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Page 44
"Gentlemen," said the engineer, "when people, have the pleasure of
traveling with Robur the Conqueror, as you have so well named him, on
board his admirable "Albatross," they do not leave him in that way. I
may add you never leave him."
Phil Evans drew away his colleague, who was about to commit some act
of violence. They retired to their cabin, resolved to escape, even if
it cost them their lives.
Immediately the "Albatross" resumed her course to the west. During
the day at moderate speed she passed over the territory of
Cabulistan, catching a momentary glimpse of its capital, and crossed
the frontier of the kingdom of Herat, nearly seven hundred miles from
Cashmere.
In these much-disputed countries, the open road for the Russians to
the English possessions in India, there were seen many columns and
convoys, and, in a word, everything that constitutes in men and
material an army on the march. There were heard also the roar of the
cannon and the crackling of musketry. But the engineer never meddled
with the affairs of others where his honor or humanity was not
concerned. He passed above them. If Herat as we are told, is the key
of Central Asia, it mattered little to him if it was kept in an
English or Muscovite pocket. Terrestrial interests were nothing to
him who had made the air his domain.
Besides, the country soon disappeared in one of those sandstorms
which are so frequent in these regions. The wind called the "tebbad"
bears along the seeds of fever in the impalpable dust it raises in
its passage. And many are the caravans that perish in its eddies.
To escape this dust, which might have interfered with the working of
the screws, the "Albatross" shot up some six thousand feet into a
purer atmosphere.
And thus vanished the Persian frontier and the extensive plains. The
speed was not excessive, although there were no rocks ahead, for the
mountains marked on the map are of very moderate altitude. But as the
ship approached the capital, she had to steer clear of Demavend,
whose snowy peak rises some twenty-two thousand feet, and the chain
of Elbruz, at whose foot is built Teheran.
As soon as the day broke on the 2nd of July the peak of Demavend
appeared above the sandstorm, and the "Albatross" was steered so as
to pass over the town, which the wind had wrapped in a mantle of dust.
However, about six o'clock her crew could see the large ditches that
surround it, and the Shah's palace, with its walls covered with
porcelain tiles, and its ornamental lakes, which seemed like huge
turquoises of beautiful blue.
It was but a hasty glimpse. The "Albatross" now headed for the north,
and a few hours afterwards she was over a little hill at the northern
angle of the Persian frontier, on the shores of a vast extent of
water which stretched away out of sight to the north and east.
The town was Ashurada, the most southerly of the Russian stations.
The vast extent of water was a sea. It was the Caspian.
The eddies of sand had been passed. There was a view of a group of
European houses rising along a promontory, with a church tower in the
midst of them.
The "Albatross" swooped down towards the surface of the sea. Towards
evening she was running along the coast--which formerly belonged to
Turkestan, but now belongs to Russia--and in the morning of the 3rd
of July she was about three hundred feet above the Caspian.
There was no land in sight, either on the Asiatic or European side.
On the surface of the sea a few white sails were bellying in the
breeze. These were native vessels recognizable by their peculiar
rig--kesebeys, with two masts; kayuks, the old pirate-boats, with one
mast; teimils, and smaller craft for trading and fishing. Here and
there a few puffs of smoke rose up to the "Albatross" from the
funnels of the Ashurada steamers, which the Russians keep as the
police of these Turcoman waters.
That morning Tom Turner was talking to the cook, Tapage, and to a
question of his replied, "Yes; we shall be about forty-eight hours
over the Caspian."
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