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.