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Page 39
It may be imagined with what speed the "Albatross" was towed in
pursuit. Besides, the propellers had been stopped. The whale was let
go as he would, and the ship followed him. Turner stood ready to cut
the line in case a fresh plunge should render this towing dangerous.
For half an hour, and perhaps for a distance of six miles, the
"Albatross" was thus dragged along, but it was obvious that the whale
was tiring. Then, at a gesture from Robur the assistant engineers
started the propellers astern, so as to oppose a certain resistance
to the whale, who was gradually getting closer.
Soon the aeronef was gliding about twenty-five feet above him. His
tail was beating the waters with incredible violence, and as he
turned over on his back an enormous wave was produced.
Suddenly the whale turned up again, so as to take a header, as it
were, and then dived with such rapidity that Turner had barely time
to cut the line.
The aeronef was dragged to the very surface of the water. A whirlpool
was formed where the animal had disappeared. A wave dashed up on to
the deck as if the aeronef were a ship driving against wind and tide.
Luckily, with a blow of the hatchet the mate severed the line, and
the "Albatross," freed from her tug, sprang aloft six hundred feet
under the impulse of her ascensional screws. Robur had maneuvered his
ship without losing his coolness for a moment.
A few minutes afterwards the whale returned to the surface--dead.
From every side the birds flew down on to the carcass, and their
cries were enough to deafen a congress. The "Albatross," without
stopping to share in the spoil, resumed her course to the west.
In the morning of the 17th of June, at about six o'clock, land was
sighted on the horizon. This was the peninsula of Alaska, and the
long range of breakers of the Aleutian Islands.
The "Albatross" glided over the barrier where the fur seals swarm
for the benefit of the Russo-American Company. An excellent business
is the capture of these amphibians, which are from six to seven feet
long, russet in color, and weigh from three hundred to four hundred
pounds. There they were in interminable files, ranged in line of
battle, and countable by thousands.
Although they did not move at the passage of the "Albatross," it was
otherwise with the ducks, divers, and loons, whose husky cries filled
the air as they disappeared beneath the waves and fled terrified from
the aerial monster.
The twelve hundred miles of the Behring Sea between the first of the
Aleutians and the extreme end of Kamtschatka were traversed during
the twenty-four hours of this day and the following night. Uncle
Prudent and Phil Evans found that here was no present chance of
putting their project of escape into execution. Flight was not to be
thought of among the deserts of Eastern Asia, nor on the coast of the
sea of Okhotsk. Evidently the "Albatross" was bound for Japan or
China, and there, although it was not perhaps quite safe to trust
themselves to the mercies of the Chinese or Japanese, the two
friends had made up their minds to run if the aeronef stopped.
But would she stop? She was not like a bird which grows fatigued by
too long a flight, or like a balloon which has to descend for want of
gas. She still had food for many weeks and her organs were of
marvelous strength, defying all weakness and weariness.
During the 18th of June she swept over the peninsula of Kamtschatka,
and during the day there was a glimpse of Petropaulovski and the
volcano of Kloutschew. Then she rose again to cross the Sea of
Okhotsk, running down by the Kurile Isles, which seemed to be a
breakwater pierced by hundreds of channels. On the 19th, in the
morning, the "Albatross" was over the strait of La Perouse between
Saghalien and Northern Japan, and had reached the mouth of the great
Siberian river, the Amoor.
Then there came a fog so dense that the aeronef had to rise above it.
At the altitude she was there was no obstacle to be feared, no
elevated monuments to hinder her passage, no mountains against which
there was risk of being shattered in her flight. The country was only
slightly varied. But the fog was very disagreeable, and made
everything on board very damp.
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