a minute, a speed almost double
+that which the “Albatross” was equal to with her propellers under
+ordinary circumstances. But he did not know where he then was owing to
+the disturbance of the needle in the neighborhood of the magnetic pole,
+and he would have to wait till the sun shone out under convenient
+conditions for observation. Unfortunately, heavy clouds covered the sky
+all that day and the sun did not appear.
+
+This was a disappointment more keenly felt as both propelling screws
+had sustained damage during the tempest. Robur, much disconcerted at
+this accident, could only advance at a moderate speed during this day,
+and when he passed over the antipodes of Paris was only going about
+eighteen miles an hour. It was necessary not to aggravate the damage to
+the screws, for if the propellers were rendered useless the situation
+of the aeronef above the vast seas of the Pacific would be a very
+awkward one. And the engineer began to consider if he could not effect
+his repairs on the spot, so as to make sure of continuing his voyage.
+
+In the morning of the 27th of July, about seven o’clock, land was
+sighted to the north. It was soon seen to be an island. But which
+island was it of the thousands that dot the Pacific? However, Robur
+decided to stop at it without landing. He thought, that he could repair
+damages during the day and start in the evening.
+
+The wind had died away completely and this was a favorable circumstance
+for the maneuver he desired to execute. At least, if she did not remain
+stationary the “Albatross” would be carried he knew not where.
+
+A cable one hundred and fifty feet long with an anchor at the end was
+dropped overboard. When the aeronef reached the shore of the island the
+anchor dragged up the first few rocks and then got firmly fixed between
+two large blocks. The cable then stretched to full length under the
+influence of the suspensory screws, and the “Albatross” remained
+motionless, riding like a ship in a roadstead.
+
+It was the first time she had been fastened to the earth since she left
+Philadelphia.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIX
+ANCHORED AT LAST
+
+
+When the “Albatross” was high in the air the island could be seen to be
+of moderate size. But on what parallel was it situated? What meridian
+ran through it? Was it an island in the Pacific, in Australasia, or in
+the Indian Ocean? When the sun appeared, and Robur had taken his
+observations, they would know; but although they could not trust to the
+indications of the compass there was reason to think they were in the
+Pacific.
+
+At this height—one hundred and fifty feet—the island which measured
+about fifteen miles round, was like a three-pointed star in the sea.
+
+Off the southwest point was an islet and a range of rocks. On the shore
+there were no tide-marks, and this tended to confirm Robur in his
+opinion as to his position for the ebb and flow are almost
+imperceptible in the Pacific.
+
+At the northwest point there was a conical mountain about two hundred
+feet high.
+
+No natives were to be seen, but they might be on the opposite coast. In
+any case, if they had perceived the aeronef, terror had made them
+either hide themselves or run away. The “Albatross” had anchored on the
+southwest point of the island. Not far off, down a little creek, a
+small river flowed in among the rocks. Beyond were several winding
+valleys; trees of different kinds; and birds—partridges and bustards—in
+great numbers. If the island was not inhabited it was habitable. Robur
+might surely have landed on it; if he had not done so it was probably
+because the ground was uneven and did not offer a convenient spot to
+beach the aeronef.
+
+While he was waiting for the sun the engineer began the repairs he
+reckoned on completing before the day was over. The suspensory screws
+were undamaged and had worked admirably amid all the violence of the
+storm, which, as we have said, had considerably lightened their work.
+At this moment half of them were in action, enough to keep the
+“Albatross” fixed to the shore by the taut cable. But the two
+propellers had suffered, and more than Robur had thought. Their blades
+would have to be adjusted and the gearing seen to by which they
+received their rotatory movement.
+
+It was the screw at the bow which was first attacked under Robur’s
+superintendence. It was the best to commence with, in case the
+“Albatross” had to leave before the work was finished. With only this
+propeller he could easily keep a proper course.
+
+Meanwhile Uncle Prudent and his colleague, after walking about the
+deck, had sat down aft. Frycollin was strangely reassured. What a
+difference! To be suspended only one hundred and fifty feet from the
+ground!
+
+The work was only interrupted for a moment while the elevation of the
+sun above the horizon allowed Robur to take an horary angle, so that at
+the time of its culmination he could calculate his position.
+
+The result of the observation, taken with the greatest exactitude, was
+as follows:
+
+Longitude, 176° 10′ west.
+Latitude, 44° 25′ south.
+
+
+This point on the map answered to the position of the Chatham Islands,
+and particularly of Pitt Island, one of the group.
+
+“That is nearer than I supposed.” said Robur to Tom Turner.
+
+“How far off are we?”
+
+“Forty-six degrees south of X Island, or two thousand eight hundred
+miles.”
+
+“All the more reason to get our propellers into order.” said the mate.
+“We may have the wind against us this passage, and with the little
+stores we have left we ought to get to X as soon as possible.”
+
+“Yes, Tom, and I hope to get under way tonight, even if I go with one
+screw, and put the other to-rights on the voyage.”
+
+“Mr. Robur.” said Tom “What is to be done with those two gentlemen and
+their servant?”
+
+“Do you think they would complain if they became colonists of X
+Island?”
+
+But where was this X? It was an island lost in the immensity of the
+Pacific Ocean between the Equator and the Tropic of Cancer—an island
+most appropriately named by Robur in this algebraic fashion. It was in
+the north of the South Pacific, a long way out of the route of
+inter-oceanic communication. There it was that Robur had founded his
+little colony, and there the “Albatross” rested when tired with her
+flight. There she was provisioned for all her voyages. In X Island,
+Robur, a man of immense wealth, had established a shipyard in which he
+built his aeronef. There he could repair it, and even rebuild it. In
+his warehouses were materials and provisions of all sorts stored for
+the fifty inhabitants who lived on the island.
+
+When Robur had doubled Cape Horn a few days before his intention had
+been to regain X Island by crossing the Pacific obliquely. But the
+cyclone had seized the “Albatross.” and the hurricane had carried her
+away to the south. In fact, he had been brought back to much the same
+latitude as before, and if his propellers had not been damaged the
+delay would have been of no importance.
+
+His object was therefore to get back to X Island, but as the mate had
+said, the voyage would be a long one, and the winds would probably be
+against them. The mechanical power of the “Albatross” was, however,
+quite equal to taking her to her destination, and under ordinary
+circumstances she would be there in three or four days.
+
+Hence Robur’s resolve to anchor on the Chatham Islands. There was every
+opportunity for repairing at least the fore-screw. He had no fear that
+if the wind were to rise he would be driven to the south instead of to
+the north. When night came the repairs would be finished, and he would
+have to maneuver so as to weigh anchor. If it were too firmly fixed in
+the rocks he could cut the cable and resume his flight towards the
+equator.
+
+The crew of the “Albatross.” knowing there was no time to lose, set to
+work vigorously.
+
+While they were busy in the bow of the aeronef, Uncle Prudent and Phil
+Evans held a little conversation together which had exceptionally
+important consequences.
+
+“Phil Evans.” said Uncle Prudent, “you have resolved, as I have, to
+sacrifice your life?”
+
+“Yes, like you.”
+
+“It is evident that we can expect nothing from Robur.”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“Well, Phil Evans, I have made up my mind. If the “Albatross” leaves
+this place tonight, the night will not pass without our having
+accomplished our task. We will smash the wings of this bird of Robur’s!
