The Mysterious Island | Page 3

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,