Jules Verne (10 page)

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.

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.