+This night I will blow it into the air!”
+
+“The sooner the better.” said Phil Evans.
+
+It will be seen that the two colleagues were agreed on all points even
+in accepting with indifference the frightful death in store for them.
+“Have you all you want?” asked Evans.
+
+“Yes. Last night, while Robur and his people had enough to do to look
+after the safety of the ship, I slipped into the magazine and got hold
+of a dynamite cartridge.”
+
+“Let us set to work, Uncle Prudent.”
+
+“No. Wait till tonight. When the night comes we will go into our cabin,
+and you shall see something that will surprise you.”
+
+At six o’clock the colleagues dined together as usual. Two hours
+afterwards they retired to their cabin like men who wished to make up
+for a sleepless night.
+
+Neither Robur nor any of his companions had a suspicion of the
+catastrophe that threatened the “Albatross.”
+
+This was Uncle Prudent’s plan. As he had said, he had stolen into the
+magazine, and there had possessed himself of some powder and cartridge
+like those used by Robur in Dahomey. Returning to his cabin, he had
+carefully concealed the cartridge with which he had resolved to blow up
+the “Albatross” in mid-air.
+
+Phil Evans, screened by his companion, was now examining the infernal
+machine, which was a metallic canister containing about two pounds of
+dynamite, enough to shatter the aeronef to atoms. If the explosion did
+not destroy her at once, it would do so in her fall. Nothing was easier
+than to place this cartridge in a corner of the cabin, so that it would
+blow in the deck and tear away the framework of the hull.
+
+But to obtain the explosion it was necessary to adjust the fulminating
+cap with which the cartridge was fitted. This was the most delicate
+part of the operation, for the explosion would have to be carefully
+timed, so as not to occur too soon or too late.
+
+Uncle Prudent had carefully thought over the matter. His conclusions
+were as follows. As soon as the fore propeller was repaired the aeronef
+would resume her course to the north, and that done Robur and his crew
+would probably come aft to put the other screw into order. The presence
+of these people about the cabin might interfere with his plans, and so
+he had resolved to make a slow match do duty as a time-fuse.
+
+“When I got the cartridge.” said he to Phil Evans, “I took some
+gunpowder as well. With the powder I will make a fuse that will take
+some time to burn, and which will lead into the fulminate. My idea is
+to light it about midnight, so that the explosion will take place about
+three or four o’clock in the morning.”
+
+“Well planned!” said Phil Evans.
+
+The colleagues, as we see, had arrived at such a stage as to look with
+the greatest nonchalance on the awful destruction in which they were
+about to perish. Their hatred against Robur and his people had so
+increased that they would sacrifice their own lives to destroy the
+“Albatross” and all she bore. The act was that of madmen, it was
+horrible; but at such a pitch had they arrived after five weeks of
+anger that could not vent itself, of rage that could not be gratified.
+
+“And Frycollin?” asked Phil Evans, “have we the right to dispose of his
+life?”
+
+“We shall sacrifice ours as well!” said Uncle Prudent. But it is
+doubtful if Frycollin would have thought the reason sufficient.
+
+Immediately Uncle Prudent set to work, while Evans kept watch in the
+neighborhood of the cabin. The crew were all at work forward. There was
+no fear of being surprised. Uncle Prudent began by rubbing a small
+quantity of the powder very fine; and then, having slightly moistened
+it, he wrapped it up in a piece of rag in the shape of a match. When it
+was lighted he calculated it would burn about an inch in five minutes,
+or a yard in three hours. The match was tried and found to answer, and
+was then wound round with string and attached to the cap of the
+cartridge. Uncle Prudent had all finished about ten o’clock in the
+evening without having excited the least suspicion.
+
+During the day the work on the fore screw had been actively carried on,
+but it had had to be taken on board to adjust the twisted blades. Of
+the piles and accumulators and the machinery that drove the ship
+nothing was damaged.
+
+When night fell Robur and his men knocked off work. The fore propeller
+not been got into place, and to finish it would take another three
+hours. After some conversation with Tom Turner it was decided to give
+the crew a rest, and postpone what required to be done to the next
+morning.
+
+The final adjustment was a matter of extreme nicety, and the electric
+lamps did not give so suitable a light for such work as the daylight.
+
+Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans were not aware of this. They had
+understood that the screw would be in place during the night, and that
+the “Albatross” would be on her way to the north.
+
+The night was dark and moonless. Heavy clouds made the darkness deeper.
+A light breeze began to rise. A few puffs came from the southwest, but
+they had no effect on the “Albatross.” She remained motionless at her
+anchor, and the cable stretched vertically downward to the ground.
+
+Uncle Prudent and his colleague, imagining they were under way again,
+sat shut up in their cabin, exchanging but a few words, and listening
+to the f-r-r-r-r of the suspensory screws, which drowned every other
+sound on board. They were waiting till the time of action arrived.
+
+A little before midnight Uncle Prudent said, “It is time!” Under the
+berths in the cabin was a sliding box, forming a small locker, and in
+this locker Uncle Prudent put the dynamite and the slow-match. In this
+way the match would burn without betraying itself by its smoke or
+spluttering. Uncle Prudent lighted the end and pushed back the box
+under the berth with “Now let us go aft, and wait.”
+
+They then went out, and were astonished not to find the steersman at
+his post.
+
+Phil Evans leant out over the rail.
+
+“The “Albatross” is where she was.” said he in a low voice. “The work
+is not finished. They have not started!”
+
+Uncle Prudent made a gesture of disappointment. “We shall have to put
+out the match.” said he.
+
+“No.” said Phil Evans, “we must escape!”
+
+“Escape?”
+
+“Yes! down the cable! Fifty yards is nothing!”
+
+“Nothing, of course, Phil Evans, and we should be fools not to take the
+chance now it has come.”
+
+But first they went back to the cabin and took away all they could
+carry, with a view to a more or less prolonged stay on the Chatham
+Islands. Then they shut the door and noiselessly crept forward,
+intending to wake Frycollin and take him with them.
+
+The darkness was intense. The clouds were racing up from the southwest,
+and the aeronef was tugging at her anchor and thus throwing the cable
+more and more out of the vertical. There would be no difficulty in
+slipping down it.
+
+The colleagues made their way along the deck, stopping in the shadow of
+the deckhouses to listen if there was any sound. The silence was
+unbroken. No light shone from the portholes. The aeronef was not only
+silent; she was asleep.
+
+Uncle Prudent was close to Frycollin’s cabin when Phil Evans stopped
+him. “The look-out!” he said.
+
+A man was crouching near the deck-house. He was only half asleep. All
+flight would be impossible if he were to give the alarm. Close by were
+a few ropes, and pieces of rag and waste used in the work at the screw.
+
+An instant afterwards the man was gagged and blindfolded and lashed to
+the rail unable to utter a sound or move an inch. This was done almost
+without a whisper.
+
+Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans listened. All was silent within the
+cabins. Every one on board was asleep. They reached Frycollin’s cabin.
+Tapage was snoring away in a style worthy of his name, and that
+promised well.
+
+To his great surprise, Uncle Prudent had not even to push Frycollin’s
+door. It was open. He stepped into the doorway and looked around.
