Tom Turner seized the arquebus, which was resting against a cleat on the rail.
He fired, and the projectile, attached to a long line, entered the whale's body.
The shell, filled with an explosive compound, burst, and shot out a small harpoon with two branches, which fastened into the animal's flesh.
"Look out!" shouted Turner.
Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans, much against their will, became greatly interested in the spectacle.
The whale, seriously wounded, gave the sea such a slap with his tail, that the water dashed up over the bow of the aeronef.
Then he plunged to a great depth, while the line, which had been previously wetted in a tub of water to prevent its taking fire, ran out like lightning.
When the whale rose to the surface he started off at full speed in a northerly direction.
It may be imagined with what speed the "Albatross" was towed in pursuit.
Besides, the propellers had been stopped. The whale was let go as he would, and the ship followed him.
Turner stood ready to cut the line in case a fresh plunge should render this towing dangerous.
For half an hour, and perhaps for a distance of six miles, the "Albatross" was thus dragged along, but it was obvious that the whale was tiring.
Then, at a gesture from Robur the assistant engineers started the propellers astern, so as to oppose a certain resistance to the whale, who was gradually getting closer.
Soon the aeronef was gliding about twenty-five feet above him.
His tail was beating the waters with incredible violence, and as he turned over on his back an enormous wave was produced.
Suddenly the whale turned up again, so as to take a header, as it were, and then dived with such rapidity that Turner had barely time to cut the line.
The aeronef was dragged to the very surface of the water.
A whirlpool was formed where the animal had disappeared.
A wave dashed up on to the deck as if the aeronef were a ship driving against wind an tide,
Luckily, with a blow of the hatchet the mate severed the line, and the
"Albatross," freed from her tug, sprang aloft six hundred feet under the impulse of her ascensional screws.
Robur had maneuvered his ship without losing his coolness for a moment.
A few minutes afterwards the whale returned to the surface--dead.
From every side the birds flew down on to the carcass, and their cries were enough to deafen a congress.
The "Albatross," without stopping to share in the spoil, resumed her course to the west.
In the morning of the 17th of June, at about six o'clock, land was sighted on the horizon.
This was the peninsula of Alaska, and the long range of breakers of the Aleutian Islands.
The "Albatross" glided over the barrier where the fur seals. swarm for the benefit of the Russo-American Company.
An excellent business is the capture of these amphibians, which are from six to seven feet long, russet in color, and weigh from three hundred to four hundred pounds.
There they were in interminable files, ranged in line of battle, and countable by thousands.
Although they did not move at the passage of the "Albatross," it was otherwise with the ducks, divers, and loons, whose husky cries filled the air as they disappeared beneath the waves and fled terrified from the aerial monster.
The twelve hundred miles of the Behring Sea between the first of the Aleutians and the extreme end of Kamtschatka were traversed during the twenty-four hours of this day and the following night.
Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans found that here was no present chance of putting their project of escape into execution.
Flight was not to be thought of among the deserts of Eastern Asia, nor on the coast of the sea of Okhotsk.
Evidently the "Albatross" was bound for Japan or China, and there, although it was not perhaps quite safe to trust themselves to the, mercies of the Chinese or Japanese, the two friends had made up their minds to run if the aeronef stopped.
But would she stop?
She was not like a bird which grows fatigued by too long a flight, or like a balloon which has to descend for want of gas. She still had food for many weeks and her organs were of marvelous strength, defying all weakness and weariness.
During the 18th of June she swept over the peninsula of Kamtschatka, and during the day there was a glimpse of Petropaulovski and the volcano of Kloutschew.
Then she rose again to cross the Sea of Okhotsk, running down by the Kurile Isles, which seemed to be a breakwater pierced by hundreds of channels.
On the 19th, in the morning, the
"Albatross" was over the strait of La Perouse between Saghalien and Northern Japan, and had reached the mouth of the great Siberian river, the Amoor.
Then there came a fog so dense that the aeronef had to rise above it.
At the altitude she was there was no obstacle to be feared, no elevated monuments to hinder her passage, no mountains against which there was risk of being shattered in her flight.
The country was only slightly varied.
But the fog was very disagreeable, and made everything on board very damp.
All that was necessary was to get above this bed of mist, which was nearly thirteen hundred feet thick, and the ascensional screws being increased in speed, the
"Albatross" was soon clear of the fog and in the sunny regions of the sky.
Under these circumstances, Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans would have found some difficulty in carrying out their plan of escape, even admitting that they could leave the aeronef.
During the day, as Robur passed them he stopped for a moment, and without seeming to attach any importance to what he said, addressed them carelessly as follows:
"Gentlemen, a sailing-ship or a steamship caught in a fog from which it cannot escape is always much delayed.