Jules Verne (20 page)

Some weeks before, on the 13th of June, on the morning after the
sitting during which the Weldon Institute had been given over to such
stormy discussions, the excitement of all classes of the Philadelphia
population, black or white, had been much easier to imagine than to
describe.

From a very early hour conversation was entirely occupied with the
unexpected and scandalous incident of the night before. A stranger
calling himself an engineer, and answering to the name of Robur, a
person of unknown origin, of anonymous nationality, had unexpectedly
presented himself in the club-room, insulted the balloonists, made
fun of the aeronauts, boasted of the marvels of machines heavier than
air, and raised a frightful tumult by the remarks with which he
greeted the menaces of his adversaries. After leaving the desk, amid
a volley of revolver shots, he had disappeared, and in spite of every
endeavor, no trace could be found of him.

Assuredly here was enough to exercise every tongue and excite every
imagination. But by how much was this excitement increased when in
the evening of the 13th of June it was found that neither the
president nor secretary of the Weldon Institute had returned to their
homes! Was it by chance only that they were absent? No, or at least
there was nothing to lead people to think so. It had even been agreed
that in the morning they would be back at the club, one as president,
the other as secretary, to take their places during a discussion on
the events of the preceding evening.

And not only was there the complete disappearance of these two
considerable personages in the state of Pennsylvania, but there was
no news of the valet Frycollin. He was as undiscoverable as his
master. Never had a Negro since Toussaint L'Ouverture, Soulouque, or
Dessaline had so much talked about him.

The next day there was no news. Neither the colleagues nor Frycollin
had been found. The anxiety became serious. Agitation commenced. A
numerous crowd besieged the post and telegraph offices in case any
news should be received. There was no news.

And they had been seen coming out of the Weldon Institute loudly
talking together, and with Frycollin in attendance, go down Walnut
Street towards Fairmount Park! Jem Chip, the vegetarian, had even
shaken hands with the president and left him with "Tomorrow!"

And William T. Forbes, the manufacturer of sugar from rags, had
received a cordial shake from Phil Evans who had said to him twice,
"Au revoir! Au revoir!"

Miss Doll and Miss Mat Forbes, so attached to Uncle Prudent by the
bonds of purest friendship, could not get over the disappearance, and
in order to obtain news of the absent, talked even more than they
were accustomed to.

Three, four, five, six days passed. Then a week, then two weeks, and
there was nothing to give a clue to the missing three. The most
minute search had been made in every quarter. Nothing! In the park,
even under the trees and brushwood. Nothing! Always nothing! Although
here it was noticed that the grass looked to be pressed down in a way
that seemed suspicious and certainly was inexplicable; and at the
edge of the clearing there were traces of a recent struggle. Perhaps
a band of scoundrels had attacked the colleagues here in the deserted
park in the middle of the night!

It was possible. The police proceeded with their inquiries in all due
form and with all lawful slowness. They dragged the Schuyllkill
river, and cut into the thick bushes that fringe its banks; and if
this was useless it was not quite a waste, for the Schuyllkill is in
great want of a good weeding, and it got it on this occasion.
Practical people are the authorities of Philadelphia!

Then the newspapers were tried. Advertisements and notices and
articles were sent to all the journals in the Union without
distinction of color. The "Daily Negro," the special organ of the
black race, published a portrait of Frycollin after his latest
photograph. Rewards were offered to whoever would give news of the
three absentees, and even to those who would find some clue to put
the police on the track. "Five thousand dollars! Five thousand
dollars to any citizen who would—"

Nothing was done. The five thousand dollars remained with the
treasurer of the Weldon Institute.

Undiscoverable! Undiscoverable! Undiscoverable! Uncle Prudent and
Phil Evans, of Philadelphia!

It need hardly be said that the club was put to serious inconvenience
by this disappearance of its president and secretary. And at first
the assembly voted urgency to a measure which suspended the work on
the "Go-Ahead." How, in the absence of the principal promoters of the
affair, of those who had devoted to the enterprise a certain part of
their fortune in time and money—how could they finish the work when
these were not present? It were better, then, to wait.