+“Nobody here!” he said.
+
+“Nobody! Where can he be?” asked Phil Evans.
+
+They went into the bow, thinking Frycollin might perhaps be asleep in
+the corner. Still they found nobody.
+
+“Has the fellow got the start of us?” asked Uncle Prudent.
+
+“Whether he has or not.” said Phil Evans, “we can’t wait any longer.
+Down you go.”
+
+Without hesitation the fugitives one after the other clambered over the
+side and, seizing the cable with hands and feet slipped down it safe
+and sound to the ground.
+
+Think of their joy at again treading the earth they had lost for so
+long—at walking on solid ground and being no longer the playthings of
+the atmosphere!
+
+They were staring up the creek to the interior of the island when
+suddenly a form rose in front of them. It was Frycollin. The Negro had
+had the same idea as his master and the audacity to start without
+telling him. But there was no time for recriminations, and Uncle
+Prudent was in search of a refuge in some distant part of the island
+when Phil Evans stopped him.
+
+“Uncle Prudent.” said he. “Here we are safe from Robur. He is doomed
+like his companions to a terrible death. He deserves it, we know. But
+if he would swear on his honor not to take us prisoners again—”
+
+“The honor of such a man—”
+
+Uncle Prudent did not finish his sentence.
+
+There was a noise on the “Albatross.” Evidently, the alarm had been
+given. The escape was discovered.
+
+“Help! Help!” shouted somebody. It was the look-out man, who had got
+rid of his gag. Hurried footsteps were heard on deck. Almost
+immediately the electric lamps shot beams over a large circle.
+
+“There they are! There they are!” shouted Tom Turner. The fugitives
+were seen.
+
+At the same instant an order was given by Robur, and the suspensory
+screws being slowed, the cable was hauled in on board, and the
+“Albatross” sank towards the ground.
+
+At this moment the voice of Phil Evans was heard shouting, “Engineer
+Robur, will you give us your word of honor to leave us free on this
+island?”
+
+“Never!” said Robur. And the reply was followed by the report of a gun,
+and the bullet grazed Phil’s shoulder.
+
+“Ah! The brutes!” said Uncle Prudent. Knife in hand, he rushed towards
+the rocks where the anchor had fixed itself. The aeronef was not more
+than fifty feet from the ground.
+
+In a few seconds the cable was cut, and the breeze, which had increased
+considerably, striking the “Albatross” on the quarter, carried her out
+over the sea.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XX
+THE WRECK OF THE ALBATROSS
+
+
+It was then twenty minutes after midnight. Five or six shots had been
+fired from the aeronef. Uncle Prudent and Frycollin, supporting Phil
+Evans, had taken shelter among the rocks. They had not been hit. For
+the moment there was nothing to fear.
+
+As the “Albatross” drifted off from Pitt Island she rose obliquely to
+nearly three thousand feet. It was necessary to increase the
+ascensional power to prevent her falling into the sea.
+
+When the look-out man had got clear of his gag and shouted, Robur and
+Tom Turner had rushed up to him and torn off his bandage. The mate had
+then run back to the stern cabin. It was empty! Tapage had searched
+Frycollin’s cabin, and that also was empty.
+
+When he saw that the prisoners had escaped, Robur was seized with a
+paroxysm of anger. The escape meant the revelation of his secret to the
+world. He had not been much concerned at the document thrown overboard
+while they were crossing Europe, for there were so many chances that it
+would be lost in its fall; but now!
+
+As he grew calm, “They have escaped.” said he. “Be it so! But they
+cannot get away from Pitt Island, and in a day or so I will go back! I
+will recapture them! And then—”
+
+In fact, the safety of the three fugitives was by no means assured. The
+“Albatross” would be repaired, and return well in hand. Before the day
+was out they might again be in the power of the engineer.
+
+Before the day was out! But in two hours the “Albatross” would be
+annihilated! The dynamite cartridge was like a torpedo fastened to her
+hull, and would accomplish her destruction in mid-air. The breeze
+freshened, and the aeronef was carried to the northeast. Although her
+speed was but moderate, she would be out of sight of the Chatham
+Islands before sunrise. To return against the wind she must have her
+propellers going, particularly the one in the bow.
+
+“Tom.” said the engineer, “turn the lights full on.”
+
+“Yes, Sir.”
+
+“And all hands to work.”
+
+“Yes, Sir.”
+
+There was no longer any idea of putting off the work till tomorrow.
+There was now no thought of fatigue. Not one of the men of the
+“Albatross” failed to share in the feelings of his chief. Not one but
+was ready to do anything to recapture the fugitives!
+
+As soon as the screw was in place they would return to the island and
+drop another anchor, and give chase to the fugitives. Then only would
+they begin repairing the stern-screw; and then the aeronef could resume
+her voyage across the Pacific to X Island.
+
+It was important, above all things, that the “Albatross” should not be
+carried too far to the northeast, but unfortunately the breeze grew
+stronger, and she could not head against it, or even remain stationary.
+Deprived of her propellers she was an unguidable balloon. The fugitives
+on the shore knew that she would have disappeared before the explosion
+blew her to pieces.
+
+Robur felt much disappointment at seeing his plans so interfered with.
+Would it not take him much longer than he thought to get back to his
+old anchorage?
+
+While the work at the screw was actively pushed on, he resolved to
+descend to the surface of the sea, in the hope that the wind would
+there be lighter. Perhaps the “Albatross” would be able to remain in
+the neighborhood until she was again fit to work to windward.
+
+The maneuver was instantly executed. If a passing ship had sighted the
+aerial machine as she sunk through the air, with her electric lights in
+full blaze, with what terror would she have been seized!
+
+When the “Albatross” was a few hundred feet from the waves she stopped.
+Unfortunately Robur found that the breeze was stronger here than above,
+and the aeronef drifted off more rapidly. He risked being blown a long,
+way off to the northeast, and that would delay his return to Pitt
+Island. In short, after several experiments, he found it better to keep
+his ship well up in the air, and the “Albatross” went aloft to about
+ten thousand feet. There, if she did not remain stationary, the
+drifting was very slight. The engineer could thus hope that by sunrise
+at such an altitude he would still be in sight of the island.
+
+Robur did not trouble himself about the reception the fugitives might
+have received from the natives—if there were any natives. That they
+might help them mattered little to him. With the powers of offense
+possessed by the “Albatross” they would be promptly terrified and
+dispersed. The capture of the prisoners was certain, and once he had
+them again, “They will not escape from X Island!”
+
+About one o’clock in the morning the fore-screw was finished, and all
+that had to be done was to get it back to its place. This would take
+about an hour. That done, the “Albatross” would be headed southwest and
+the stern-screw could be taken in hand.
+
+And how about the match that was burning in the deserted cabin? The
+match of which more than a third was now consumed? And the spark that
+was creeping along to the dynamite?
+
+Assuredly if the men of the aeronef had not been so busy one of them
+would have heard the feeble sputtering that was going on in the
+deck-house. Perhaps he would have smelt the burning powder! He would
+doubtless have become uneasy! And told Tom Turner! And then they would
+have looked about, and found the box and the infernal machine; and then
+there would have been time to save this wonderful “Albatross” and all
+she bore!
+
+But the men were at work in the bow, twenty yards away from the cabin.
