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Fixed Flight - Maurice Renard · The Fixed Flight

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  Speaker 1: Section one of The Fixed Flight by Maurice Renard. This
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  Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. Read by Ben Tucker, Part one. Towards
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  Speaker 1: ten o'clock in the morning, the man we had rescued
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  Speaker 1: opened his eyes. I was prepared to see the usual recovery.
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  Speaker 1: The feverish fingers passed across the brow, where am I
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  Speaker 1: whispered in a feeble voice, not at all. For some seconds,
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  Speaker 1: the man who owed his life to us remained perfectly still,
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  Speaker 1: with a lost look. Then his eyes lit up with
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  Speaker 1: life and intelligence, and he lent his ear to the
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  Speaker 1: noise of the screw in the lapping of the waves
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  Speaker 1: against the hull. Sitting up in his narrow berth, he
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  Speaker 1: inspected the cabin as coolly as if neither Gayton nor
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  Speaker 1: myself had been there. We next saw him turn to
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  Speaker 1: the porthole to look at the sea, and then examined us,
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  Speaker 1: one after the other, with a stare as void of curiosity,
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  Speaker 1: as of good manners, regarding as if we had been
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  Speaker 1: pieces of furniture which had escaped notice. Up till now
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  Speaker 1: and then, with crossed arms, he relapsed into a deep revery.
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  Speaker 1: To judge from his looks, the stranger was a well
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  Speaker 1: bred man, with handsome face and well shaped hands, and
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  Speaker 1: his clothes ringing wet as they had been, seemed those
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  Speaker 1: of a gentleman. So his behavior annoyed my companion and
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  Speaker 1: surprised me. Although I had been long accustomed to see
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  Speaker 1: in Gayton himself nobility under the bearing of a yokel
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  Speaker 1: and breeding misallied with an insolent manner at all events,
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  Speaker 1: my astonishment did not last long. Let us have no
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  Speaker 1: rash judgments, I said to myself, May not the queer
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  Speaker 1: behavior of this sinister being be due to some brain
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  Speaker 1: disturbance comprehensible and excusable, particularly after such an accident, And
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  Speaker 1: ought we not, by all showing to respect his unspoken thoughts,
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  Speaker 1: they should not be commonplace ones, considering the extraordinary circumstances
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  Speaker 1: of his arrival. But Gayton, seeing himself at the same
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  Speaker 1: time quite well and yet so unamiable, waxed impatient. Well,
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  Speaker 1: he said, arrogantly, how are you now better? Eh? You
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  Speaker 1: are better? Hey, you are better? He repeated again and again,
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  Speaker 1: and obtained no reply. The man did not seem at
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  Speaker 1: all nonplussed at being thus addressed. He looked at Gayton
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  Speaker 1: from head to foot, his elegant appearance, his whole aspect
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  Speaker 1: so ill fitted to his speech, and, after a period
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  Speaker 1: of thought which prejudice, the ill mannered aristocrat, still more
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  Speaker 1: against him, said, making a sign of assent, Yes, he
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  Speaker 1: did feel better good, I said to myself. He understands French,
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  Speaker 1: a fellow countryman. Perhaps you are in Luck's way, said Gayton,
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  Speaker 1: without us You know, old buck well, are you daf
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  Speaker 1: Can't you open your mouth? He said, angrily? Are you hurt?
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  Speaker 1: I said, pushing my friend aside, rather to put a
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  Speaker 1: stop to his speech than to inquire after the health
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  Speaker 1: of our taciturn friend. Tell me are you in pain?
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  Speaker 1: The man shook his head and continued to follow the
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  Speaker 1: thread of his thoughts. My fears grew, and I exchanged
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  Speaker 1: an anxious look with Gayton. I don't know if the
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  Speaker 1: man intercepted it, but I fancy I saw the glimmer
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  Speaker 1: of a smile in his eyes. Do you want anything
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  Speaker 1: to drink? I said, pointing at me. He spoke with
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  Speaker 1: a queer foreign accent. Doctor No, I replied, cheerily. No. No,
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  Speaker 1: And as his eyes still questioned me a writer, I replied,
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  Speaker 1: an author. You understand. He made a gracious gesture of assent,
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  Speaker 1: almost a bow, and poked his chin inquisitively towards Gayton.