And just then came the first news of the strange phenomenon which had
exercised people's minds some weeks before. The mysterious object
had been again seen at different times in the higher regions of the
atmosphere. But nobody dreamt of establishing a connection between
this singular reappearance and the no less singular disappearance of
the members of the Weldon Institute. In fact, it would have required
a very strong dose of imagination to connect one of these facts with
the other.

Whatever it might be, asteroid or aerolite or aerial monster, it had
reappeared in such a way that its dimensions and shape could be much
better appreciated, first in Canada, over the country between Ottawa
and Quebec, on the very morning after the disappearance of the
colleagues, and later over the plains of the Far West, where it had
tried its speed against an express train on the Union Pacific.

At the end of this day the doubts of the learned world were at an
end. The body was not a product of nature, it was a flying machine,
the practical application of the theory of "heavier than air." And if
the inventor of the aeronef had wished to keep himself unknown he
could evidently have done better than to try it over the Far West. As
to the mechanical force he required, or the engines by which it was
communicated, nothing was known, but there could be no doubt the
aeronef was gifted with an extraordinary faculty of locomotion. In
fact, a few days afterwards it was reported from the Celestial
Empire, then from the southern part of India, then from the Russian
steppes.

Who was then this bold mechanician that possessed such powers of
locomotion, for whom States had no frontiers and oceans no limits,
who disposed of the terrestrial atmosphere as if it were his domain?
Could it be this Robur whose theories had been so brutally thrown in
the face of the Weldon Institute the day he led the attack against
the utopia of guidable balloons? Perhaps such a notion occurred to
some of the wide-awake people, but none dreamt that the said Robur
had anything to do with the disappearance of the president and
secretary of the Institute.

Things remained in this state of mystery when a telegram arrived from
France through the New York cable at 11-37 A.M. on July 13. And what
was this telegram? It was the text of the document found at Paris in
a snuff-box revealing what had happened to the two personages for
whom the Union was in mourning.

So, then, the perpetrator of this kidnapping "was" Robur the
engineer, come expressly to Philadelphia to destroy in its egg the
theory of the balloonists. He it was who commanded the "Albatross!"
He it was who carried off by way of reprisal Uncle Prudent, Phil
Evans and Frycollin; and they might be considered lost for ever. At
least until some means were found of constructing an engine capable
of contending with this powerful machine their terrestrial friends
would never bring them back to earth.

What excitement! What stupor! The telegram from Paris had been
addressed to the members of the Weldon Institute. The members of the
club were immediately informed of it. Ten minutes later all
Philadelphia received the news through its telephones, and in less
than an hour all America heard of it through the innumerable electric
wires of the new continent.

No one would believe it! "It is an unseasonable joke," said some. "It
is all smoke," said others. How could such a thing be done in
Philadelphia, and so secretly, too? How could the "Albatross" have
been beached in Fairmount Park without its appearance having been
signaled all over Pennsylvania?

Very good. These were the arguments. The incredulous had the right of
doubting. But the right did not last long. Seven days after the
receipt of the telegram the French mail-boat "Normandie" came into the
Hudson, bringing the famous snuff-box. The railway took it in all
haste from New York to Philadelphia.

It was indeed the snuff-box of the President of the Weldon Institute.
Jem Chip would have done on at day to take some more substantial
nourishment, for he fell into a swoon when he recognized it. How many
a time had he taken from it the pinch of friendship! And Miss Doll
and Miss Mat also recognized it, and so did William T. Forbes, Truck
Milnor, Bat T. Fynn, and many other members. And not only was it the
president's snuff-box, it was the president's writing!

Then did the people lament and stretch out their hands in despair to
the skies. Uncle Prudent and his colleague carried away in a flying
machine, and no one able to deliver them!