+Nothing brought them to that part of the deck; nothing called off their
+attention from their work. Robur was there working with his hands,
+excellent mechanic as he was. He hurried on the work, but nothing was
+neglected, everything was carefully done. Was it not necessary that he
+should again become absolute master of his invention? If he did not
+recapture the fugitives they would get away home. They would begin
+inquiring into matters. They might even discover X Island, and there
+would be an end to this life, which the men of the “Albatross” had
+created for themselves, a life that seemed superhuman and sublime.
+
+Tom Turner came up to the engineer. It was a quarter past one. “It
+seems to me, sir, that the breeze is falling, and going round to the
+west.”
+
+“What does the barometer say?” asked Robur, after looking up at the
+sky.
+
+“It is almost stationary, and the clouds seem gathering below us.”
+
+“So they are, and it may be raining down at the sea; but if we keep
+above the rain it makes no difference to us. It will not interfere with
+the work.”
+
+“If it is raining it is not a heavy rain.” said Tom. “The clouds do not
+look like it, and probably the wind has dropped altogether.”
+
+“Perhaps so, but I think we had better not go down yet. Let us get into
+going order as soon as we can, and then we can do as we like.”
+
+At a few minutes after two the first part of the work was finished. The
+fore-screw was in its place, and the power was turned on. The speed was
+gradually increased, and the “Albatross.” heading to the southwest,
+returned at moderate speed towards the Chatham Islands.
+
+“Tom.” said Robur, “it is about two hours and a half since we got
+adrift. The wind has not changed all the time. I think we ought to be
+over the island in an hour.”
+
+“Yes, sir. We are going about forty feet a second. We ought to be there
+about half-past three.”
+
+“All the better. It would suit us best to get back while it is dark,
+and even beach the “Albatross” if we can. Those fellows will fancy we
+are a long way off to the northward, and never think of keeping a
+look-out. If we have to stop a day or two on the island—”
+
+“We’ll stop, and if we have to fight an army of natives?”
+
+“We’ll fight.” said Robur. “We’ll fight then for our “Albatross.””
+
+The engineer went forward to the men, who were waiting for orders. “My
+lads.” he said to them, “we cannot knock off yet. We must work till day
+comes.”
+
+They were all ready to do so. The stern-screw had now to be treated as
+the other had been. The damage was the same, a twisting from the
+violence of the hurricane during the passage across the southern pole.
+
+But to get the screw on board it seemed best to stop the progress of
+the aeronef for a few minutes, and even to drive her backwards. The
+engines were reversed. The aeronef began to fall astern, when Tom
+Turner was surprised by a peculiar odor.
+
+This was from the gas given off by the match, which had accumulated in
+the box, and was now escaping from the cabin. “Hallo!” said the mate,
+with a sniff.
+
+“What is the matter?” asked Robur.
+
+“Don’t you smell something? Isn’t it burning powder?”
+
+“So it is, Tom.”
+
+“And it comes from that cabin.”
+
+“Yes, the very cabin—”
+
+“Have those scoundrels set it on fire?”
+
+“Suppose it is something else!” exclaimed Robur. “Force the door, Tom;
+drive in the door!”
+
+But the mate had not made one step towards it when a fearful explosion
+shook the “Albatross.” The cabins flew into splinters. The lamps went
+out. The electric current suddenly failed. The darkness was complete.
+Most of the suspensory screws were twisted or broken, but a few in the
+bow still revolved.
+
+At the same instant the hull of the aeronef opened just behind the
+first deck-house, where the engines for the fore-screw were placed; and
+the after-part of the deck collapsed in space.
+
+Immediately the last suspensory screw stopped spinning, and the
+“Albatross” dropped into the abyss.
+
+It was a fall of ten thousand feet for the eight men who were clinging
+to the wreck; and the fall was even faster than it might have been, for
+the fore propeller was vertical in the air and still working!
+
+It was then that Robur, with extraordinary coolness, climbed up to the
+broken deck-house, and seizing the lever reversed the rotation, so that
+the propeller became a suspender. The fall continued, but it was
+checked, and the wreck did not fall with the accelerating swiftness of
+bodies influenced solely by gravitation; and if it was death to the
+survivors of the “Albatross” from their being hurled into the sea, it
+was not death by asphyxia amid air which the rapidity of descent
+rendered unbreathable.
+
+Eighty seconds after the explosion, all that remained of the
+“Albatross” plunged into the waves!
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXI
+THE INSTITUTE AGAIN
+
+
+Some weeks before, on the 13th of June, on the morning after the
+sitting during which the Weldon Institute had been given over to such
+stormy discussions, the excitement of all classes of the Philadelphia
+population, black or white, had been much easier to imagine than to
+describe.
+
+From a very early hour conversation was entirely occupied with the
+unexpected and scandalous incident of the night before. A stranger
+calling himself an engineer, and answering to the name of Robur, a
+person of unknown origin, of anonymous nationality, had unexpectedly
+presented himself in the club-room, insulted the balloonists, made fun
+of the aeronauts, boasted of the marvels of machines heavier than air,
+and raised a frightful tumult by the remarks with which he greeted the
+menaces of his adversaries. After leaving the desk, amid a volley of
+revolver shots, he had disappeared, and in spite of every endeavor, no
+trace could be found of him.
+
+Assuredly here was enough to exercise every tongue and excite every
+imagination. But by how much was this excitement increased when in the
+evening of the 13th of June it was found that neither the president nor
+secretary of the Weldon Institute had returned to their homes! Was it
+by chance only that they were absent? No, or at least there was nothing
+to lead people to think so. It had even been agreed that in the morning
+they would be back at the club, one as president, the other as
+secretary, to take their places during a discussion on the events of
+the preceding evening.
+
+And not only was there the complete disappearance of these two
+considerable personages in the state of Pennsylvania, but there was no
+news of the valet Frycollin. He was as undiscoverable as his master.
+Never had a Negro since Toussaint L’Ouverture, Soulouque, or Dessaline
+had so much talked about him.
+
+The next day there was no news. Neither the colleagues nor Frycollin
+had been found. The anxiety became serious. Agitation commenced. A
+numerous crowd besieged the post and telegraph offices in case any news
+should be received. There was no news.
+
+And they had been seen coming out of the Weldon Institute loudly
+talking together, and with Frycollin in attendance, go down Walnut
+Street towards Fairmount Park! Jem Chip, the vegetarian, had even
+shaken hands with the president and left him with “Tomorrow!”
+
+And William T. Forbes, the manufacturer of sugar from rags, had
+received a cordial shake from Phil Evans who had said to him twice, “Au
+revoir! Au revoir!”
+
+Miss Doll and Miss Mat Forbes, so attached to Uncle Prudent by the
+bonds of purest friendship, could not get over the disappearance, and
+in order to obtain news of the absent, talked even more than they were
+accustomed to.
+
+Three, four, five, six days passed. Then a week, then two weeks, and
+there was nothing to give a clue to the missing three. The most minute
+search had been made in every quarter. Nothing! In the park, even under
+the trees and brushwood. Nothing! Always nothing! Although here it was
+noticed that the grass looked to be pressed down in a way that seemed
+suspicious and certainly was inexplicable; and at the edge of the
+clearing there were traces of a recent struggle. Perhaps a band of
+scoundrels had attacked the colleagues here in the deserted park in the
+middle of the night!