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  Speaker 1: I I do nothing, the latter said, with a laugh,
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  Speaker 1: a man of leisure, adding an imitation of my own words, Ah,
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  Speaker 1: do nothing, an idler, You understand. I watched the effect
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  Speaker 1: of our graciousness on our visitor's face, and then quickly
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  Speaker 1: I made a diversion. This gentleman is the owner of
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  Speaker 1: the yacht, I explained. You are the guest of Baron
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  Speaker 1: Gayton de Venues Paradol, who has picked you up. And
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  Speaker 1: I am Gerald Sinclair, his traveling companion. But instead of
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  Speaker 1: giving us his name and status, as I had intended
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  Speaker 1: him to do, the man reflected for a moment, and
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  Speaker 1: then laboriously articulated, can you tell me what has occurred? Please?
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  Speaker 1: I've completely lost all memory from a certain point. This time,
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  Speaker 1: his intonation, agreeably incorrect, revealed itself as the English accent
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  Speaker 1: well explained Gayton, it was quite simple. The launch was lower.
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  Speaker 1: The sailors fished you out. But but before that, monsieur,
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  Speaker 1: what happened before before What you do mean before the explosion,
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  Speaker 1: I suppose, said my friend mockingly. The man looked stupefied.
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  Speaker 1: What explosion, Monsieur. I had a presentiment that Gayton was
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  Speaker 1: growing angry, so I intervened once more, old man, I said,
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  Speaker 1: in a low voice, when me talk to this individual,
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  Speaker 1: there is no doubt he suffering from loss of memory,
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  Speaker 1: which is common enough after great emotional disturbances, and he
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  Speaker 1: very likely remembers nothing about his terrific accident. Keep quiet
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  Speaker 1: and leave him to me. Then, addressing the man with
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  Speaker 1: no memory, I said, Monsieur, I will tell you all
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  Speaker 1: we know of your adventure. I hope that it will
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  Speaker 1: refresh your memory and so enable you to give your
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  Speaker 1: host a complete description of the occurrence to which he
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  Speaker 1: owes the honor of your acquaintance. Notwithstanding that I underlined
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  Speaker 1: the words your host with look and accent, my listener
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  Speaker 1: did not WinCE. He knodded his hands round his propped
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  Speaker 1: up legs, put his chin on his knees, and awaited
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  Speaker 1: the continuation of my story. I went on. You are
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  Speaker 1: on the steam yacht Oshanide, monsieur owner, Monsieur de Vinous
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  Speaker 1: paradolet Captain one Duval her port Javore, and you are safe.
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  Speaker 1: She is a fine boat, ninety meters in length. Her
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  Speaker 1: registered tonnage is two thousand, one hundred and eighty four.
