Though busily engaged in translating the extracts given in the last
five chapters, I was also laying matters in train for my escape with
Arowhena. And indeed it was high time, for I received an intimation
from one of the cashiers of the Musical Banks, that I was to be
prosecuted in a criminal court ostensibly for measles, but really for
having owned a watch, and attempted the reintroduction of machinery.
I asked why measles? and was told that there was a fear lest
extenuating circumstances should prevent a jury from convicting me, if
I were indicted for typhus or small-pox, but that a verdict would
probably be obtained for measles, a disease which could be sufficiently
punished in a person of my age. I was given to understand that unless
some unexpected change should come over the mind of his Majesty, I
might expect the blow to be struck within a very few days.
My plan was this—that Arowhena and I should escape in a balloon
together. I fear that the reader will disbelieve this part of my story,
yet in no other have I endeavoured to adhere more conscientiously to
facts, and can only throw myself upon his charity.
I had already gained the ear of the Queen, and had so worked upon her
curiosity that she promised to get leave for me to have a balloon made
and inflated; I pointed out to her that no complicated machinery would
be wanted—nothing, in fact, but a large quantity of oiled silk, a car,
a few ropes, &c., &c., and some light kind of gas, such as the
antiquarians who were acquainted with the means employed by the
ancients for the production of the lighter gases could easily instruct
her workmen how to provide. Her eagerness to see so strange a sight as
the ascent of a human being into the sky overcame any scruples of
conscience that she might have otherwise felt, and she set the
antiquarians about showing her workmen how to make the gas, and sent
her maids to buy, and oil, a very large quantity of silk (for I was
determined that the balloon should be a big one) even before she began
to try and gain the King’s permission; this, however, she now set
herself to do, for I had sent her word that my prosecution was
imminent.
As for myself, I need hardly say that I knew nothing about balloons;
nor did I see my way to smuggling Arowhena into the car; nevertheless,
knowing that we had no other chance of getting away from Erewhon, I
drew inspiration from the extremity in which we were placed, and made a
pattern from which the Queen’s workmen were able to work successfully.
Meanwhile the Queen’s carriage-builders set about making the car, and
it was with the attachments of this to the balloon that I had the
greatest difficulty; I doubt, indeed, whether I should have succeeded
here, but for the great intelligence of a foreman, who threw himself
heart and soul into the matter, and often both foresaw requirements,
the necessity for which had escaped me, and suggested the means of
providing for them.
It happened that there had been a long drought, during the latter part
of which prayers had been vainly offered up in all the temples of the
air god. When I first told her Majesty that I wanted a balloon, I said
my intention was to go up into the sky and prevail upon the air god by
means of a personal interview. I own that this proposition bordered on
the idolatrous, but I have long since repented of it, and am little
likely ever to repeat the offence. Moreover the deceit, serious though
it was, will probably lead to the conversion of the whole country.
When the Queen told his Majesty of my proposal, he at first not only
ridiculed it, but was inclined to veto it. Being, however, a very
uxorious husband, he at length consented—as he eventually always did to
everything on which the Queen had set her heart. He yielded all the
more readily now, because he did not believe in the possibility of my
ascent; he was convinced that even though the balloon should mount a
few feet into the air, it would collapse immediately, whereon I should
fall and break my neck, and he should be rid of me. He demonstrated
this to her so convincingly, that she was alarmed, and tried to talk me
into giving up the idea, but on finding that I persisted in my wish to
have the balloon made, she produced an order from the King to the
effect that all facilities I might require should be afforded me.
At the same time her Majesty told me that my attempted ascent would be
made an article of impeachment against me in case I did not succeed in
prevailing on the air god to stop the drought. Neither King nor Queen
had any idea that I meant going right away if I could get the wind to
take me, nor had he any conception of the existence of a certain steady
upper current of air which was always setting in one direction, as
could be seen by the shape of the higher clouds, which pointed
invariably from south-east to north-west. I had myself long noticed
this peculiarity in the climate, and attributed it, I believe justly,
to a trade-wind which was constant at a few thousand feet above the
earth, but was disturbed by local influences at lower elevations.
