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Page 64
Robur and Tom could only speak by signs. Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans
clung to the rail and wondered if the cyclone was not playing their
game in destroying the aeronef and with her the inventor--and with
the inventor the secret of his invention.
But if the "Albatross" could not get out of the cyclone vertically
could she not do something else? Could she not gain the center, where
it was comparatively calm, and where they would have more control
over her? Quite so, but to do this she would have to break through
the circular currents which were sweeping her round with them. Had
she sufficient mechanical power to escape through them?
Suddenly the upper part of the cloud fell in. The vapor condensed in
torrents of rain. It was two o'clock in the morning. The barometer,
oscillating over a range of twelve millimeters, had now fallen to
27.91, and from this something should be taken on account of the
height of the aeronef above the level of the sea.
Strange to say, the cyclone was out of the zone to which such storms
are generally restricted, such zone being bounded by the thirtieth
parallel of north latitude and the twenty-sixth parallel of south
latitude. This may perhaps explain why the eddying storm suddenly
turned into a straight one. But what a hurricane! The tempest in
Connecticut on the 22nd of March, 1882, could only have been compared
to it, and the speed of that was more than three hundred miles an
hour.
The "Albatross" had thus to fly before the wind or rather she had to
be left to be driven by the current, from which she could neither
mount nor escape. But in following this unchanging trajectory she was
bearing due south, towards those polar regions which Robur had
endeavored 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 her
straight. In the first hours of the morning--if we can so call the
vague tint which began to rise over the horizon--the "Albatross" was
fifteen degrees below Cape Horn; twelve hundred miles more and she
would cross the antarctic circle. Where she was, in this month of
July, the night lasted nineteen hours and a half. The sun's disk--
without warmth, without light--only appeared above the horizon to
disappear almost immediately. At the pole the night lengthened into
one of a hundred and seventy-nine hours. Everything showed that the
"Albatross" was about to plunge into an abyss.
During the day an observation, had it been possible, would have given
66� 40' south latitude. The aeronef was within fourteen hundred miles
of the pole.
Irresistibly was she drawn towards this inaccessible corner of the
globe, her speed eating up, so to speak, her weight, although she
weighed less than before, owing to the flattening of the earth at the
pole. It seemed as though she could have dispensed altogether with
her suspensory screws. And soon the fury of the storm reached such a
height that Robur thought it best to reduce the speed of her helices
as much as possible, so as to avoid disaster. And only enough speed
was 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 into
them. Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans had not for a moment left the
deck; they could remain without being disturbed. The air made but
slight resistance. The aeronef was like an aerostat, which drifts
with the fluid masses in which it is plunged.
Is the domain of the southern pole a continent or an archipelago? Or
is it a palaeocrystic sea, whose ice melts not even during the long
summer? We know not. But what we do know is that the southern pole is
colder than the northern one--a phenomenon due to the position of
the 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 come
out--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 is
illuminated only by the rays of the moon or the pale streamers of the
aurora. But the moon was then new, and the companions of Robur might
see nothing of the regions whose secret has hitherto defied human
curiosity, There was not much inconvenience on board from the cold,
for the temperature was not nearly so low as was expected.
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