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  Speaker 1: She steams her fifteen knots an hour, and her engines
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  Speaker 1: indicate five thousand horse power. There was only my host
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  Speaker 1: and myself in addition to the crew of ninety five
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  Speaker 1: until we came across you. It is not much as
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  Speaker 1: the yacht has twenty four cabins like yours, But Monsieur
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  Speaker 1: de Vinier's cruise, on account of its length, attracted no
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  Speaker 1: one but your humble servant. We are returning from Havana,
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  Speaker 1: where my friend was pleased to choose his own cigars
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  Speaker 1: on the spot, so to speak. And so and so,
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  Speaker 1: I quite expected to have made a great impression with
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  Speaker 1: that touch about the cigars carelessly introduced, But I might
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  Speaker 1: have spared my breath, so Monsieur, our return journey was
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  Speaker 1: accomplished in peaceful monotony until three days ago, when something
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  Speaker 1: went wrong with the engines. We had to stop. To
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  Speaker 1: day is the twenty first of August, so it was
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  Speaker 1: the eighteenth. We set about repair the broken coupling rod
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  Speaker 1: on the spot, and the captain was desirous of profiting
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  Speaker 1: by the delay to strengthen the rudder. We were lying
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  Speaker 1: in ten degrees north latitude and thirty seven degrees twenty
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  Speaker 1: three fifteen west longitude, not far from the Azores Islands,
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  Speaker 1: one thousand, two hundred ninety miles from the Portuguese coast,
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  Speaker 1: one thousand, seven hundred and eighty seven miles from the
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  Speaker 1: American coast, just two thirds of our journey in fact,
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  Speaker 1: and we only started again at daybreak this morning on
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  Speaker 1: the eighteenth. The air was still in the sea like oil,
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  Speaker 1: no breeze, no current, nothing stirred. A sailing ship with
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  Speaker 1: all sails spread would not have made a cable's length
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  Speaker 1: in twelve hours, and the Oshanid at the caprice of
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  Speaker 1: the elements remained perfectly motionless. There was nothing very lively
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  Speaker 1: about it. All still on, the captain assuring us that
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  Speaker 1: the work should be put through immediately. We took the
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  Speaker 1: thing without much annoyance, and owing to the extreme heat,
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  Speaker 1: for we made no wind to temperate, we decided to
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  Speaker 1: sleep during the day and pass our nights on the bridge.
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  Speaker 1: Breakfast was to be served there at eight o'clock in
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  Speaker 1: the evening, and dinner at four o'clock in the morning.
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  Speaker 1: Now the day before yesterday, Friday the nineteenth, we were
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  Speaker 1: walking up and down the quarter deck in the interval
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  Speaker 1: between our nocturnal meals, smoking in the moonlight. All the constellations,
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  Speaker 1: even the planets, seemed to glitter. There was a continuous
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  Speaker 1: shower of shooting stars, and on the inky background of
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  Speaker 1: the night, their white traces lingered so long that you
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  Speaker 1: might have taken them from mysterious chalk marks describing parabolas
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  Speaker 1: on the blackboard of the heavens. I never tired of
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  Speaker 1: following this mysterious lesson in grandiose geometry, and everything around
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  Speaker 1: us assisted the majesty of the spectacle. Absolute silence reigned.
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  Speaker 1: The crew was asleep. One heard but the dull sound
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  Speaker 1: of our India rubber souls on the deck planking. We
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  Speaker 1: were making perhaps our twentieth turn on the deck, when
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  Speaker 1: a whistle came up from the far distance to starboard
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  Speaker 1: of us. Almost at the same moment we saw rather
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  Speaker 1: high up in the sky, and on the same side,
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  Speaker 1: a glimmer of light passed over the yacht, the whistling
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  Speaker 1: accompanying it. The latter grew louder, swelled, and then died.
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  Speaker 1: Away altogether, while the light passed above our heads at
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  Speaker 1: a comparatively slow rate for a celestial body, and glided
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  Speaker 1: from one horizon to the other like a near and
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  Speaker 1: sluggish shooting star. That, by the bye is the conclusion
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  Speaker 1: we formed almost immediately that it was a meteor. The
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  Speaker 1: man on the watch agreed with us, although he had
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  Speaker 1: never seen anything similar during his thirty years of service,
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  Speaker 1: and the captain, who was called on deck by the
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  Speaker 1: whistling inclined to the theory of a bull. Eight. When
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  Speaker 1: he had heard our explanation, he entered on the log
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  Speaker 1: book that on the twentieth of August, towards half past
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  Speaker 1: twelve at night, a faintly luminous arelith had passed through
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  Speaker 1: the air just above the oceaneede, making a sharp curve
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  Speaker 1: from east to west, and thus following the fortieth parallel
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  Speaker 1: where we lay at anchor. Then I looked hard at
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  Speaker 1: the man. He hugged his knees more closely, shut his eyes,
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  Speaker 1: and waited for me to continue. You can imagine I
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  Speaker 1: went on somewhat crestfall. You can imagine that the meteor
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  Speaker 1: supplied us with a topic for conversation. Each one of
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  Speaker 1: us held divers views about it. I upheld a certain
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  Speaker 1: relation which had struck me, between its rate of speed
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  Speaker 1: and the duration of the whistle, and Monsieur de Vignes
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  Speaker 1: gave us his opinion, a perfectly feasible, but somewhat unusual one.
