Robur-le-conquerant. English

by Jules Verne

  Chapter XVIII

  OVER THE VOLCANO

  The sea was as rough as ever, and the symptoms became alarming. Thebarometer fell several millimeters. The wind came in violent gusts,and then for a moment or so failed altogether. Under suchcircumstances a sailing vessel would have had to reef in her topsailsand her foresail. Everything showed that the wind was rising in thenorthwest. The storm-glass became much troubled and its movementswere most disquieting.

  At one o'clock in the morning the wind came on again with extremeviolence. Although the aeronef was going right in its teeth she wasstill making progress at a rate of from twelve to fifteen miles anhour. But that was the utmost she could do.

  Evidently preparations must be made for a cyclone, a very rareoccurrence in these latitudes. Whether it be called a hurricane, asin the Atlantic, a typhoon, as in Chinese waters a simoom, as in theSahara, or a tornado, as on the western coast, such a storm is alwaysa gyratory one, and most dangerous for any ship caught in the currentwhich increases from the circumference to the center, and has onlyone spot of calm, the middle of the vortex.

  Robur knew this. He also knew it was best to escape from the cycloneand get beyond its zone of attraction by ascending to the higherstrata. Up to then he had always succeeded in doing this, but now hehad not an hour, perhaps not a minute, to lose.

  In fact the violence of the wind sensibly increased. The crests ofthe waves were swept off as they rose and blown into white dust onthe surface of the sea. It was manifest that the cyclone wasadvancing with fearful velocity straight towards the regions of thepole.

  "Higher!" said Robur.

  "Higher it is," said Tom Tumor.

  An extreme ascensional power was communicated to the aeronef, and sheshot up slantingly as if she was traveling on a plane slopingdownwards from the southwest. Suddenly the barometer fell more than adozen millimeters and the "Albatross" paused in her ascent.

  What was the cause of the stoppage? Evidently she was pulled back bythe air; some formidable current had diminished the resistance to thescrews. When a steamer travels upstream more work is got out of herscrew than when the water is running between the blades. The recoilis then considerable, and may perhaps be as great as the current. Itwas thus with the "Albatross" at this moment.

  But Robur was not the man to give in. His seventy-four screws,working perfectly together, were driven at their maximum speed. Butthe aeronef could not escape; the attraction of the cyclone wasirresistible. During the few moments of calm she began to ascend, butthe heavy pull soon drew her back, and she sunk like a ship as shefounders.

  Evidently if the violence of the cyclone went on increasing the"Albatross" would be but as a straw caught in one of those whirlwindsthat root up the trees, carry off roofs, and blow down walls.

  Robur and Tom could only speak by signs. Uncle Prudent and Phil Evansclung to the rail and wondered if the cyclone was not playing theirgame in destroying the aeronef and with her the inventor--and withthe inventor the secret of his invention.

  But if the "Albatross" could not get out of the cyclone verticallycould she not do something else? Could she not gain the center, whereit was comparatively calm, and where they would have more controlover her? Quite so, but to do this she would have to break throughthe circular currents which were sweeping her round with them. Hadshe sufficient mechanical power to escape through them?

  Suddenly the upper part of the cloud fell in. The vapor condensed intorrents of rain. It was two o'clock in the morning. The barometer,oscillating over a range of twelve millimeters, had now fallen to27.91, and from this something should be taken on account of theheight of the aeronef above the level of the sea.

  Strange to say, the cyclone was out of the zone to which such stormsare generally restricted, such zone being bounded by the thirtiethparallel of north latitude and the twenty-sixth parallel of southlatitude. This may perhaps explain why the eddying storm suddenlyturned into a straight one. But what a hurricane! The tempest inConnecticut on the 22nd of March, 1882, could only have been comparedto it, and the speed of that was more than three hundred miles anhour.

  The "Albatross" had thus to fly before the wind or rather she had tobe left to be driven by the current, from which she could neithermount nor escape. But in following this unchanging trajectory she wasbearing due south, towards those polar regions which Robur hadendeavored to avoid. And now he was no longer master of her course;she would go where the hurricane took her.

