by Jules Verne
Chapter XVI
OVER THE ATLANTIC
Yes, the Atlantic! The fears of the two colleagues were realized; butit did not seem as though Robur had the least anxiety about venturingover this vast ocean. Both he and his men seemed quite unconcernedabout it and had gone back to their stations.
Whither was the "Albatross" bound? Was she going more than round theworld as Robur had said? Even if she were, the voyage must endsomewhere. That Robur spent his life in the air on board the aeronefand never came to the ground was impossible. How could he make up hisstock of provisions and the materials required for working hismachines? He must have some retreat, some harbor of refuge--in someunknown and inaccessible spot where the "Albatross" could revictual.That he had broken off all connections with the inhabitants of theland 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 cometo choose it? Was he expected by a little colony of which he was thechief? Could he there find a new crew?
What means had he that he should be able to build so costly a vesselas the "Albatross" and keep her building secret? It is true hisliving was not expensive. But, finally, who was this Robur? Where didhe come from? What had been his history? Here were riddles impossibleto solve; and Robur was not the man to assist willingly in theirsolution.
It is not to be wondered at that these insoluble problems drove thecolleagues almost to frenzy. To find themselves whipped off into theunknown without knowing what the end might be doubting even if theadventure would end, sentenced to perpetual aviation, was this notenough to drive the President and secretary of the Weldon Instituteto extremities?
Meanwhile the "Albatross" drove along above the Atlantic, and in themorning when the sun rose there was nothing to be seen but thecircular line where earth met sky. Not a spot of land was insight inthis huge field of vision. Africa had vanished beneath the northernhorizon.
When Frycollin ventured out of his cabin and saw all this waterbeneath him, fear took possession of him.
Of the hundred and forty-five million square miles of which the areaof 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 twentymiles an hour at which the "Albatross" had flown over Europe. Here,where the southwest winds prevail, the wind was ahead of them, andthough 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 dulyannounced to the crew. It was then that Uncle Prudent and Phil Evansascertained that they were bound for the southern hemisphere. Thecrossing of the line took place without any of the Neptunianceremonies that still linger on certain ships. Tapage was the onlyone to mark the event, and he did so by pouring a pint of water downFrycollin's neck.
On the 18th of July, when beyond the tropic of Capricorn, anotherphenomenon was noticed, which would have been somewhat alarming to aship on the sea. A strange succession of luminous waves widened outover the surface of the ocean with a speed estimated at quite sixtymiles an hour. The waves ran along at about eight feet from oneanother, tracing two furrows of light. As night fell a brightreflection rose even to the "Albatross," so that she might have beentaken for a flaming aerolite. Never before had Robur sailed on a seaof fire--fire without heat--which there was no need to flee from asit mounted upwards into the sky.
The cause of this light must have been electricity; it could not beattributed to a bank of fish spawn, nor to a crowd of thoseanimalculae that give phosphorescence to the sea, and this showedthat the electrical tension of the atmosphere was considerable.
In the morning an ordinary ship would probably have been lost. Butthe "Albatross" played with the winds and waves like the powerfulbird whose name she bore. If she did not walk on their surface likethe petrels, she could like the eagles find calm and sunshine in thehigher zones.
They had now passed the forty-seventh parallel. The day was butlittle over seven hours long, and would become even less as theyapproached the Pole.
About one o'clock in the afternoon the "Albatross" was floating alongin a lower current than usual, about a hundred feet from the level ofthe sea. The air was calm, but in certain parts of the sky were thickblack clouds, massed in mountains, on their upper surface, and ruledoff below by a sharp horizontal line. From these clouds a few lengthyprotuberances escaped, and their points as they fell seemed to drawup hills of foaming water to meet them.
Suddenly the water shot up in the form of a gigantic hourglass, andthe "Albatross" was enveloped in the eddy of an enormous waterspout,while twenty others, black as ink, raged around her. Fortunately thegyratory movement of the water was opposite to that of the suspensoryscrews, otherwise the aeronef would have been hurled into the sea.But she began to spin round on herself with frightful rapidity. Thedanger was immense, and perhaps impossible to escape, for theengineer could not get through the spout which sucked him back indefiance of his propellers. The men, thrown to the ends of the deckby centrifugal force, were grasping the rail to save themselves frombeing shot off.
"Keep cool!" shouted Robur.
They wanted all their coolness, and their patience, too. UnclePrudent and Phil Evans, who had just come out of their cabin, werehurled back at the risk of flying overboard. As she spun the"Albatross" was carried along by the spout, which pirouetted alongthe waves with a speed enough to make the helices jealous. And if sheescaped from the spout she might be caught by another, and jerked topieces with the shock.
"Get the gun ready!" said Robur.
The order was given to Tom Turner, who was crouching behind theswivel amidships where the effect of the centrifugal force was leastfelt. He understood. In a moment he had opened the breech and slippeda cartridge from the ammunition-box at hand. The gun went off, and thewaterspouts collapsed, and with them vanished the platform of cloudthey seemed to bear above them.
"Nothing broken on board?" asked Robur.
"No," answered Tom Turner. "But we don't want to have another game ofhumming-top like that!"
For ten minutes or so the "Albatross" had been in extreme peril. Hadit not been for her extraordinary strength of build she would havebeen lost.