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  Speaker 1: According to him, the bull eight, which we had so
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  Speaker 1: far thought to have burst from the sky, quite possibly
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  Speaker 1: may have come out of the sea. There was nothing
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  Speaker 1: to prove the contrary. This was mere speculation. But the
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  Speaker 1: more fantastic our theories were, Monsieur, the more attraction they
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  Speaker 1: had for us. So we tried to explain away the
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  Speaker 1: fright we had had by calling it preternatural. To tell
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  Speaker 1: you the truth, the sudden appearance of this body bearing
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  Speaker 1: straight for the ship had no doubt been disturbing, and
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  Speaker 1: we had given a sigh of relief to see the
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  Speaker 1: projectile pass so high above us. All the more that
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  Speaker 1: at the very moment of our deliverance, its infernal whistling
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  Speaker 1: made us duck our heads, which is what your warrior
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  Speaker 1: calls saluting the ball short. We hoped, from the bottom
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  Speaker 1: of our hearts never again to have to undergo such
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  Speaker 1: experimental astronomy, But that did not prevent the phenomena from
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  Speaker 1: reappearing last night somewhat later towards one o'clock in the morning,
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  Speaker 1: with complications and other ways dramatic. Yesterday, Monsieur de Vignes,
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  Speaker 1: who was growing tired of this idling on an empty
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  Speaker 1: ocean under a sky full of dangers, gave orders that
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  Speaker 1: the business of repairs was to be carried on day
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  Speaker 1: and night, relieved every two hours. A working party was
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  Speaker 1: set at the broken coupling rod in the engine room,
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  Speaker 1: and another in the launch at the disabled rudder. The
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  Speaker 1: latter had finished their job and were getting ready to
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  Speaker 1: climb back on the yacht. At the very moment when
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  Speaker 1: the strange bull eye sounded its periodical whistle in the
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  Speaker 1: distance across the sky, as brilliantly luminous as that of
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  Speaker 1: the night before. We all saw the pale light grow,
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  Speaker 1: rise and glide towards us. Monsieur de Venus said he
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  Speaker 1: thought it passed slower than before, and in my opinion
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  Speaker 1: the whistling was deeper in tone and less shrill. Nevertheless,
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  Speaker 1: the asteroid was traveling at a fair rate. In a
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  Speaker 1: few seconds it would reach the zenith, and from there
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  Speaker 1: doubtless would sink peacefully behind the westerly horizon, and so
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  Speaker 1: the world was the possessor of a satellite, the more
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  Speaker 1: a moon, small and ephemeral as a night light. But
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  Speaker 1: all at once there appeared in its place, swift as
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  Speaker 1: a streak of lightning a sun. It ceased moving westwards,
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  Speaker 1: and the whistling was lost in a terrific detonation. I
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  Speaker 1: felt as if an invisible fist had punched me in
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  Speaker 1: the diaphragm. The shaken air seemed to throttle me. I
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  Speaker 1: could feel the plates of the oceanid trembling. A wind
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  Speaker 1: got up, which died down almost immediately in waves rose
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  Speaker 1: on the sea, only to disappear in the same manner.
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  Speaker 1: Then we very distinctly heard a shower of things fall
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  Speaker 1: into the sea. One of them sank quite near the launch,
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  Speaker 1: rose and started to swim. That was you, monsieur, clinging
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  Speaker 1: to the bolts of a sheet iron door, a curious
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  Speaker 1: kind of sheet iron light as a feather. Because it
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  Speaker 1: bore you up as you floated, you were picked up,
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  Speaker 1: unconscious and not knowing if you had been alone aboard
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  Speaker 1: the Arelith. The captain caused the launch to search over
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  Speaker 1: a radius of two miles, so she scoured the field
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  Speaker 1: of the catastrophe without meeting with anything but some metal fragments.