+
+It was possible. The police proceeded with their inquiries in all due
+form and with all lawful slowness. They dragged the Schuyllkill river,
+and cut into the thick bushes that fringe its banks; and if this was
+useless it was not quite a waste, for the Schuyllkill is in great want
+of a good weeding, and it got it on this occasion. Practical people are
+the authorities of Philadelphia!
+
+Then the newspapers were tried. Advertisements and notices and articles
+were sent to all the journals in the Union without distinction of
+color. The “Daily Negro.” the special organ of the black race,
+published a portrait of Frycollin after his latest photograph. Rewards
+were offered to whoever would give news of the three absentees, and
+even to those who would find some clue to put the police on the track.
+“Five thousand dollars! Five thousand dollars to any citizen who
+would—”
+
+Nothing was done. The five thousand dollars remained with the treasurer
+of the Weldon Institute.
+
+Undiscoverable! Undiscoverable! Undiscoverable! Uncle Prudent and Phil
+Evans, of Philadelphia!
+
+It need hardly be said that the club was put to serious inconvenience
+by this disappearance of its president and secretary. And at first the
+assembly voted urgency to a measure which suspended the work on the
+“Go-Ahead.” How, in the absence of the principal promoters of the
+affair, of those who had devoted to the enterprise a certain part of
+their fortune in time and money—how could they finish the work when
+these were not present? It were better, then, to wait.
+
+And just then came the first news of the strange phenomenon which had
+exercised people’s minds some weeks before. The mysterious object had
+been again seen at different times in the higher regions of the
+atmosphere. But nobody dreamt of establishing a connection between this
+singular reappearance and the no less singular disappearance of the
+members of the Weldon Institute. In fact, it would have required a very
+strong dose of imagination to connect one of these facts with the
+other.
+
+Whatever it might be, asteroid or aerolite or aerial monster, it had
+reappeared in such a way that its dimensions and shape could be much
+better appreciated, first in Canada, over the country between Ottawa
+and Quebec, on the very morning after the disappearance of the
+colleagues, and later over the plains of the Far West, where it had
+tried its speed against an express train on the Union Pacific.
+
+At the end of this day the doubts of the learned world were at an end.
+The body was not a product of nature, it was a flying machine, the
+practical application of the theory of “heavier than air.” And if the
+inventor of the aeronef had wished to keep himself unknown he could
+evidently have done better than to try it over the Far West. As to the
+mechanical force he required, or the engines by which it was
+communicated, nothing was known, but there could be no doubt the
+aeronef was gifted with an extraordinary faculty of locomotion. In
+fact, a few days afterwards it was reported from the Celestial Empire,
+then from the southern part of India, then from the Russian steppes.
+
+Who was then this bold mechanician that possessed such powers of
+locomotion, for whom States had no frontiers and oceans no limits, who
+disposed of the terrestrial atmosphere as if it were his domain? Could
+it be this Robur whose theories had been so brutally thrown in the face
+of the Weldon Institute the day he led the attack against the utopia of
+guidable balloons? Perhaps such a notion occurred to some of the
+wide-awake people, but none dreamt that the said Robur had anything to
+do with the disappearance of the president and secretary of the
+Institute.
+
+Things remained in this state of mystery when a telegram arrived from
+France through the New York cable at 11-37 A.M. on July 13. And what
+was this telegram? It was the text of the document found at Paris in a
+snuff-box revealing what had happened to the two personages for whom
+the Union was in mourning.
+
+So, then, the perpetrator of this kidnapping “was” Robur the engineer,
+come expressly to Philadelphia to destroy in its egg the theory of the
+balloonists. He it was who commanded the “Albatross!” He it was who
+carried off by way of reprisal Uncle Prudent, Phil Evans and Frycollin;
+and they might be considered lost for ever. At least until some means
+were found of constructing an engine capable of contending with this
+powerful machine their terrestrial friends would never bring them back
+to earth.
+
+What excitement! What stupor! The telegram from Paris had been
+addressed to the members of the Weldon Institute. The members of the
+club were immediately informed of it. Ten minutes later all
+Philadelphia received the news through its telephones, and in less than
+an hour all America heard of it through the innumerable electric wires
+of the new continent.
+
+No one would believe it! “It is an unseasonable joke.” said some. “It
+is all smoke.” said others. How could such a thing be done in
+Philadelphia, and so secretly, too? How could the “Albatross” have been
+beached in Fairmount Park without its appearance having been signaled
+all over Pennsylvania?
+
+Very good. These were the arguments. The incredulous had the right of
+doubting. But the right did not last long. Seven days after the receipt
+of the telegram the French mail-boat “Normandie” came into the Hudson,
+bringing the famous snuff-box. The railway took it in all haste from
+New York to Philadelphia.
+
+It was indeed the snuff-box of the President of the Weldon Institute.
+Jem Chip would have done on at day to take some more substantial
+nourishment, for he fell into a swoon when he recognized it. How many a
+time had he taken from it the pinch of friendship! And Miss Doll and
+Miss Mat also recognized it, and so did William T. Forbes, Truck
+Milnor, Bat T. Fynn, and many other members. And not only was it the
+president’s snuff-box, it was the president’s writing!
+
+Then did the people lament and stretch out their hands in despair to
+the skies. Uncle Prudent and his colleague carried away in a flying
+machine, and no one able to deliver them!
+
+The Niagara Falls Company, in which Uncle Prudent was the largest
+shareholder, thought of suspending its business and turning off its
+cataracts. The Wheelton Watch Company thought of winding up its
+machinery, now it had lost its manager.
+
+Nothing more was heard of the aeronef. July passed, and there was no
+news. August ran its course, and the uncertainty on the subject of
+Robur’s prisoners was as great as ever. Had he, like Icarus, fallen a
+victim to his own temerity?
+
+The first twenty-seven days of September went by without result, but on
+the 28th a rumor spread through Philadelphia that Uncle Prudent and
+Phil Evans had during the afternoon quietly walked into the president’s
+house. And, what was more extraordinary, the rumor was true, although
+very few believed it.
+
+They had, however, to give in to the evidence. There could be no doubt
+these were the two men, and not their shadows. And Frycollin also had
+come back! The members of the club, then their friends, then the crowd,
+swarmed into the president’s house, and shook hands with the president
+and secretary, and cheered them again and again. Jem Chip was there,
+having left his luncheon’s joint of boiled lettuces, and William T.
+Forbes and his daughters, and all the members of the club. It is a
+mystery how Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans emerged alive from the
+thousands who welcomed them.
+
+On that evening was the weekly meeting of the Institute. It was
+expected that the colleagues would take their places at the desk. As
+they had said nothing of their adventures, it was thought they would
+then speak, and relate the impressions of their voyage. But for some
+reason or other both were silent. And so also was Frycollin, whom his
+congeners in their delirium had failed to dismember.
+
+But though the colleagues did not tell what had happened to them, that
+is no reason why we should not. We know what occurred on the night of
+the 27th and 28th of July; the daring escape to the earth, the scramble
+among the rocks, the bullet fired at Phil Evans, the cut cable, and the
+“Albatross” deprived of her propellers, drifting off to the northeast
+at a great altitude. Her electric lamps rendered her visible for some
+time. And then she disappeared.