My next business was to break the plan to Arowhena, and to devise the
means for getting her into the car. I felt sure that she would come
with me, but had made up my mind that if her courage failed her, the
whole thing should come to nothing. Arowhena and I had been in constant
communication through her maid, but I had thought it best not to tell
her the details of my scheme till everything was settled. The time had
now arrived, and I arranged with the maid that I should be admitted by
a private door into Mr. Nosnibor’s garden at about dusk on the
following evening.
I came at the appointed time; the girl let me into the garden and bade
me wait in a secluded alley until Arowhena should come. It was now
early summer, and the leaves were so thick upon the trees that even
though some one else had entered the garden I could have easily hidden
myself. The night was one of extreme beauty; the sun had long set, but
there was still a rosy gleam in the sky over the ruins of the railway
station; below me was the city already twinkling with lights, while
beyond it stretched the plains for many a league until they blended
with the sky. I just noted these things, but I could not heed them. I
could heed nothing, till, as I peered into the darkness of the alley, I
perceived a white figure gliding swiftly towards me. I bounded towards
it, and ere thought could either prompt or check, I had caught Arowhena
to my heart and covered her unresisting cheek with kisses.
So overjoyed were we that we knew not how to speak; indeed I do not
know when we should have found words and come to our senses, if the
maid had not gone off into a fit of hysterics, and awakened us to the
necessity of self-control; then, briefly and plainly, I unfolded what I
proposed; I showed her the darkest side, for I felt sure that the
darker the prospect the more likely she was to come. I told her that my
plan would probably end in death for both of us, and that I dared not
press it—that at a word from her it should be abandoned; still that
there was just a possibility of our escaping together to some part of
the world where there would be no bar to our getting married, and that
I could see no other hope.
She made no resistance, not a sign or hint of doubt or hesitation. She
would do all I told her, and come whenever I was ready; so I bade her
send her maid to meet me nightly—told her that she must put a good face
on, look as bright and happy as she could, so as to make her father and
mother and Zulora think that she was forgetting me—and be ready at a
moment’s notice to come to the Queen’s workshops, and be concealed
among the ballast and under rugs in the car of the balloon; and so we
parted.
I hurried my preparations forward, for I feared rain, and also that the
King might change his mind; but the weather continued dry, and in
another week the Queen’s workmen had finished the balloon and car,
while the gas was ready to be turned on into the balloon at any moment.
All being now prepared I was to ascend on the following morning. I had
stipulated for being allowed to take abundance of rugs and wrappings as
protection from the cold of the upper atmosphere, and also ten or a
dozen good-sized bags of ballast.
I had nearly a quarter’s pension in hand, and with this I fee’d
Arowhena’s maid, and bribed the Queen’s foreman—who would, I believe,
have given me assistance even without a bribe. He helped me to secrete
food and wine in the bags of ballast, and on the morning of my ascent
he kept the other workmen out of the way while I got Arowhena into the
car. She came with early dawn, muffled up, and in her maid’s dress. She
was supposed to be gone to an early performance at one of the Musical
Banks, and told me that she should not be missed till breakfast, but
that her absence must then be discovered. I arranged the ballast about
her so that it should conceal her as she lay at the bottom of the car,
and covered her with wrappings. Although it still wanted some hours of
the time fixed for my ascent, I could not trust myself one moment from
the car, so I got into it at once, and watched the gradual inflation of
the balloon. Luggage I had none, save the provisions hidden in the
ballast bags, the books of mythology, and the treatises on the
machines, with my own manuscript diaries and translations.
I sat quietly, and awaited the hour fixed for my departure—quiet
outwardly, but inwardly I was in an agony of suspense lest Arowhena’s
absence should be discovered before the arrival of the King and Queen,
who were to witness my ascent. They were not due yet for another two
hours, and during this time a hundred things might happen, any one of
which would undo me.
At last the balloon was full; the pipe which had filled it was removed,
the escape of the gas having been first carefully precluded. Nothing
remained to hinder the balloon from ascending but the hands and weight
of those who were holding on to it with ropes. I strained my eyes for
the coming of the King and Queen, but could see no sign of their
approach. I looked in the direction of Mr. Nosnibor’s house—there was
nothing to indicate disturbance, but it was not yet breakfast time. The
crowd began to gather; they were aware that I was under the displeasure
of the court, but I could detect no signs of my being unpopular. On the
contrary, I received many kindly expressions of regard and
encouragement, with good wishes as to the result of my journey.
