Île mystérieuse. English

Chapter 1

“Are we ris­ing again?” “No. On the con­trary.” “Are we de­scend­ing?” “Worse than that, cap­tain! we are falling!” “For Heav­en’s sake heave out the bal­last!” “There! the last sack is emp­ty!” “Does the bal­loon rise?” “No!” “I hear a noise like the dash­ing of waves. The sea is be­low the car! It can­not be more than 500 feet from us!” “Over­board with ev­ery weight! . . . ev­ery­thing!”

Such were the loud and startling words which re­sound­ed through the air, above the vast wa­tery desert of the Pa­cif­ic, about four o’clock in the evening of the 23rd of March, 1865.

Few can pos­si­bly have for­got­ten the ter­ri­ble storm from the north­east, in the mid­dle of the equinox of that year. The tem­pest raged with­out in­ter­mis­sion from the 18th to the 26th of March. Its rav­ages were ter­ri­ble in Amer­ica, Eu­rope, and Asia, cov­er­ing a dis­tance of eigh­teen hun­dred miles, and ex­tend­ing oblique­ly to the equa­tor from the thir­ty-​fifth north par­al­lel to the for­ti­eth south par­al­lel. Towns were over­thrown, forests up­root­ed, coasts dev­as­tat­ed by the moun­tains of wa­ter which were pre­cip­itat­ed on them, ves­sels cast on the shore, which the pub­lished ac­counts num­bered by hun­dreds, whole dis­tricts lev­eled by wa­ter­spouts which de­stroyed ev­ery­thing they passed over, sev­er­al thou­sand peo­ple crushed on land or drowned at sea; such were the traces of its fury, left by this dev­as­tat­ing tem­pest. It sur­passed in dis­as­ters those which so fright­ful­ly rav­aged Ha­vana and Guadalupe, one on the 25th of Oc­to­ber, 1810, the oth­er on the 26th of Ju­ly, 1825.

But while so many catas­tro­phes were tak­ing place on land and at sea, a dra­ma not less ex­cit­ing was be­ing en­act­ed in the ag­itat­ed air.

In fact, a bal­loon, as a ball might be car­ried on the sum­mit of a wa­ter­spout, had been tak­en in­to the cir­cling move­ment of a col­umn of air and had tra­versed space at the rate of nine­ty miles an hour, turn­ing round and round as if seized by some aeri­al mael­strom.

Be­neath the low­er point of the bal­loon swung a car, con­tain­ing five pas­sen­gers, scarce­ly vis­ible in the midst of the thick va­por min­gled with spray which hung over the sur­face of the ocean.

Whence, it may be asked, had come that play­thing of the tem­pest? From what part of the world did it rise? It sure­ly could not have start­ed dur­ing the storm. But the storm had raged five days al­ready, and the first symp­toms were man­ifest­ed on the 18th. It can­not be doubt­ed that the bal­loon came from a great dis­tance, for it could not have trav­eled less than two thou­sand miles in twen­ty-​four hours.

At any rate the pas­sen­gers, des­ti­tute of all marks for their guid­ance, could not have pos­sessed the means of reck­on­ing the route tra­versed since their de­par­ture. It was a re­mark­able fact that, al­though in the very midst of the fu­ri­ous tem­pest, they did not suf­fer from it. They were thrown about and whirled round and round with­out feel­ing the ro­ta­tion in the slight­est de­gree, or be­ing sen­si­ble that they were re­moved from a hor­izon­tal po­si­tion.

Their eyes could not pierce through the thick mist which had gath­ered be­neath the car. Dark va­por was all around them. Such was the den­si­ty of the at­mo­sphere that they could not be cer­tain whether it was day or night. No re­flec­tion of light, no sound from in­hab­it­ed land, no roar­ing of the ocean could have reached them, through the ob­scu­ri­ty, while sus­pend­ed in those el­evat­ed zones. Their rapid de­scent alone had in­formed them of the dan­gers which they ran from the waves. How­ev­er, the bal­loon, light­ened of heavy ar­ti­cles, such as am­mu­ni­tion, arms, and pro­vi­sions, had risen in­to the high­er lay­ers of the at­mo­sphere, to a height of 4,500 feet. The voy­agers, af­ter hav­ing dis­cov­ered that the sea ex­tend­ed be­neath them, and think­ing the dan­gers above less dread­ful than those be­low, did not hes­itate to throw over­board even their most use­ful ar­ti­cles, while they en­deav­ored to lose no more of that flu­id, the life of their en­ter­prise, which sus­tained them above the abyss.