The Niagara Falls Company, in which Uncle Prudent was the largest
shareholder, thought of suspending its business and turning off its
cataracts. The Wheelton Watch Company thought of winding up its
machinery, now it had lost its manager.

Nothing more was heard of the aeronef. July passed, and there was no
news. August ran its course, and the uncertainty on the subject of
Robur's prisoners was as great as ever. Had he, like Icarus, fallen a
victim to his own temerity?

The first twenty-seven days of September went by without result, but
on the 28th a rumor spread through Philadelphia that Uncle Prudent
and Phil Evans had during the afternoon quietly walked into the
president's house. And, what was more extraordinary, the rumor was
true, although very few believed it.

They had, however, to give in to the evidence. There could be no
doubt these were the two men, and not their shadows. And Frycollin
also had come back! The members of the club, then their friends, then
the crowd, swarmed into the president's house, and shook hands with
the president and secretary, and cheered them again and again. Jem
Chip was there, having left his luncheon's joint of boiled lettuces,
and William T. Forbes and his daughters, and all the members of the
club. It is a mystery how Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans emerged alive
from the thousands who welcomed them.

On that evening was the weekly meeting of the Institute. It was
expected that the colleagues would take their places at the desk. As
they had said nothing of their adventures, it was thought they would
then speak, and relate the impressions of their voyage. But for some
reason or other both were silent. And so also was Frycollin, whom his
congeners in their delirium had failed to dismember.

But though the colleagues did not tell what had happened to them,
that is no reason why we should not. We know what occurred on the
night of the 27th and 28th of July; the daring escape to the earth,
the scramble among the rocks, the bullet fired at Phil Evans, the cut
cable, and the "Albatross" deprived of her propellers, drifting off
to the northeast at a great altitude. Her electric lamps rendered her
visible for some time. And then she disappeared.

The fugitives had little to fear. Now could Robur get back to the
island for three or four hours if his screws were out of gear? By
that time the "Albatross" would have been destroyed by the explosion,
and be no more than a wreck floating on the sea; those whom she bore
would be mangled corpses, which the ocean would not even give up
again. The act of vengeance would be accomplished.

Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans looked upon it as an act of legitimate
self-defence, and felt no remorse whatever. Evans was but slightly
wounded by the rifle bullet, and the three made their way up from the
shore in the hope of meeting some of the natives. The hope was
realized. About fifty natives were living by fishing off the western
coast. They had seen the aeronef descend on the island, and they
welcomed the fugitives as if they were supernatural beings. They
worshipped them, we ought rather to say. They accommodated them in
the most comfortable of their huts.

As they had expected, Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans saw nothing more
of the aeronef. They concluded that the catastrophe had taken place
in some high region of the atmosphere, and that they would hear no
more of Robur and his prodigious machine.

Meanwhile they had to wait for an opportunity of returning to
America. The Chatham Islands are not much visited by navigators, and
all August passed without sign of a ship. The fugitives began to ask
themselves if they had not exchanged one prison for another.

At last a ship came to water at the Chatham Islands. It will not have
been forgotten that when Uncle Prudent was seized he had on him
several thousand paper dollars, much more than would take him back to
America. After thanking their adorers, who were not sparing of their
most respectful demonstrations, Uncle Prudent, Phil Evans, and
Frycollin embarked for Auckland. They said nothing of their
adventures, and in two weeks landed in New Zealand.

At Auckland, a mail-boat took them on board as passengers, and after
a splendid passage the survivors of the "Albatross" stepped ashore at
San Francisco. They said nothing as to who they were or whence they
had come, but as they had paid full price for their berths no
American captain would trouble them further. At San Francisco they
took the first train out on the Pacific Railway, and on the 27th of
September, they arrived at Philadelphia, That is the compendious
history of what had occurred since the escape of the fugitives. And
that is why this very evening the president and secretary of the
Weldon Institute took their seats amid a most extraordinary
attendance.