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Page 32
Frycollin, the valet, was quartered forward in a cabin adjoining that
of the cook. The neighborhood did not displease him; he liked to rub
shoulders with the great in this world. But if he finally went to
sleep it was to dream of fall after fall, of projections through
space, which made his sleep a horrible nightmare.
However, nothing could be quieter than this journey through the
atmosphere, whose currents had grown weaker with the evening. Beyond
the rustling of the blades of the screws there was not a sound,
except now and then the whistle from some terrestrial locomotive, or
the calling of some animal. Strange instinct! These terrestrial
beings felt the aeronef glide over them, and uttered cries of terror
as it passed. On the morrow, the 14th of June, at five o'clock, Uncle
Prudent and Phil Evans were walking on the deck of the "Albatross."
Nothing had changed since the evening; there was a lookout forward,
and the helmsman was in his glass cage. Why was there a look-out? Was
there any chance of collision with another such machine? Certainly
not. Robur had not yet found imitators. The chance of encountering an
aerostat gliding through the air was too remote to be regarded. In
any case it would be all the worse for the aerostat--the earthen pot
and the iron pot. The "Albatross" had nothing to fear from the
collision.
But what could happen? The aeronef might find herself like a ship on
a lee shore if a mountain that could not be outflanked or passed
barred the way. These are the reefs of the air, and they have to be
avoided as a ship avoids the reefs of the sea. The engineer, it is
true, had given the course, and in doing so had taken into account
the altitude necessary to clear the summits of the high lands in the
district. But as the aeronef was rapidly nearing a mountainous
country, it was only prudent to keep a good lookout, in case some
slight deviation from the course became necessary.
Looking at the country beneath them, Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans
noticed a large lake, whose lower southern end the "Albatross" had
just reached. They concluded, therefore, that during the night the
whole length of Lake Erie had been traversed, and that, as they were
going due west, they would soon be over Lake Michigan. "There can be
no doubt of it," said Phil Evans, "and that group of roofs on the
horizon is Chicago."
He was right. It was indeed the city from which the seventeen
railways diverge, the Queen of the West, the vast reservoir into
which flow the products of Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, Missouri, and
all the States which form the western half of the Union.
Uncle Prudent, through an excellent telescope he had found in his
cabin, easily recognized the principal buildings. His colleague
pointed out to him the churches and public edifices, the numerous
"elevators" or mechanical, granaries, and the huge Sherman Hotel,
whose windows seemed like a hundred glittering points on each of its
faces.
"If that is Chicago," said Uncle Prudent, "it is obvious that we are
going farther west than is convenient for us if we are to return to
our starting-place."
And, in fact, the "Albatross" was traveling in a straight line from
the Pennsylvania capital.
But if Uncle Prudent wished to ask Robur to take him eastwards he
could not then do so. That morning the engineer did not leave his
cabin. Either he was occupied in some work, or else he was asleep,
and the two colleagues sat down to breakfast without seeing him.
The speed was the same as that during last evening. The wind being
easterly the rate was not interfered with at all, and as the
thermometer only falls a degree centigrade for every seventy meters
of elevation the temperature was not insupportable. And so, in
chatting and thinking and waiting for the engineer, Uncle Prudent and
Phil Evans walked about beneath the forest of screws, whose gyratory
movement gave their arms the appearance of semi-diaphanous disks.
The State of Illinois was left by its northern frontier in less than
two hours and a half; and they crossed the Father of Waters, the
Mississippi, whose double-decked steam-boats seemed no bigger than
canoes. Then the "Albatross" flew over Iowa after having sighted Iowa
City about eleven o'clock in the morning.
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