The night passed in the midst of alarms which would have been death to less en­er­get­ic souls. Again the day ap­peared and with it the tem­pest be­gan to mod­er­ate. From the be­gin­ning of that day, the 24th of March, it showed symp­toms of abat­ing. At dawn, some of the lighter clouds had risen in­to the more lofty re­gions of the air. In a few hours the wind had changed from a hur­ri­cane to a fresh breeze, that is to say, the rate of the tran­sit of the at­mo­spher­ic lay­ers was di­min­ished by half. It was still what sailors call “a close-​reefed top­sail breeze,” but the com­mo­tion in the el­ements had none the less con­sid­er­ably di­min­ished.

To­wards eleven o’clock, the low­er re­gion of the air was sen­si­bly clear­er. The at­mo­sphere threw off that chilly damp­ness which is felt af­ter the pas­sage of a great me­te­or. The storm did not seem to have gone far­ther to the west. It ap­peared to have ex­haust­ed it­self. Could it have passed away in elec­tric sheets, as is some­times the case with re­gard to the ty­phoons of the In­di­an Ocean?

But at the same time, it was al­so ev­ident that the bal­loon was again slow­ly de­scend­ing with a reg­ular move­ment. It ap­peared as if it were, lit­tle by lit­tle, col­laps­ing, and that its case was length­en­ing and ex­tend­ing, pass­ing from a spher­ical to an oval form. To­wards mid­day the bal­loon was hov­er­ing above the sea at a height of on­ly 2,000 feet. It con­tained 50,000 cu­bic feet of gas, and, thanks to its ca­pac­ity, it could main­tain it­self a long time in the air, al­though it should reach a great al­ti­tude or might be thrown in­to a hor­izon­tal po­si­tion.

Per­ceiv­ing their dan­ger, the pas­sen­gers cast away the last ar­ti­cles which still weighed down the car, the few pro­vi­sions they had kept, ev­ery­thing, even to their pock­et-​knives, and one of them, hav­ing hoist­ed him­self on to the cir­cles which unit­ed the cords of the net, tried to se­cure more firm­ly the low­er point of the bal­loon.

It was, how­ev­er, ev­ident to the voy­agers that the gas was fail­ing, and that the bal­loon could no longer be sus­tained in the high­er re­gions. They must in­fal­li­bly per­ish!

There was not a con­ti­nent, nor even an is­land, vis­ible be­neath them. The wa­tery ex­panse did not present a sin­gle speck of land, not a sol­id sur­face up­on which their an­chor could hold.

It was the open sea, whose waves were still dash­ing with tremen­dous vi­olence! It was the ocean, with­out any vis­ible lim­its, even for those whose gaze, from their com­mand­ing po­si­tion, ex­tend­ed over a ra­dius of forty miles. The vast liq­uid plain, lashed with­out mer­cy by the storm, ap­peared as if cov­ered with herds of fu­ri­ous charg­ers, whose white and di­sheveled crests were stream­ing in the wind. No land was in sight, not a soli­tary ship could be seen. It was nec­es­sary at any cost to ar­rest their down­ward course, and to pre­vent the bal­loon from be­ing en­gulfed in the waves. The voy­agers di­rect­ed all their en­er­gies to this ur­gent work. But, notwith­stand­ing their ef­forts, the bal­loon still fell, and at the same time shift­ed with the great­est ra­pid­ity, fol­low­ing the di­rec­tion of the wind, that is to say, from the north­east to the south­west.

Fright­ful in­deed was the sit­ua­tion of these un­for­tu­nate men. They were ev­ident­ly no longer mas­ters of the ma­chine. All their at­tempts were use­less. The case of the bal­loon col­lapsed more and more. The gas es­caped with­out any pos­si­bil­ity of re­tain­ing it. Their de­scent was vis­ibly ac­cel­er­at­ed, and soon af­ter mid­day the car hung with­in 600 feet of the ocean.

It was im­pos­si­ble to pre­vent the es­cape of gas, which rushed through a large rent in the silk. By light­en­ing the car of all the ar­ti­cles which it con­tained, the pas­sen­gers had been able to pro­long their sus­pen­sion in the air for a few hours. But the in­evitable catas­tro­phe could on­ly be re­tard­ed, and if land did not ap­pear be­fore night, voy­agers, car, and bal­loon must to a cer­tain­ty van­ish be­neath the waves.

They now re­sort­ed to the on­ly re­main­ing ex­pe­di­ent. They were tru­ly daunt­less men, who knew how to look death in the face. Not a sin­gle mur­mur es­caped from their lips. They were de­ter­mined to strug­gle to the last minute, to do any­thing to re­tard their fall. The car was on­ly a sort of wil­low bas­ket, un­able to float, and there was not the slight­est pos­si­bil­ity of main­tain­ing it on the sur­face of the sea.

Two more hours passed and the bal­loon was scarce­ly 400 feet above the wa­ter.