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  Speaker 1: The sea was strewn with them. They shone with a
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  Speaker 1: certain dulled glimmer, so to speak, and were very buoyant
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  Speaker 1: on the water. But there was no sign of any
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  Speaker 1: living being, as you were still unconscious. Notwithstanding our care.
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  Speaker 1: We undressed you, put you to bed, and watched over
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  Speaker 1: you during the search. But I think I can assure
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  Speaker 1: you that your unconsciousness became merged in deep sleep towards dawn,
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  Speaker 1: just about the time we started once more for Havre,
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  Speaker 1: which we hoped to reach in a week's time. And
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  Speaker 1: now shall we be allowed to know whom we have
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  Speaker 1: the honor of entertaining. The man wagged his head but
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  Speaker 1: made no reply. And the metal plate, he said at length,
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  Speaker 1: the floating plate, and the fragments, well, said Gayton. They
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  Speaker 1: remained behind on the spot where you took to the
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  Speaker 1: water duval. The captain decided it was fero aluminum, and
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  Speaker 1: of such poor quality that it was not worth taking aboard.
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  Speaker 1: The stranger smiled openly on seeing which my friend assailed
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  Speaker 1: him in a tone of cheery remonstrance. I say, tell
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  Speaker 1: us your little game, won't you we won't give you away.
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  Speaker 1: It was a balloon. What it was your dirigible that burst?
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  Speaker 1: Wasn't it burst with a vengeance? My boy, come tell
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  Speaker 1: me all about it. Won't you well please yourself? He added,
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  Speaker 1: in an injured tone. I suppose it is your business.
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  Speaker 1: If you won't let anything out, you won't then the other,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: in his queer clownish jargon, embarked on a long sentence.
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  Speaker 1: Monsieur le baron, he said, with slow utterance, with extremely
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  Speaker 1: little ceremony. Ah, your desire is that I should explain
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  Speaker 1: why I'm here uninvited, and how and why? For now
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  Speaker 1: I remember everything very well. But before the recital, permit me,
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  Speaker 1: Monsieur le Baron, that I if you please. I'm hungry,
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  Speaker 1: that is to say, I have a splendid appetite. Have
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  Speaker 1: you got my clothes? Gayton ordered them to bring one
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  Speaker 1: of his own yachting suits in a change of linen
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  Speaker 1: from his wardrobe. Your own duds are not dry, said he,
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  Speaker 1: taking it for granted that his sling would be understood.
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  Speaker 1: For the matter of that they will never be fit
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  Speaker 1: to put on again. Your your purse and your watch,
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  Speaker 1: which were in your pockets. What do you think of those?
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Blue surs, trousers and the pilot coat with its gold buttons.
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  Speaker 1: Don't you like them? Have you no black clothes? Asked
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  Speaker 1: the man, seizing hold of his purse. No, but why black?
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  Speaker 1: Your own clothes were gray. I should have preferred black.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: But no matter, it can't be helped. Meanwhile, Gayton had
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  Speaker 1: opened his guest's watch, like the badly brought schoolboy that
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  Speaker 1: he was. I couldn't look inside your purse, he confessed. No,
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  Speaker 1: replied the man, calmly, it has a secret fastening. As
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  Speaker 1: for your ticker, look at those initials, exclaimed ven News
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: with a burst of laughter. The case bears a C
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: and an A entwined, What are you called, artful, Charles E?