I was speaking to one gentleman of my acquaintance, and telling him the
substance of what I intended to do when I had got into the presence of
the air god (what he thought of me I cannot guess, for I am sure that
he did not believe in the objective existence of the air god, nor that
I myself believed in it), when I became aware of a small crowd of
people running as fast as they could from Mr. Nosnibor’s house towards
the Queen’s workshops. For the moment my pulse ceased beating, and
then, knowing that the time had come when I must either do or die, I
called vehemently to those who were holding the ropes (some thirty men)
to let go at once, and made gestures signifying danger, and that there
would be mischief if they held on longer. Many obeyed; the rest were
too weak to hold on to the ropes, and were forced to let them go. On
this the balloon bounded suddenly upwards, but my own feeling was that
the earth had dropped off from me, and was sinking fast into the open
space beneath.
This happened at the very moment that the attention of the crowd was
divided, the one half paying heed to the eager gestures of those coming
from Mr. Nosnibor’s house, and the other to the exclamations from
myself. A minute more and Arowhena would doubtless have been
discovered, but before that minute was over, I was at such a height
above the city that nothing could harm me, and every second both the
town and the crowd became smaller and more confused. In an incredibly
short time, I could see little but a vast wall of blue plains rising up
against me, towards whichever side I looked.
At first, the balloon mounted vertically upwards, but after about five
minutes, when we had already attained a very great elevation, I fancied
that the objects on the plain beneath began to move from under me. I
did not feel so much as a breath of wind, and could not suppose that
the balloon itself was travelling. I was, therefore, wondering what
this strange movement of fixed objects could mean, when it struck me
that people in a balloon do not feel the wind inasmuch as they travel
with it and offer it no resistance. Then I was happy in thinking that I
must now have reached the invariable trade wind of the upper air, and
that I should be very possibly wafted for hundreds or even thousands of
miles, far from Erewhon and the Erewhonians.
Already I had removed the wrappings and freed Arowhena; but I soon
covered her up with them again, for it was already very cold, and she
was half stupefied with the strangeness of her position.
And now began a time, dream-like and delirious, of which I do not
suppose that I shall ever recover a distinct recollection. Some things
I can recall—as that we were ere long enveloped in vapour which froze
upon my moustache and whiskers; then comes a memory of sitting for
hours and hours in a thick fog, hearing no sound but my own breathing
and Arowhena’s (for we hardly spoke) and seeing no sight but the car
beneath us and beside us, and the dark balloon above.
Perhaps the most painful feeling when the earth was hidden was that the
balloon was motionless, though our only hope lay in our going forward
with an extreme of speed. From time to time through a rift in the
clouds I caught a glimpse of earth, and was thankful to perceive that
we must be flying forward faster than in an express train; but no
sooner was the rift closed than the old conviction of our being
stationary returned in full force, and was not to be reasoned with:
there was another feeling also which was nearly as bad; for as a child
that fears it has gone blind in a long tunnel if there is no light, so
ere the earth had been many minutes hidden, I became half frightened
lest we might not have broken away from it clean and for ever. Now and
again, I ate and gave food to Arowhena, but by guess-work as regards
time. Then came darkness, a dreadful dreary time, without even the moon
to cheer us.
With dawn the scene was changed: the clouds were gone and morning stars
were shining; the rising of the splendid sun remains still impressed
upon me as the most glorious that I have ever seen; beneath us there
was an embossed chain of mountains with snow fresh fallen upon them;
but we were far above them; we both of us felt our breathing seriously
affected, but I would not allow the balloon to descend a single inch,
not knowing for how long we might not need all the buoyancy which we
could command; indeed I was thankful to find that, after nearly
four-and-twenty hours, we were still at so great a height above the
earth.