  Tom Turner was at the helm, and it required all his skill to keep herstraight. In the first hours of the morning--if we can so call thevague tint which began to rise over the horizon--the "Albatross" wasfifteen degrees below Cape Horn; twelve hundred miles more and shewould cross the antarctic circle. Where she was, in this month ofJuly, the night lasted nineteen hours and a half. The sun's disk--withoutwarmth, without light--only appeared above the horizon todisappear almost immediately. At the pole the night lengthened intoone of a hundred and seventy-nine days. Everything showed that the"Albatross" was about to plunge into an abyss.

  During the day an observation, had it been possible, would have given66 deg. 40' south latitude. The aeronef was within fourteen hundred milesof the pole.

  Irresistibly was she drawn towards this inaccessible corner of theglobe, her speed eating up, so to speak, her weight, although sheweighed less than before, owing to the flattening of the earth at thepole. It seemed as though she could have dispensed altogether withher suspensory screws. And soon the fury of the storm reached such aheight that Robur thought it best to reduce the speed of her helicesas much as possible, so as to avoid disaster. And only enough speedwas given to keep the aeronef under control of the rudder.

  Amid these dangers the engineer retained his imperturbable coolness,and the crew obeyed him as if their leader's mind had entered intothem. Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans had not for a moment left thedeck; they could remain without being disturbed. The air made butslight resistance. The aeronef was like an aerostat, which driftswith the fluid masses in which it is plunged.

  Is the domain of the southern pole a continent or an archipelago? Oris it a palaeocrystic sea, whose ice melts not even during the longsummer? We know not. But what we do know is that the southern pole iscolder than the northern one--a phenomenon due to the position ofthe earth in its orbit during winter in the antarctic regions.

  During this day there was nothing to show that the storm was abating.It was by the seventy-fifth meridian to the west that the "Albatross"crossed into the circumpolar region. By what meridian would she comeout--if she ever came out?

  As she descended more to the south the length of the day diminished.Before long she would be plunged in that continuous night which isilluminated only by the rays of the moon or the pale streamers of theaurora. But the moon was then new, and the companions of Robur mightsee nothing of the regions whose secret has hitherto defied humancuriosity, There was not much inconvenience on board from the cold,for the temperature was not nearly so low as was expected.

  It seemed as though the hurricane was a sort of Gulf Stream, carryinga certain amount of heat along with it.

  Great was the regret that the whole region was in such profoundobscurity. Even if the moon had been in full glory but fewobservations could have been made. At this season of the year animmense curtain of snow, an icy carapace, covers up the polarsurface. There was none of that ice "blink" to be seen, that whitishtint of which the reflection is absent from dark horizons. Under suchcircumstances, how could they distinguish the shape of the ground,the extent of the seas, the position of the islands? How could theyrecognize the hydrographic network of the country or the orographicconfiguration, and distinguish the hills and mountains from theicebergs and floes?

  A little after midnight an aurora illuminated the darkness. With itssilver fringes and spangles radiating over space, it seemed like ahuge fan open over half the sky. Its farthest electric effluenceswere lost in the Southern Cross, whose four bright stars weregleaming overhead. The phenomenon was one
of incomparablemagnificence, and the light showed the face of the country as aconfused mass of white.

  It need not be said that they had approached so near to the pole thatthe compass was constantly affected, and gave no precise indicationof the course pursued. Its inclination was such that at one timeRobur felt certain they were passing over the magnetic polediscovered by Sir James Ross. And an hour later, in calculating theangle the needle made with the vertical, he exclaimed: "the SouthPole is beneath us!"

  A white cap appeared, but nothing could be seen of what it bid underits ice.

  A few minutes afterwards the aurora died away, and the point whereall the world's meridians cross is still to be discovered.

  If Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans wished to bury in the most mysterioussolitudes the aeronef and all she bore, the moment was propitious. Ifthey did not do so it was doubtless because the explosive theyrequired was still denied to them.

