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Page 38
"We shall be drowned, but we shall not be smashed to a jelly."
The next moment Frycollin was on all fours, creeping to the back of
his cabin.
During this day the aeronef was only driven at moderate speed. She
seemed to skim the placid surface of the sea, which lay beneath.
Uncle Prudent and his companion remained in their cabin, so that they
did not meet with Robur, who walked about smoking alone or talking to
the mate. Only half the screws were working, yet that was enough to
keep the apparatus afloat in the lower zones of the atmosphere,
The crew, as a change from the ordinary routine, would have
endeavored to catch a few fish had there been any sign of them; but
all that could be seen on the surface of the sea were a few of those
yellow-bellied whales which measure about eighty feet in length.
These are the most formidable cetaceans in the northern seas, and
whalers are very careful in attacking them, for their strength is
prodigious. However, in harpooning one of these whales, either with
the ordinary harpoon, the Fletcher fuse, or the javelin-bomb, of
which there was an assortment on board, there would have been danger
to the men of the "Albatross."
But what was the good of such useless massacre? Doubtless to show off
the powers of the aeronef to the members of the Weldon Institute. And
so Robur gave orders for the capture of one of these monstrous
cetaceans.
At the shout of "A whale! A whale!" Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans
came out of their cabin. Perhaps there was a whaler in sight! In that
case all they had to do to escape from their flying prison was to
jump into the sea, and chance being picked up by the vessel.
The crew were all on deck. "Shall we try, sir?" asked Tom Turner.
"Yes," said Robur.
In the engine-room the engineer and his assistant were at their posts
ready to obey the orders signaled to them. The "Albatross" dropped
towards the sea, and remained, about fifty feet above it.
There was no ship in sight--of that the two colleagues soon assured
themselves--nor was there any land to be seen to which they could
swim, providing Robur made no attempt to recapture them.
Several jets of water from the spout holes soon announced the
presence of the whales as they came to the surface to breathe. Tom
Turner and one of the men were in the bow. Within his reach was one
of those javelin-bombs, of Californian make, which are shot from an
arquebus and which are shaped as a metallic cylinder terminated by a
cylindrical shell armed with a shaft having a barbed point. Robur was
a little farther aft, and with his right hand signaled to the
engineers, while with his left, he directed the steersman. He thus
controlled the aeronef in every way, horizontally and vertically, and
it is almost impossible to conceive with what speed and precision the
"Albatross" answered to his orders. She seemed a living being, of
which he was the soul.
"A whale! A whale!" shouted Tom Turner, as the back of a cetacean
emerged from the surface about four cable-lengths in front of the
"Albatross."
The "Albatross" swept towards it, and when she was within sixty feet
of it she stopped dead.
Tom Turner seized the arquebus, which was resting against a cleat on
the rail. He fired, and the projectile, attached to a long line,
entered the whale's body. The shell, filled with an explosive
compound, burst, and shot out a small harpoon with two branches,
which fastened into the animal's flesh.
"Look out!" shouted Turner.
Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans, much against their will, became greatly
interested in the spectacle.
The whale, seriously wounded, gave the sea such a slap with his tail,
that the water dashed up over the bow of the aeronef. Then he plunged
to a great depth, while the line, which had been previously wetted in
a tub of water to prevent its taking fire, ran out like lightning.
When the whale rose to the surface he started off at full speed in a
northerly direction.
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