At that mo­ment a loud voice, the voice of a man whose heart was in­ac­ces­si­ble to fear, was heard. To this voice re­spond­ed oth­ers not less de­ter­mined. “Is ev­ery­thing thrown out?” “No, here are still 2,000 dol­lars in gold.” A heavy bag im­me­di­ate­ly plunged in­to the sea. “Does the bal­loon rise?” “A lit­tle, but it will not be long be­fore it falls again.” “What still re­mains to be thrown out?” “Noth­ing.” “Yes! the car!” “Let us catch hold of the net, and in­to the sea with the car.”

This was, in fact, the last and on­ly mode of light­en­ing the bal­loon. The ropes which held the car were cut, and the bal­loon, af­ter its fall, mount­ed 2,000 feet. The five voy­agers had hoist­ed them­selves in­to the net, and clung to the mesh­es, gaz­ing at the abyss.

The del­icate sen­si­bil­ity of bal­loons is well known. It is suf­fi­cient to throw out the light­est ar­ti­cle to pro­duce a dif­fer­ence in its ver­ti­cal po­si­tion. The ap­pa­ra­tus in the air is like a bal­ance of math­emat­ical pre­ci­sion. It can be thus eas­ily un­der­stood that when it is light­ened of any con­sid­er­able weight its move­ment will be im­petu­ous and sud­den. So it hap­pened on this oc­ca­sion. But af­ter be­ing sus­pend­ed for an in­stant aloft, the bal­loon be­gan to re­descend, the gas es­cap­ing by the rent which it was im­pos­si­ble to re­pair.

The men had done all that men could do. No hu­man ef­forts could save them now.

They must trust to the mer­cy of Him who rules the el­ements.

At four o’clock the bal­loon was on­ly 500 feet above the sur­face of the wa­ter.

A loud bark­ing was heard. A dog ac­com­pa­nied the voy­agers, and was held pressed close to his mas­ter in the mesh­es of the net.

“Top has seen some­thing,” cried one of the men. Then im­me­di­ate­ly a loud voice shout­ed,–

“Land! land!” The bal­loon, which the wind still drove to­wards the south­west, had since day­break gone a con­sid­er­able dis­tance, which might be reck­oned by hun­dreds of miles, and a tol­er­ably high land had, in fact, ap­peared in that di­rec­tion. But this land was still thir­ty miles off. It would not take less than an hour to get to it, and then there was the chance of falling to lee­ward.

An hour! Might not the bal­loon be­fore that be emp­tied of all the flu­id it yet re­tained?

Such was the ter­ri­ble ques­tion! The voy­agers could dis­tinct­ly see that sol­id spot which they must reach at any cost. They were ig­no­rant of what it was, whether an is­land or a con­ti­nent, for they did not know to what part of the world the hur­ri­cane had driv­en them. But they must reach this land, whether in­hab­it­ed or des­olate, whether hos­pitable or not.

It was ev­ident that the bal­loon could no longer sup­port it­self! Sev­er­al times al­ready had the crests of the enor­mous bil­lows licked the bot­tom of the net, mak­ing it still heav­ier, and the bal­loon on­ly half rose, like a bird with a wound­ed wing. Half an hour lat­er the land was not more than a mile off, but the bal­loon, ex­haust­ed, flab­by, hang­ing in great folds, had gas in its up­per part alone. The voy­agers, cling­ing to the net, were still too heavy for it, and soon, half plunged in­to the sea, they were beat­en by the fu­ri­ous waves. The bal­loon-​case bulged out again, and the wind, tak­ing it, drove it along like a ves­sel. Might it not pos­si­bly thus reach the land?

But, when on­ly two fath­oms off, ter­ri­ble cries re­sound­ed from four pairs of lungs at once. The bal­loon, which had ap­peared as if it would nev­er again rise, sud­den­ly made an un­ex­pect­ed bound, af­ter hav­ing been struck by a tremen­dous sea. As if it had been at that in­stant re­lieved of a new part of its weight, it mount­ed to a height of 1,500 feet, and here it met a cur­rent of wind, which in­stead of tak­ing it di­rect­ly to the coast, car­ried it in a near­ly par­al­lel di­rec­tion.

At last, two min­utes lat­er, it re­proached oblique­ly, and fi­nal­ly fell on a sandy beach, out of the reach of the waves.

The voy­agers, aid­ing each oth­er, man­aged to dis­en­gage them­selves from the mesh­es of the net. The bal­loon, re­lieved of their weight, was tak­en by the wind, and like a wound­ed bird which re­vives for an in­stant, dis­ap­peared in­to space.

But the car had con­tained five pas­sen­gers, with a dog, and the bal­loon on­ly left four on the shore.

The miss­ing per­son had ev­ident­ly been swept off by the sea, which had just struck the net, and it was ow­ing to this cir­cum­stance that the light­ened bal­loon rose the last time, and then soon af­ter reached the land. Scarce­ly had the four cast­aways set foot on firm ground, than they all, think­ing of the ab­sent one, si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly ex­claimed, “Per­haps he will try to swim to land! Let us save him! let us save him!”