  The hurricane still raged and swept along with such rapidity that hada mountain been met with the aeronef would have been dashed to pieceslike a ship on a lee shore. Not only had the power gone to steer herhorizontally, but the control of her elevation had also vanished.

  And it was not unlikely that mountains did exist in these antarcticlands. Any instant a shock might happen which would destroy the"Albatross." Such a catastrophe became more probable as the windshifted more to the east after they passed the prime meridian. Twoluminous points then showed themselves ahead of the "Albatross."There were the two volcanos of the Ross Mountains--Erebus andTerror. Was the "Albatross" to be shriveled up in their flames like agigantic butterfly?

  An hour of intense excitement followed. One of the volcanoes, Erebus,seemed to be rushing at the aeronef, which could not move from thebed of the hurricane. The cloud of flame grew as they neared it. Anetwork of fire barred their road. A brilliant light shone round overall. The figures on board stood out in the bright light as if comefrom another world. Motionless, without a sound or a gesture, theywaited for the terrible moment when the furnace would wrap them inits fires.

  But the storm that bore the "Albatross" saved them from such afearful fate. The flames of Erebus were blown down by the hurricaneas it passed, and the "Albatross" flew over unhurt. She swept througha hail of ejected material, which was fortunately kept at bay by thecentrifugal action of the suspensory screws. And she harmlesslypassed over the crater while it was in full eruption.

  An hour afterwards the horizon hid from their view the two colossaltorches which light the confines of the world during the long polarnight.

  At two o'clock in the morning Balleny Island was sighted on the coastof Discovery Land, though it could not be recognized owing to itsbeing bound to the mainland by a cement of ice.

  And the "Albatross" emerged from the polar circle on the hundred andseventy-fifth meridian. The hurricane had carried her over theicebergs and icefloes, against which she was in danger of beingdashed a hundred times or more. She was not in the hands of thehelmsman, but in the hand of God--and God is a good pilot.

  The aeronef sped along to the north, and at the sixtieth parallel thestorm showed signs of dying away. Its violence sensibly diminished.The "Albatross" began to come under control again. And, what was agreat comfort, had again entered the lighted regions of the globe;and the day reappeared about eight o'clock in the morning.

  Robur had been carried by the storm into the Pacific over the polarregion, accomplishing four thousand three hundred and fifty miles innineteen hours, or about three miles a minute, a speed almost doublethat which the "Albatross" was equal to with her propellers underordinary circumstances. But he did not know where he then was owingto the disturbance of the needle in the neighborhood of the magneticpole, and he would have to wait till the sun shone out underconvenient conditions for observation. Unfortunately, heavy cloudscovered the sky all that day and the sun did not appear.

  This was a disappointment more keenly felt as both propelling screwshad sustained damage during the tempest. Robur, much disconcerted atthis accident, could only advance at a moderate speed during thisday, and when he passed over the antipodes of Paris was only goingabout eighteen miles an hour. It was necessary not to aggravate thedamage to the screws, for if the propellers were rendered useless thesituation of the aeronef above the vast seas of the Pacific would bea very awkward one. And the engineer began to consider if he couldnot effect his repairs on the spot, so as to make sure of continuinghis voyage.

  In the morning of the 27th of July, about seven o'clock, land wassighted to the north. It was soon seen to be an island. But whichisland was it of the thousands that dot the Pacific? However, Roburdecided to stop at it without landing. He thought, that he couldrepair damages during the day and start in the evening.

  The wind had died away completely and this was a favorablecircumstance for the maneuver he desired to execute. At least, if shedid not remain stationary the "Albatross" would be carried he knewnot where.

  A cable one hundred and fifty feet long with an anchor at the end wasdropped overboard. When the aeronef reached the shore of the islandthe anchor dragged up the first few rocks and then got firmly fixedbetween two large blocks. The cable then stretched to full lengthunder the influence of the suspensory screws, and the "Albatross"remained motionless, riding like a ship in a roadstead.

  It was the first time she had been fastened to the earth since sheleft Philadelphia.