+
+The fugitives had little to fear. Now could Robur get back to the
+island for three or four hours if his screws were out of gear? By that
+time the “Albatross” would have been destroyed by the explosion, and be
+no more than a wreck floating on the sea; those whom she bore would be
+mangled corpses, which the ocean would not even give up again. The act
+of vengeance would be accomplished.
+
+Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans looked upon it as an act of legitimate
+self-defence, and felt no remorse whatever. Evans was but slightly
+wounded by the rifle bullet, and the three made their way up from the
+shore in the hope of meeting some of the natives. The hope was
+realized. About fifty natives were living by fishing off the western
+coast. They had seen the aeronef descend on the island, and they
+welcomed the fugitives as if they were supernatural beings. They
+worshipped them, we ought rather to say. They accommodated them in the
+most comfortable of their huts.
+
+As they had expected, Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans saw nothing more of
+the aeronef. They concluded that the catastrophe had taken place in
+some high region of the atmosphere, and that they would hear no more of
+Robur and his prodigious machine.
+
+Meanwhile they had to wait for an opportunity of returning to America.
+The Chatham Islands are not much visited by navigators, and all August
+passed without sign of a ship. The fugitives began to ask themselves if
+they had not exchanged one prison for another.
+
+At last a ship came to water at the Chatham Islands. It will not have
+been forgotten that when Uncle Prudent was seized he had on him several
+thousand paper dollars, much more than would take him back to America.
+After thanking their adorers, who were not sparing of their most
+respectful demonstrations, Uncle Prudent, Phil Evans, and Frycollin
+embarked for Auckland. They said nothing of their adventures, and in
+two weeks landed in New Zealand.
+
+At Auckland, a mail-boat took them on board as passengers, and after a
+splendid passage the survivors of the “Albatross” stepped ashore at San
+Francisco. They said nothing as to who they were or whence they had
+come, but as they had paid full price for their berths no American
+captain would trouble them further. At San Francisco they took the
+first train out on the Pacific Railway, and on the 27th of September,
+they arrived at Philadelphia, That is the compendious history of what
+had occurred since the escape of the fugitives. And that is why this
+very evening the president and secretary of the Weldon Institute took
+their seats amid a most extraordinary attendance.
+
+Never before had either of them been so calm. To look at them it did
+not seem as though anything abnormal had happened since the memorable
+sitting of the 12th of June. Three months and a half had gone, and
+seemed to be counted as nothing. After the first round of cheers, which
+both received without showing the slightest emotion, Uncle Prudent took
+off his hat and spoke.
+
+“Worthy citizens.” said he, “the meeting is now open.”
+
+Tremendous applause. And properly so, for if it was not extraordinary
+that the meeting was open, it was extraordinary that it should be
+opened by Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans.
+
+The president allowed the enthusiasm to subside in shouts and
+clappings; then he continued: “At our last meeting, gentlemen, the
+discussion was somewhat animated—(hear, hear)—between the partisans of
+the screw before and those of the screw behind for our balloon the
+“Go-Ahead.” (Marks of surprise.) We have found a way to bring the
+beforists and the behindists in agreement. That way is as follows: we
+are going to use two screws, one at each end of the car.” Silence, and
+complete stupefaction.
+
+That was all.
+
+Yes, all! Of the kidnapping of the president and secretary of the
+Weldon Institute not a word! Not a word of the “Albatross” nor of
+Robur! Not a word of the voyage! Not a word of the way in which the
+prisoners had escaped! Not a word of what had become of the aeronef, if
+it still flew through space, or if they were to be prepared for new
+reprisals on the member’s of the club!
+
+Of course the balloonists were longing to ask Uncle Prudent and the
+secretary about all these things, but they looked so close and so
+serious that they thought it best to respect their attitude. When they
+thought fit to speak they would do so, and it would be an honor to
+hear. After all, there might be in all this some secret which would not
+yet be divulged.
+
+And then Uncle Prudent, resuming his speech amid a silence up to then
+unknown in the meetings of the Weldon Institute, said, “Gentlemen, it
+now only remains for us to finish the aerostat ‘Go-Ahead.’ It is left
+to her to effect the conquest of the air! The meeting is at an end!”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXII
+THE GO-AHEAD IS LAUNCHED
+
+
+On the following 19th of April, seven months after the unexpected
+return of Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans, Philadelphia was in a state of
+unwonted excitement. There were neither elections nor meetings this
+time. The aerostat “Go-Ahead.” built by the Weldon Institute, was to
+take possession of her natural element.
+
+The celebrated Harry W. Tinder, whose name we mentioned at the
+beginning of this story, had been engaged as aeronaut. He had no
+assistant, and the only passengers were to be the president and
+secretary of the Weldon Institute.
+
+Did they not merit such an honor? Did it not come to them appropriately
+to rise in person to protest against any apparatus that was heavier
+than air?
+
+During the seven months, however, they had said nothing of their
+adventures; and even Frycollin had not uttered a whisper of Robur and
+his wonderful clipper. Probably Uncle Prudent and his friend desired
+that no question should arise as to the merits of the aeronef, or any
+other flying machine.
+
+Although the “Go-Ahead” might not claim the first place among aerial
+locomotives, they would have nothing to say about the inventions of
+other aviators. They believed, and would always believe, that the true
+atmospheric vehicle was the aerostat, and that to it alone belonged the
+future.
+
+Besides, he on whom they had been so terribly—and in their idea so
+justly—avenged, existed no longer. None of those who accompanied him
+had survived. The secret of the “Albatross” was buried in the depths of
+the Pacific!
+
+That Robur had a retreat, an island in the middle of that vast ocean,
+where he could put into port, was only a hypothesis; and the colleagues
+reserved to themselves the right of making inquiries on the subject
+later on. The grand experiment which the Weldon Institute had been
+preparing for so long was at last to take place. The “Go-Ahead” was the
+most perfect type of what had up to then been invented in aerostatic
+art—she was what an “Inflexible” or a “Formidable” is in ships of war.
+
+She possessed all the qualities of a good aerostat. Her dimensions
+allowed of her rising to the greatest height a balloon could attain;
+her impermeability enabled her to remain for an indefinite time in the
+atmosphere; her solidity would defy any dilation of gas or violence of
+wind or rain; her capacity gave her sufficient ascensional force to
+lift with all their accessories an electric engine that would
+communicate to her propellers a power superior to anything yet
+obtained. The “Go-Ahead” was of elongated form, so as to facilitate her
+horizontal displacement. Her car was a platform somewhat like that of
+the balloon used by Krebs and Renard; and it carried all the necessary
+outfit, instruments, cables, grapnels, guide-ropes, etc., and the piles
+and accumulators for the mechanical power. The car had a screw in
+front, and a screw and rudder behind. But probably the work done by the
+machines would be very much less than that done by the machines of the
+“Albatross.”
+
+The “Go-Ahead” had been taken to the clearing in Fairmount Park, to the
+very spot where the aeronef had landed for a few hours.
+
+Her ascensional power was due to the very lightest of gaseous bodies.