In a couple of hours we had passed the ranges, which must have been
some hundred and fifty miles across, and again I saw a tract of level
plain extending far away to the horizon. I knew not where we were, and
dared not descend, lest I should waste the power of the balloon, but I
was half hopeful that we might be above the country from which I had
originally started. I looked anxiously for any sign by which I could
recognise it, but could see nothing, and feared that we might be above
some distant part of Erewhon, or a country inhabited by savages. While
I was still in doubt, the balloon was again wrapped in clouds, and we
were left to blank space and to conjectures.
The weary time dragged on. How I longed for my unhappy watch! I felt as
though not even time was moving, so dumb and spell-bound were our
surroundings. Sometimes I would feel my pulse, and count its beats for
half-an-hour together; anything to mark the time—to prove that it was
there, and to assure myself that we were within the blessed range of
its influence, and not gone adrift into the timelessness of eternity.
I had been doing this for the twentieth or thirtieth time, and had
fallen into a light sleep: I dreamed wildly of a journey in an express
train, and of arriving at a railway station where the air was full of
the sound of locomotive engines blowing off steam with a horrible and
tremendous hissing; I woke frightened and uneasy, but the hissing and
crashing noises pursued me now that I was awake, and forced me to own
that they were real. What they were I knew not, but they grew gradually
fainter and fainter, and after a time were lost. In a few hours the
clouds broke, and I saw beneath me that which made the chilled blood
run colder in my veins. I saw the sea, and nothing but the sea; in the
main black, but flecked with white heads of storm-tossed, angry waves.
Arowhena was sleeping quietly at the bottom of the car, and as I looked
at her sweet and saintly beauty, I groaned, and cursed myself for the
misery into which I had brought her; but there was nothing for it now.
I sat and waited for the worst, and presently I saw signs as though
that worst were soon to be at hand, for the balloon had begun to sink.
On first seeing the sea I had been impressed with the idea that we must
have been falling, but now there could be no mistake, we were sinking,
and that fast. I threw out a bag of ballast, and for a time we rose
again, but in the course of a few hours the sinking recommenced, and I
threw out another bag.
Then the battle commenced in earnest. It lasted all that afternoon and
through the night until the following evening. I had seen never a sail
nor a sign of a sail, though I had half blinded myself with straining
my eyes incessantly in every direction; we had parted with everything
but the clothes which we had upon our backs; food and water were gone,
all thrown out to the wheeling albatrosses, in order to save us a few
hours or even minutes from the sea. I did not throw away the books till
we were within a few feet of the water, and clung to my manuscripts to
the very last. Hope there seemed none whatever—yet, strangely enough we
were neither of us utterly hopeless, and even when the evil that we
dreaded was upon us, and that which we greatly feared had come, we sat
in the car of the balloon with the waters up to our middle, and still
smiled with a ghastly hopefulness to one another.
* * *
He who has crossed the St. Gothard will remember that below Andermatt
there is one of those Alpine gorges which reach the very utmost limits
of the sublime and terrible. The feelings of the traveller have become
more and more highly wrought at every step, until at last the naked and
overhanging precipices seem to close above his head, as he crosses a
bridge hung in mid-air over a roaring waterfall, and enters on the
darkness of a tunnel, hewn out of the rock.
What can be in store for him on emerging? Surely something even wilder
and more desolate than that which he has seen already; yet his
imagination is paralysed, and can suggest no fancy or vision of
anything to surpass the reality which he had just witnessed. Awed and
breathless he advances; when lo! the light of the afternoon sun
welcomes him as he leaves the tunnel, and behold a smiling valley—a
babbling brook, a village with tall belfries, and meadows of brilliant
green—these are the things which greet him, and he smiles to himself as
the terror passes away and in another moment is forgotten.
So fared it now with ourselves. We had been in the water some two or
three hours, and the night had come upon us. We had said farewell for
the hundredth time, and had resigned ourselves to meet the end; indeed
I was myself battling with a drowsiness from which it was only too
probable that I should never wake; when suddenly, Arowhena touched me
on the shoulder, and pointed to a light and to a dark mass which was
bearing right upon us. A cry for help—loud and clear and shrill—broke
forth from both of us at once; and in another five minutes we were
carried by kind and tender hands on to the deck of an Italian vessel.