five determined men would hurl themselves into the storm’s full fury!
The storm did not abate. Neither Jonathan Forster nor his companions could dream of confronting it in the frail basket. The weather that day was horrific. The engineer feared but one thing: that the balloon, held to the ground and leveled by the wind, would be torn into a thousand pieces. For several hours he prowled around the nearly deserted square, examining the apparatus. Pencroff on his side did likewise, his hands in his pockets, about to yawn, like a man who doesn’t know how to kill time, but also afraid that the balloon would be torn or even that it would break its lines and escape into the sky. Evening came. The night was gloomy and a thick mist rolled in, like a cloud at ground level. Rain fell mixed with snow. It was cold. A sort of fog settled over Richmond. It seemed that the violent tempest forced a truce between the besiegers and the besieged, and that the cannons had decided to remain silent before the deafening thunder of the storm. The streets of the city were deserted. In this horrible weather, it did not even seem necessary to guard the square where the balloon was floundering. Everything obviously favored the escape of the prisoners; but to journey thus, in the midst of this furious storm …?
“Nasty weather,” Pencroff said to himself, punching his hat down onto his head as the wind was trying to blow it off. “Oh well! We’ll manage all the same!”
At half past nine, Cyrus Smith and his companions crept in from different corners of the square. The gas lanterns, extinguished by the wind, left them in complete darkness. They could not even see the enormous balloon which was almost completely pushed down onto the ground. Besides the sacks of ballast which held the ropes, the basket was also held down by a strong cable which passed through a ring in the pavement.
The five prisoners met near the basket of the balloon. They had not been seen and in the darkness they could not even see each other.
Without saying a word, Cyrus Smith, Gideon Spilett, Neb, and Harbert took their place in the basket, while Pencroff, on an order from the engineer, detached the bags of ballast. This took but a few moments, and the sailor rejoined his companions.
They met near the basket of the balloon.
The balloon was then held by the cable alone, and Cyrus Smith now had only to give the order to depart.
At that moment a dog dashed toward the basket. It was Top, the engineer’s dog who, having broken his chain, had followed his master. The engineer, fearing the excess weight, wanted to send the animal away.
“Bah! What’s one more,” said Pencroff, throwing two sacks of sand out of the basket.
Then he cast off the cable and the balloon rose at an angle and disappeared into the sky after the basket knocked down two chimneys in the fury of its departure.
The storm then unleashed itself with a frightful violence. During the night, the engineer could not think of descending and, when day returned, they could not see the ground through the clouds. After five days, a clearing let them see the immense ocean beneath the balloon, which the wind had driven on at a frightful speed.
Five men left on the 20th of March. Four of them were now thrown, on the 24th of March,17 on a deserted coast more than 6000 miles from their country.*
And the one who was missing, the one the four other balloon survivors were now running to rescue, was their natural leader, the engineer Cyrus Smith.
CHAPTER III
The engineer was carried off by a wave through the netting which had given way. His dog had also disappeared. The faithful animal had voluntarily thrown himself into the sea to rescue his master.
“Hurry!” shouted the reporter.
All four survivors, Gideon Spilett, Harbert, Pencroff and Neb, forgetting their exhaustion and fatigue, began their search. Poor Neb cried with rage and despair at the thought of having lost all that he loved in the world.
Less than two minutes had passed from the moment Cyrus Smith disappeared to the instant his companions touched land. They hoped to arrive in time to save him.
“Let’s search! Let’s search for him!” shouted Neb.
“Yes, Neb,” replied Gideon Spilett, “and we will find him!”
“Living?”
“Living!”
“Does he know how to swim?” asked Pencroff.
“Yes,” replied Neb, “and besides, Top is there …”
The sailor, listening to the roar of the sea, shook his head.
It was on the coast to the north, about a half mile from the spot where the castaways had landed, that the engineer had disappeared. If he had been able to reach the nearest point on the shoreline, he would be at most a half mile from them.
It was then nearly six o’clock. A fog had just rolled in, making the evening dark. The castaways proceeded northward along the eastern coastline of this land upon which they had been thrown by chance, an unknown land whose geographical location they could not even guess at. They trod upon sandy soil, mixed with stones, which seemed to be deprived of every species of vegetation. This soil, very uneven and rugged, seemed in certain spots to be riddled with small potholes which made their progress very difficult. From these holes, heavy birds of sluggish flight escaped at each instant, flying off in all directions into the darkness. Other more agile ones rose and passed overhead in cloud-like flocks. The sailor thought he recognized sea gulls and sea mews whose sharp cries competed with the roars from the sea.
From time to time, the castaways stopped to shout and listen for some sound not made by the ocean. It was possible that, if they were near the place where the engineer had landed, they might hear Top’s barking if Cyrus Smith was unable to give some sign of life. But no cry was heard above the growling of the waves and the crashing of the surf. The small troop resumed their forward march and searched every crevice of the shoreline.
After a walk of twenty minutes, the four castaways were suddenly stopped by the foaming waves. Solid ground vanished and they found themselves at the extremity of a sharp point of land where the sea broke with great fury.
“It is a promontory,” said the sailor. “We must retrace our steps keeping to our right and, in this way, we’ll get to the mainland.”
They shouted in unison.
“But what if he’s there!” replied Neb, pointing to the ocean, whose enormous waves whitened the darkness.
“Then let’s call him!”
They all shouted together vigorously, but there was no answer. They waited for a lull. They shouted again. Again nothing.
The castaways then went back to the opposite side of the promontory on soil just as sandy and rocky. However Pencroff noticed that this shoreline was more abrupt, and that the ground was more elevated. He assumed that it gradually sloped upward to a high hill that he could barely make out. The birds were less numerous on this part of the shore and the sea also surged