+Ordinary lighting gas possesses an elevating force of about 700 grams
+for every cubic meter. But hydrogen possesses an ascensional force
+estimated at 1,100 grams per cubic meter. Pure hydrogen prepared
+according to the method of the celebrated Henry Gifford filled the
+enormous balloon. And as the capacity of the “Go-Ahead” was 40,000
+cubic meters, the ascensional power of the gas she contained was 40,000
+multiplied by 1,100 or 44,000 kilograms.
+
+On this 29th of April everything was ready. Since eleven o’clock the
+enormous aerostat had been floating a few feet from the ground ready to
+rise in mid-air. It was splendid weather and seemed to have been made
+specially for the experiment, although if the breeze had been stronger
+the results might have been more conclusive. There had never been any
+doubt that a balloon could be guided in a calm atmosphere; but to guide
+it when the atmosphere is in motion is quite another thing; and it is
+under such circumstances that the experiment should be tried.
+
+But there was no wind today, nor any sign of any. Strange to say, North
+America on that day omitted to send on to Europe one of those
+first-class storms which it seems to have in such inexhaustible
+numbers. A better day could not have been chosen for an aeronautic
+experiment.
+
+The crowd was immense in Fairmount Park; trains had poured into the
+Pennsylvania capital sightseers from the neighboring states; industrial
+and commercial life came to a standstill that the people might troop to
+the show-master, workmen, women, old men, children, members of
+Congress, soldiers, magistrates, reporters, white natives and black
+natives, all were there. We need not stop to describe the excitement,
+the unaccountable movements, the sudden pushings, which made the mass
+heave and swell. Nor need we recount the number of cheers which rose
+from all sides like fireworks when Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans
+appeared on the platform and hoisted the American colors. Need we say
+that the majority of the crowd had come from afar not so much to see
+the “Go-Ahead” as to gaze on these extraordinary men?
+
+Why two and not three? Why not Frycollin? Because Frycollin thought his
+campaign in the “Albatross” sufficient for his fame. He had declined
+the honor of accompanying his master, and he took no part in the
+frenzied declamations that greeted the president and secretary of the
+Weldon Institute.
+
+Of the members of the illustrious assembly not one was absent from the
+reserved places within the ropes. There were Truck Milnor, Bat T. Fynn,
+and William T. Forbes with his two daughters on his arm. All had come
+to affirm by their presence that nothing could separate them from the
+partisans of “lighter than air.”
+
+About twenty minutes past eleven a gun announced the end of the final
+preparations. The “Go-Ahead” only waited the signal to start. At
+twenty-five minutes past eleven the second gun was fired.
+
+The “Go-Ahead” was about one hundred and fifty feet above the clearing,
+and was held by a rope. In this way the platform commanded the excited
+crowd. Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans stood upright and placed their left
+hands on their hearts, to signify how deeply they were touched by their
+reception. Then they extended their right hands towards the zenith, to
+signify that the greatest of known balloons was about to take
+possession of the supra-terrestrial domain.
+
+A hundred thousand hands were placed in answer on a hundred thousand
+hearts, and a hundred thousand other hands were lifted to the sky.
+
+The third gun was fired at half-past eleven. “Let go!” shouted Uncle
+Prudent; and the “Go-Ahead” rose “majestically”—an adverb consecrated
+by custom to all aerostatic ascents.
+
+It really was a superb spectacle. It seemed as if a vessel were just
+launched from the stocks. And was she not a vessel launched into the
+aerial sea? The “Go-Ahead” went up in a perfectly vertical line—a proof
+of the calmness of the atmosphere—and stopped at an altitude of eight
+hundred feet.
+
+Then she began her horizontal maneuvering. With her screws going she
+moved to the east at a speed of twelve yards a second. That is the
+speed of the whale—not an inappropriate comparison, for the balloon was
+somewhat of the shape of the giant of the northern seas.
+
+A salvo of cheers mounted towards the skillful aeronauts. Then under
+the influence of her rudder, the “Go-Ahead” went through all the
+evolutions that her steersman could give her. She turned in a small
+circle; she moved forwards and backwards in a way to convince the most
+refractory disbeliever in the guiding of balloons. And if there had
+been any disbeliever there he would have been simply annihilated.
+
+But why was there no wind to assist at this magnificent experiment? It
+was regrettable. Doubtless the spectators would have seen the
+“Go-Ahead” unhesitatingly execute all the movements of a sailing-vessel
+in beating to windward, or of a steamer driving in the wind’s eye.
+
+At this moment the aerostat rose a few hundred yards. The maneuver was
+understood below. Uncle Prudent and his companions were going in search
+of a breeze in the higher zones, so as to complete the experiment. The
+system of cellular balloons—analogous to the swimming bladder in
+fishes—into which could be introduced a certain amount of air by
+pumping, had provided for this vertical motion. Without throwing out
+ballast or losing gas the aeronaut was able to rise or sink at his
+will. Of course there was a valve in the upper hemisphere which would
+permit of a rapid descent if found necessary. All these contrivances
+are well known, but they were here fitted in perfection.
+
+The “Go-Ahead” then rose vertically. Her enormous dimensions gradually
+grew smaller to the eye, and the necks of the crowd were almost cricked
+as they gazed into the air. Gradually the whale became a porpoise, and
+the porpoise became a gudgeon. The ascensional movement did not cease
+until the “Go-Ahead” had reached a height of fourteen thousand feet.
+But the air was so free from mist that she remained clearly visible.
+
+However, she remained over the clearing as if she were a fixture. An
+immense bell had imprisoned the atmosphere and deprived it of movement;
+not a breath of wind was there, high or low. The aerostat maneuvered
+without encountering any resistance, seeming very small owing to the
+distance, much as if she were being looked at through the wrong end of
+a telescope.
+
+Suddenly there was a shout among the crowd, a shout followed by a
+hundred thousand more. All hands were stretched towards a point on the
+horizon. That point was the northwest. There in the deep azure appeared
+a moving body, which was approaching and growing larger. Was it a bird
+beating with its wings the higher zones of space? Was it an aerolite
+shooting obliquely through the atmosphere? In any case, its speed was
+terrific, and it would soon be above the crowd. A suspicion
+communicated itself electrically to the brains of all on the clearing.
+
+But it seemed as though the “Go-Ahead” had sighted this strange object.
+Assuredly it seemed as though she feared some danger, for her speed was
+increased, and she was going east as fast as she could.
+
+Yes, the crowd saw what it meant! A name uttered by one of the members
+of the Weldon Institute was repeated by a hundred thousand mouths:
+
+“The “Albatross!” The “Albatross!””
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIII
+THE GRAND COLLAPSE
+
+
+It was indeed the “Albatross!” It was indeed Robur who had reappeared
+in the heights of the sky! It was he who like a huge bird of prey was
+going to strike the “Go-Ahead.”
+
+And yet, nine months before, the aeronef, shattered by the explosion,
+her screws broken, her deck smashed in two, had been apparently
+annihilated.
+
+Without the prodigious coolness of the engineer, who reversed the
+gyratory motion of the fore propeller and converted it into a
+suspensory screw, the men of the “Albatross” would all have been
+asphyxiated by the fall. But if they had escaped asphyxia, how had they
+escaped being drowned in the Pacific?
