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PART 1—DROPPED FROM THE CLOUDS
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!"