During this passage of the Atlantic many were the hours whosemonotony was unbroken by any phenomenon whatever. The days grewshorter and shorter, and the cold became keen. Uncle Prudent and PhilEvans saw little of Robur. Seated in his cabin, the engineer was busylaying out his course and marking it on his maps, taking hisobservations whenever he could, recording the readings of hisbarometers, thermometers, and chronometers, and making full entriesin his log-book.
The colleagues wrapped themselves well up and eagerly watched for thesight of land to the southward. At Uncle Prudent's request Frycollintried to pump the cook as to whither the engineer was bound, but whatreliance 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 theUnited States, sometimes a Spanish general temporarily retired,sometimes a Viceroy of the Indies who had sought a more elevatedposition in the air. Sometimes he possessed millions, thanks tosuccessful razzias in the aeronef, and he had been proclaimed forpiracy. Sometimes he had been ruined by making the aeronef, and hadbeen forced to fly aloft to escape from his creditors. As to knowingif he were going to stop anywhere, no! But if he thought of going tothe moon, and found there a convenient anchorage, he would anchorthere! "Eh! Fry! My boy! That would just suit you to see what wasgoing on up there."
"I shall not go! I refuse!" said the Negro, who took all these thingsseriously.
"And why, Fry, why? You might get married to some pretty bouncingLunarian!"
Frycollin reported this conversation to his master, who saw it wasevident that nothing was to be learnt about Robur. And so
he thoughtstill more of how he could have his revenge on him.
"Phil," said he one day, "is it quite certain that escape isimpossible?"
"Impossible."
"Be it so! But a man is always his own property; and if necessary, bysacrificing his life--"
"If we are to make that sacrifice," said Phil Evans, "the sooner thebetter. It is almost time to end this. Where is the "Albatross"going? Here we are flying obliquely over the Atlantic, and if we keepon we shall get to the coast of Patagonia or Tierra del Fuego. Andwhat are we to do then? Get into the Pacific, or go to the continentat the South Pole? Everything is possible with this Robur. We shallbe lost in the end. It is thus a case of legitimate self-defence, andif we must perish--"
"Which we shall not do," answered Uncle Prudent, "without beingavenged, without annihilating this machine and all she carries."
The colleagues had reached a stage of impotent fury, and wereprepared to sacrifice themselves if they could only destroy theinventor and his secret. A few months only would then be the life ofthis prodigious aeronef, of whose superiority in aerial locomotionthey had such convincing proofs! The idea took such hold of them thatthey thought of nothing else but how to put it into execution. Andhow? By seizing on some of the explosives on board and simply blowingher up. But could they get at the magazines?
Fortunately for them, Frycollin had no suspicion of their scheme. Atthe thought of the "Albatross" exploding in midair, he would not haveshrunk from betraying his master.
It was on the 23rd of July that the land reappeared in the southwestnear Cape Virgins at the entrance of the Straits of Magellan. Underthe fifty-second parallel at this time of year the night was eighteenhours 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. Afterpassing Lomas Bay, leaving Mount Gregory to the north and theBrecknocks to the west, they sighted Puerto Arena, a small Chileanvillage, at the moment the churchbells were in full swing; and a fewhours later they were over the old settlement at Port Famine.
If the Patagonians, whose fires could be seen occasionally, werereally above the average in stature, the passengers in the aeronefwere unable to say, for to them they seemed to be dwarfs. But what amagnificent landscape opened around during these short hours of thesouthern day! Rugged mountains, peaks eternally capped with snow,with thick forests rising on their flanks, inland seas, bays deep setamid 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 bythe ice in one solid mass from Cape Forward, the most southerly pointof the American continent, to Cape Horn the most southerly point ofthe New World.
When she reached Fort Famine the "Albatross" resumed her course tothe south. Passing between Mount Tam on the Brunswick Peninsula andMount Graves, she steered for Mount Sarmiento, an enormous peakwrapped in snow, which commands the Straits of Magellan, rising sixthousand four hundred feet from the sea. And now they were over theland of the Fuegians, Tierra del Fuego, the land of fire. Six monthslater, in the height of summer, with days from fifteen to sixteenhours long, how beautiful and fertile would most of this country be,particularly in its northern portion! Then, all around would be seenvalleys and pasturages that could form the feeding-grounds ofthousands of animals; then would appear virgin forests, gigantictrees-birches, beeches, ash-trees, cypresses, tree-ferns--and broadplains overrun by herds of guanacos, vicunas, and ostriches. Nowthere were armies of penguins and myriads of birds; and, when the"Albatross" turned on her electric lamps the guillemots, ducks, andgeese came crowding on board enough to fill Tapage's larder a hundredtimes and more.
Here was work for the cook, who knew how to bring out the flavor ofthe game and keep down its peculiar oiliness. And here was work forFrycollin in plucking dozen after dozen of such interesting featheredfriends.
That day, as the sun was setting about three o'clock in theafternoon, there appeared in sight a large lake framed in a border ofsuperb forest. The lake was completely frozen over, and a few nativeswith long snowshoes on their feet were swiftly gliding over it.
At the sight of the "Albatross," the Fuegians, overwhelmed withterror--scattered in all directions, and when they could not getaway they hid themselves, taking, like the animals, to the holes inthe ground.
The "Albatross" still held her southerly course, crossing the BeagleChannel, and Navarin Island and Wollaston Island, on the shores ofthe Pacific. Then, having accomplished 4,700 miles since she leftDahomey, she passed the last islands of the Magellanic archipelago,whose most southerly outpost, lashed by the everlasting surf, is theterrible Cape Horn.