them to work? That is Robur’s secret. The same goes for the accumulators. Of what nature are their positive and negative forces? That remains unknown. The engineer had refrained—for good reason—from taking out a patent on the invention. In short, indisputable result: batteries of extraordinary efficiency, acids with almost absolute resistance to evaporation or congelation, accumulators far ahead of the Faure-Sellon-Volckmar type, and, finally, currents whose amperes are measured out in numbers hitherto unknown. Hence, electricity of virtually infinite horsepower,9 working propellers that give the apparatus suspension and propulsion power surpassing all its needs, no matter what the circumstance.
But, as must be repeated, all this belonged only to the engineer Robur. He guarded it with the strictest secrecy. If the president and secretary of the Weldon Institute could not manage to discover it, very probably the secret would be lost to humanity.
It might be taken for a ship with thirty-seven masts.
It goes without saying that the apparatus was sufficiently stable, because of the position of its center of gravity. No danger that it would tilt to disquieting angles from the horizontal, no upturning to fear.
It still remains to be explained what material the engineer Robur had employed to construct his aircraft—a word that can very exactly be applied to the Albatross.10 What was this material, so durable that Phil Evans’s bowie knife could not cut it, and whose nature Uncle Prudent had been unable to explain? Simple paper.
For many years already, this process had undergone considerable development. Unsized paper, soaked in dextrin and starch, then pressed hydraulically, forms a material as hard as steel. People have used it to make pulleys, rails, and wagon wheels, more solid than metal and yet lighter at the same time. It was this solidity and lightness that Robur had wanted when constructing his aerial locomotive. Everything, hull, body, deckhouses, cabins, was made of straw paper, made metallic by the compression process, and even—which is nothing to be sneezed at for an apparatus running at such great heights—incombustible. As for the various mechanisms in the suspension and propulsion engines, axes, and propeller blades, the same gelatinous fiber had furnished a substance that was both resistant and flexible. That material, usable in all its forms, insoluble in most gases and liquids, including acids and gasolines—to say nothing of its insulating properties—had proven most valuable in making the electric machinery on the Albatross.
The engineer Robur, his quartermaster Tom Turner, a mechanic and his two assistants, two helmsmen, and a ship’s cook—eight men in all—such was the crew of the aircraft, and it amply sufficed for the movements required in aerial travel. Arms for hunting and battle, tools for fishing, electric lanterns, observation instruments, compasses and sextants for determining the route, a thermometer for studying the temperature, various barometers, some to measure heights reached, others to indicate changes in atmospheric pressure, a storm glass for predicting storms, a little library, a little portable printing press,11 an artillery piece mounted on a pivot at the center of the deck, loaded through the breech and firing off a six-centimeter projectile, a provision of powder, cannonballs, sticks of dynamite, a kitchen heated by accumulator currents, a stock of conserves, meats and greens, set out in a storeroom for that purpose with some casks of brandy, whiskey, and gin, in fact enough rations to last for months before the crew were obliged to land—such were the equipment and provisions on the aircraft, to say nothing of the famous trumpet.
In addition, there was on board a light, insubmersible rubber boat, which could carry eight men on the surface of a river, a lake, or a calm sea.
But had Robur at least installed parachutes in case of an accident? No. He did not believe in accidents of that kind. The shafts of the propellers were independent. If some stopped, they would not affect the running of the others. Half the set functioning would suffice to keep the Albatross in its native element.
“And, with it,” as Robur the Conquerer soon had the occasion to say to his new guests—unwilling guests—“with it, I am master of this seventh region of the world, larger than Australia, Oceania, Asia, America, and Europe, this aerial Icaria that thousands of Icarians will populate one day!”
CHAPTER
7
In which Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans still refuse to be convinced
The president of the Weldon Institute was stupefied, his companion flabbergasted. But neither one of them had any intention of letting their astonishment show, natural though it was.
The valet Frycollin, for his part, was manifestly terrified at finding himself transported through space on such a machine, and made no attempt to hide it.
During this time, the suspension propellers were spinning rapidly over their heads. Considerable though this speed of rotation was, it could be as much as tripled when the Albatross wanted to reach higher zones.
As for the two propulsion propellers, working at a relatively moderate speed, they gave the apparatus a pace of only twenty kilometers per hour.
Leaning over the deck, the passengers on the Albatross could catch sight of a long sinuous ribbon of liquid that snaked about, like a mere stream, across an undulating landscape, amid the sparkling of a few lagoons hit obliquely by the rays of the sun. This stream was a river, one of the most important in the territory. Upon its left bank rose a mountainous chain that stretched as far as the eye could see.
“And will you tell us where we are?” asked Uncle Prudent in a voice shaking with anger.
“I am under no obligation to do so,” replied Robur.
“And will you tell us where we’re going?” added Phil Evans.
“Through space.”
“And that will last? …”
“As long as it needs to.”
“Then we’re going around the world?” asked Phil Evans ironically.
“Further than that,” replied Robur.
“And if the voyage doesn’t suit us? …” returned Uncle Prudent.
“Then you must suit yourselves to it!”
This is a first taste of the kind of relations that were soon to be established between the master of the Albatross and his guests, not to say his prisoners. But, very clearly, he wanted first of all to give them time to repent, to admire the marvelous apparatus carrying them through the sky, and, no doubt, also to compliment its inventor. Therefore he affected to stroll from one end of the deck to the other. This left them free to examine the arrangement of the machines and the fitting-out of the aircraft, or to accord all their attention to the countryside unfurling in relief below them.
“Uncle Prudent,” said Phil Evans, “if I’m not much mistaken, we must be floating over the middle of the Canadian territories. That river running in the northwest, that’s the Saint Lawrence. That town we’re leaving behind, that’s Quebec.”
It was indeed Champlain’s old city,1 its white-iron roofs shining in the sun like reflectors. The Albatross had therefore risen to latitude 46° north—which explained the premature arrival of day and the abnormal prolongation of dawn.
“Yes,”