+
+The remains of the deck, the blades of the propellers, the compartments
+of the cabins, all formed a sort of raft. When a wounded bird falls on
+the waves its wings keep it afloat. For several hours Robur and his men
+remained unhelped, at first on the wreck, and afterwards in the
+india-rubber boat that had fallen uninjured. A few hours after sunrise
+they were sighted by a passing ship, and a boat was lowered to their
+rescue.
+
+Robur and his companions were saved, and so was much of what remained
+of the aeronef. The engineer said that his ship had perished in a
+collision, and no further questions were asked him.
+
+The ship was an English three-master, the “Two Friends.” bound for
+Melbourne, where she arrived a few days afterwards.
+
+Robur was in Australia, but a long way from X Island, to which he
+desired to return as soon as possible.
+
+In the ruins of the aftermost cabin he had found a considerable sum of
+money, quite enough to provide for himself and companions without
+applying to anyone for help. A short time after he arrived in Melbourne
+he became the owner of a small brigantine of about a hundred tons, and
+in her he sailed for X Island.
+
+There he had but one idea—to be avenged. But to secure his vengeance he
+would have to make another “Albatross.” This after all was an easy task
+for him who made the first. He used up what he could of the old
+material; the propellers and engines he had brought back in the
+brigantine. The mechanism was fitted with new piles and new
+accumulators, and, in short, in less than eight months, the work was
+finished, and a new “Albatross.” identical with the one destroyed by
+the explosion, was ready to take flight. And he had the same crew.
+
+The “Albatross” left X Island in the first week of April. During this
+aerial passage Robur did not want to be seen from the earth, and he
+came along almost always above the clouds. When he arrived over North
+America he descended in a desolate spot in the Far West. There the
+engineer, keeping a profound incognito, learnt with considerable
+pleasure that the Weldon Institute was about to begin its experiments,
+and that the “Go-Ahead.” with Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans, was going
+to start from Philadelphia on the 29th of April.
+
+Here was a chance for Robur and his crew to gratify their longing for
+revenge. Here was a chance for inflicting on their foes a terrible
+vengeance, which in the “Go-Ahead” they could not escape. A public
+vengeance, which would at the same time prove the superiority of the
+aeronef to all aerostats and contrivances of that nature!
+
+And that is why, on this very day, like a vulture from the clouds, the
+aeronef appeared over Fairmount Park.
+
+Yes! It was the “Albatross.” easily recognizable by all those who had
+never before seen her.
+
+The “Go-Ahead” was in full flight; but it soon appeared that she could
+not escape horizontally, and so she sought her safety in a vertical
+direction, not dropping to the ground, for the aeronef would have cut
+her off, but rising to a zone where she could not perhaps be reached.
+This was very daring, and at the same time very logical.
+
+But the “Albatross” began to rise after her. Although she was smaller
+than the “Go-Ahead.” it was a case of the swordfish and the whale.
+
+This could easily be seen from below and with what anxiety! In a few
+moments the aerostat had attained a height of sixteen thousand feet.
+
+The “Albatross” followed her as she rose. She flew round her flanks,
+and maneuvered round her in a circle with a constantly diminishing
+radius. She could have annihilated her at a stroke, and Uncle Prudent
+and his companions would have been dashed to atoms in a frightful fall.
+
+The people, mute with horror, gazed breathlessly; they were seized with
+that sort of fear which presses on the chest and grips the legs when we
+see anyone fall from a height. An aerial combat was beginning in which
+there were none of the chances of safety as in a sea-fight. It was the
+first of its kind, but it would not be the last, for progress is one of
+the laws of this world. And if the “Go-Ahead” was flying the American
+colors, did not the “Albatross” display the stars and golden sun of
+Robur the Conqueror?
+
+The “Go-Ahead” tried to distance her enemy by rising still higher. She
+threw away the ballast she had in reserve; she made a new leap of three
+thousand feet; she was now but a dot in space. The “Albatross.” which
+followed her round and round at top speed, was now invisible.
+
+Suddenly a shout of terror rose from the crowd. The “Go-Ahead”
+increased rapidly in size, and the aeronef appeared dropping with her.
+This time it was a fall. The gas had dilated in the higher zones of the
+atmosphere and had burst the balloon, which, half inflated still, was
+falling rapidly.
+
+But the aeronef, slowing her suspensory screws, came down just as fast.
+She ran alongside the “Go-Ahead” when she was not more than four
+thousand feet from the ground.
+
+Would Robur destroy her?
+
+No; he was going to save her crew!
+
+And so cleverly did he handle his vessel that the aeronaut jumped on
+board.
+
+Would Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans refuse to be saved by him? They were
+quite capable of doing so. But the crew threw themselves on them and
+dragged them by force from the “Go-Ahead” to the “Albatross.”
+
+Then the aeronef glided off and remained stationary, while the balloon,
+quite empty of gas, fell on the trees of the clearing and hung there
+like a gigantic rag.
+
+An appalling silence reigned on the ground. It seemed as though life
+were suspended in each of the crowd; and many eyes had been closed so
+as not to behold the final catastrophe. Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans
+had again become the prisoners of the redoubtable Robur. Now he had
+recaptured them, would he carry them off into space, where it was
+impossible to follow him?
+
+It seemed so.
+
+However, instead of mounting into the sky the “Albatross” stopped six
+feet from the ground. Then, amid profound silence, the engineer’s voice
+was heard.
+
+“Citizens of the United States.” he said, “The president and secretary
+of the Weldon Institute are again in my power. In keeping them I am
+only within my right. But from the passion kindled in them by the
+success of the “Albatross” I see that their minds are not prepared for
+that important revolution which the conquest of the air will one day
+bring, Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans, you are free!”
+
+The president, the secretary, and the aeronaut had only to jump down.
+
+Then Robur continued.
+
+“Citizens of the United States, my experiment is finished; but my
+advice to those present is to be premature in nothing, not even in
+progress. It is evolution and not revolution that we should seek. In a
+word, we must not be before our time. I have come too soon today to
+withstand such contradictory and divided interests as yours. Nations
+are not yet fit for union.
+
+“I go, then; and I take my secret with me. But it will not be lost to
+humanity. It will belong to you the day you are educated enough to
+profit by it and wise enough not to abuse it. Citizens of the United
+States—Good-by!”
+
+And the “Albatross.” beating the air with her seventy-four screws, and
+driven by her propellers, shot off towards the east amid a tempest of
+cheers.
+
+The two colleagues, profoundly humiliated, and through them the whole
+Weldon Institute, did the only thing they could. They went home.
+
+And the crowd by a sudden change of front greeted them with
+particularly keen sarcasms, and, at their expense, are sarcastic still.
+
+And now, who is this Robur? Shall we ever know?
+
+We know today. Robur is the science of the future. Perhaps the science
+of tomorrow. Certainly the science that will come!
+
+Does the “Albatross” still cruise in the atmosphere in the realm that
+none can take from her? There is no reason to doubt it.
+
+Will Robur, the Conqueror, appear one day as he said? Yes! He will come
+to declare the secret of his invention, which will greatly change the
+social and political conditions of the world.
+
+As for the future of aerial locomotion, it belongs to the aeronef and
+not the aerostat.
+
+It is to the “Albatross” that the conquest of the air will assuredly
+fall.
+
+—End of Voyage Extraordinaire—Robur the Conqueror—
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBUR THE CONQUEROR ***
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