That being the case, where was this point? How had the engineer come to choose it? Was he expected by a little colony of which he was the chief? Could he there find a new crew?
What means had he that he should be able to build so costly a vessel as the Albatross and keep her building secret? It is true his living was not expensive. But, finally, who was this Robur? Where did he come from? What had been his history? Here were riddles impossible to solve; and Robur was not the man to assist willingly in their solution.
It is not to be wondered at that these insoluble problems drove the colleagues almost to frenzy. To find themselves whipped off into the unknown without knowing what the end might be, doubting even if the adventure would end, sentenced to perpetual aviation, was this not enough to drive the President and secretary of the Weldon Institute to extremities?
Meanwhile the Albatross drove along above the Atlantic, and in the morning when the sun rose there was nothing to be seen but the circular line where earth met sky. Not a spot of land was in sight in this huge field of vision. Africa had vanished beneath the northern horizon.
When Frycollin ventured out of his cabin and saw all this water beneath him, fear took possession of him.
Beneath him is hardly the correct phrase; we should have said around him, for to an observer above the earth the abyss seems to curve up like a bowl to the horizon on a level with his eye, and the edge of the horizon seems to travel away as he moves towards it.
It is probable that Frycollin could not explain this effect physically, but he felt it all the same, and it produced on him that horror of the abyss from which certain people, brave though they may be, cannot free themselves. The Negro was wise enough to say nothing. With eyes shut he felt his way back to his cabin, resolving to stay there for some considerable time.
Of the hundred and forty-five million square miles of which the area of the world’s waters consists, the Atlantic claims about a quarter; and it seemed as though the engineer was in no hurry to cross it. There was now no going at full speed, none of the hundred and twenty miles an hour at which the Albatross had flown over Europe. Here, where the southwest winds prevail, the wind was ahead of them, and though it was not very strong, it would not do to defy it. And the Albatross was sent along at a moderate speed, which, however, easily outstripped that of the fastest mail-boat.
On the 13th of July she crossed the line, and the fact was duly announced to the crew. It was then that Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans ascertained that they were bound for the southern hemisphere. The crossing of the line took place without any of the Neptunian ceremonies that still linger on certain ships. Tapage was the only one to mark the event, and he did so by pouring a pint of water down Frycollin’s neck.
On the morning of the 15th the Albatross passed between the islands of Ascension and St. Helena, approaching the last, whose higher ground showed above the horizon for some hours. In the evenings of the 16th and 17th of July there was a curious phenomenon at sunset. In a higher latitude it might have been taken for the aurora borealis. The sun as it disappeared shot forth a number of multicolored rays, some of which were of a vivid green.
Was this due to cosmic dust which the earth was then passing through, and which reflected the last beams of the day? Some observers have assigned such an origin to these crepuscular lights, but their explanation would not have been maintained for long had they been on board the aeronef, where it was found that there were floating in the air tiny crystals of pyroxene, and glassy globes and slender needles of magnetic iron, analogous to the matter ejected by certain volcanoes. There could be no doubt that a volcanic eruption had projected this cloud into the air, where it was held in suspension while it drifted over the Atlantic.
And other phenomena were observed. On several occasions the sky took a strange grayish tint, and when the curtain of vapor was passed its surface seemed ridged with white feathery clouds and dotted with solid spangles, giving an appearance which could only be explained as due to a form of hail.
In the night between the 17th and 18th there appeared a greenish lunar bow, owing to the aeronef being between the full moon and a curtain of fine rain which went off into vapor before it reached the sea.
Did these phenomena portend a change in the weather? Perhaps. Anyhow, the wind, which had blown from the southwest since their leaving the coast of Africa, had now dropped to a calm. And in this tropical zone it was extremely cold, for Robur had risen to get the benefit of the higher air-currents, and taken steps to screen himself from the direct rays of the sun, which would have been almost insupportable.
In the southern hemisphere the month of July answers to the month of January in the northern, that is to say, it is the depth of winter, and if the Albatross was kept on her southerly course she would soon feel the effect of this.
On the 18th of July, when beyond the tropic of Capricorn, another phenomenon was noticed, which would have been somewhat alarming to a ship on the sea. A strange succession of luminous waves widened out over the surface of the ocean with a speed estimated at quite sixty miles an hour. The waves ran along at about eighty feet from one another, tracing
