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 inaccessible1 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 costly2 a vessel3 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 riddles4 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 frenzy5. 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 extremities6?
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 outstripped7 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 Prudent8 and Phil Evans ascertained9 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 pint10 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 luminous11 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 furrows12 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 upwards13 into the sky.
The cause of this light must have been electricity; it could not be attributed to a bank of fish spawn14, 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 lengthy15 protuberances escaped, and their points as they fell seemed to draw up hills of foaming17 water to meet them.
Suddenly the water shot up in the form of a gigantic hourglass, and the "Albatross" was enveloped18 in the eddy19 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 hurled21 into the sea. But she began to spin round on herself with frightful22 rapidity. The danger was immense, and perhaps impossible to escape, for the engineer could not get through the spout20 which sucked him back in defiance23 of his propellers24. 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 spun25 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 crouching26 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 cartridge27 from the ammunition-box at hand. The gun went off, and the waterspouts collapsed28, 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 peril29. 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, recording30 the readings of his barometers31, thermometers, and chronometers32, 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 retired33, sometimes a Viceroy of the Indies who had sought a more elevated position in the air. Sometimes he possessed34 millions, thanks to successful razzias in the aeronef, and he had been proclaimed for piracy35. Sometimes he had been ruined by making the aeronef, and had been forced to fly aloft to escape from his creditors36. 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 obliquely37 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 legitimate38 self-defence, and if we must perish—"
"Which we shall not do," answered Uncle Prudent, "without being avenged39, without annihilating40 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 prodigious41 aeronef, of whose superiority in aerial locomotion42 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 Cape16 Virgins43 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 windings45 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 Arena46, 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 stature47, the passengers in the aeronef were unable to say, for to them they seemed to be dwarfs48. But what a magnificent landscape opened around during these short hours of the southern day! Rugged49 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, capes50 and promontories51, 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 steered52 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 virgin44 forests, gigantic trees-birches, beeches53, ash-trees, cypresses54, tree-ferns—and broad plains overrun by herds55 of guanacos, vicunas, and ostriches56. Now there were armies of penguins57 and myriads58 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 larder59 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 peculiar60 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 gliding61 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 accomplished62 4,700 miles since she left Dahomey, she passed the last islands of the Magellanic archipelago, whose most southerly outpost, lashed63 by the everlasting64 surf, is the terrible Cape Horn.
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1
inaccessible
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| adj.达不到的，难接近的 | |
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costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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riddles
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| n.谜（语）( riddle的名词复数 )；猜不透的难题，难解之谜 | |
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frenzy
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| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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extremities
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| n.端点( extremity的名词复数 )；尽头；手和足；极窘迫的境地 | |
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outstripped
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| v.做得比…更好，（在赛跑等中）超过( outstrip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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8
prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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ascertained
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| v.弄清，确定，查明( ascertain的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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pint
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| n.品脱 | |
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luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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12
furrows
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| n.犁沟( furrow的名词复数 )；（脸上的）皱纹v.犁田，开沟( furrow的第三人称单数 ) | |
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13
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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spawn
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| n.卵，产物，后代，结果；vt.产卵，种菌丝于，产生，造成；vi.产卵，大量生产 | |
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15
lengthy
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| adj.漫长的，冗长的 | |
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cape
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| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
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foaming
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| adj.布满泡沫的；发泡 | |
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18
enveloped
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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eddy
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| n.漩涡，涡流 | |
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spout
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| v.喷出，涌出；滔滔不绝地讲；n.喷管；水柱 | |
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hurled
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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22
frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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propellers
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| n.螺旋桨，推进器( propeller的名词复数 ) | |
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25
spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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crouching
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 ) | |
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27
cartridge
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| n.弹壳，弹药筒；(装磁带等的)盒子 | |
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28
collapsed
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| adj.倒塌的 | |
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peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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recording
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| n.录音，记录 | |
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31
barometers
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| 气压计，晴雨表( barometer的名词复数 ) | |
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32
chronometers
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| n.精密计时器，航行表( chronometer的名词复数 ) | |
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33
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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35
piracy
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| n.海盗行为，剽窃，著作权侵害 | |
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creditors
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| n.债权人，债主( creditor的名词复数 ) | |
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obliquely
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| adv.斜； 倾斜； 间接； 不光明正大 | |
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legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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39
avenged
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| v.为…复仇，报…之仇( avenge的过去式和过去分词 )；为…报复 | |
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40
annihilating
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| v.（彻底）消灭( annihilate的现在分词 )；使无效；废止；彻底击溃 | |
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41
prodigious
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| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
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42
locomotion
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| n.运动，移动 | |
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43
virgins
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| 处女，童男( virgin的名词复数 )； 童贞玛利亚（耶稣之母） | |
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44
virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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45
windings
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| （道路、河流等）蜿蜒的，弯曲的( winding的名词复数 )； 缠绕( wind的现在分词 )； 卷绕； 转动（把手） | |
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46
arena
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| n.竞技场，运动场所；竞争场所，舞台 | |
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47
stature
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| n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材 | |
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48
dwarfs
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| n.侏儒，矮子（dwarf的复数形式）vt.（使）显得矮小（dwarf的第三人称单数形式） | |
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49
rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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50
capes
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| 碎谷； 斗篷( cape的名词复数 )； 披肩； 海角； 岬 | |
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51
promontories
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| n.岬，隆起，海角( promontory的名词复数 ) | |
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52
steered
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| v.驾驶( steer的过去式和过去分词 )；操纵；控制；引导 | |
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53
beeches
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| n.山毛榉( beech的名词复数 )；山毛榉木材 | |
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54
cypresses
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| n.柏属植物，柏树( cypress的名词复数 ) | |
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55
herds
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| 兽群( herd的名词复数 )； 牧群； 人群； 群众 | |
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56
ostriches
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| n.鸵鸟( ostrich的名词复数 )；逃避现实的人，不愿正视现实者 | |
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57
penguins
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| n.企鹅( penguin的名词复数 ) | |
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58
myriads
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| n.无数，极大数量( myriad的名词复数 ) | |
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59
larder
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| n.食物贮藏室，食品橱 | |
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60
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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61
gliding
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| v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的 | |
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62
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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63
lashed
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| adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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64
everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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