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: My name is Archibald Clark, at your service, monsieur, and
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: I am an American from Trenton, New Jersey. As for
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  Speaker 1: my story, I hope to have the privilege of telling
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: it to you directly after lunch. Will you kindly lend
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  Speaker 1: me a razor? We left him to himself. The knowledge
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: of his name afforded me great consolation, A consolation I
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  Speaker 1: feel at this moment in being able to designate him
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  Speaker 1: by the one word Clark, instead of having to add
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  Speaker 1: a fresh bead to the string of choice and descriptive
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: variants such as the unknown, the sinister person, the man,
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  Speaker 1: and the rhetorical subterfuges. But Gayton was fear He swore
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  Speaker 1: at the intruder's manners, I mean it Clark's, and he
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  Speaker 1: only changed his opinion at the sight of the Americans,
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  Speaker 1: I mean Clark's entry into the dining room truly in
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  Speaker 1: Gayton's pilot coat, he appeared a presentable looking fellow, enough
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  Speaker 1: a sympathetic face, well educated, easy mannered, in short, a
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  Speaker 1: very gentlemanly man, mister Archibald Clark ate and drank conscientiously
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  Speaker 1: without uttering a syllable. He poured himself out a small
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  Speaker 1: glass of Scotch whiskey with his coffee, let a claro
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  Speaker 1: a dollar even at the manufactory, and holding out his
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  Speaker 1: hand to us, said, gentlemen, I thank you. Was it
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: for the lunch or for having rescued him? That question
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: is still to be answered. Then, drawing two or three
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: puffs in succession value at least two cents a puff,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: he started speaking slowly, feeling for his words and even
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  Speaker 1: perhaps for his ideas. The reader will perchance forgive me
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: for correcting the most outlandish in the most muddled French
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  Speaker 1: that a citizen of the United States has ever elaborated.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: And I have not thought it necessary to mention the
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: innumerable pauses which occurred for various reasons in mister Clarke's narrative.
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  Speaker 1: Doubtless said he you know the Corbettes by name of Philadelphia. No,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: after all, it is not unnatural in France. One may
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: well ignore the existence of a far distant couple who,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, have made all the principal
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: discoveries of these last years, but who have had the
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: ill luck to make them at the same time as
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: other savants quicker to divulge their secrets to the world. Edison,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: the curies berthelot Marconi Renard discovered nothing which my brother
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: in law Randolph and my sister Ethel Corbett had not
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: made their own. Only the former made their discoveries a
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: little earlier, so much so that my unlucky relatives were
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: doomed to carry out their work of genius, while an
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: unexpected rival proclaimed his own discovery, which was identical too late.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Appears to be their device. That is why you've not
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: heard of them at home. So they are a celebrated couple,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: and not long ago the papers never tired of praising
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: their indomitable pluck, that was on a matter of deep
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: sea diving. For some months past. In fact, they have
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: been said to be keen above all on submersibles, aerostats,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: motor cars, in fact, on all kinds, a little used
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: in giddy forms of locomotion, and so and so. Forgive
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: me for telling you all this so clumsily, but your
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: language makes it difficult for me and limits my thoughts.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: And lastly, promise me you will be discreet, for there
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: is a secret to be told which is not mine. Good,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: thank you well. Then the other day, the eighteenth of August,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: as I was leaving my office, a telegram was handed
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: to me, signed Ethel Corbett, begging mister Archibald Clark, chief
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: accountant at Roebling Brothers Cable Manufacturers of Trenton, New Jersey,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: to repair without delay to Philadelphia. This invitation made me thoughtful.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: A slight disagreement had arisen between us over a wretched
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: affair of a legacy, and for this reason the Corbettes
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: and I had not met for some time. What was
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: the matter? I wavered, But the address on the telegram
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: detailed almost superfluously as it was told me how much
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: my sister wanted it to reach me without any drawback
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: or delay. Certainly it was something important and no mistake.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: And then one's family is one's family after all, is
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: it not? End of Part one, Section two of The
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Fixed Flight by Maurice Renaud. This LibriVox recording is in
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: the public domain. Read by Ben Tucker, Part two. An
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: hour later, the Pennsylvania Railroad, having put me down at
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: West Philadelphia station, I was driving in a hansom to Belmont,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: That is where the Corbettes live, and beautiful Fairmont Park
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: on the banks of the Schuylkill River, extremely handy for
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: all kinds of boating and even subopqueous navigation. The cab
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: passed through the western suburbs, crossed a bridge, and reached
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: the open country. During the journey, night had fallen, But
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: so starfield was it that I could recognize afar off
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: my brother in law's house, a modest little house forsooth
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: and looking yet smaller more modest, nestling against the huge workshop,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: close to the enormous shed, and facing the trial ground
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: for automobiles and aeroplanes, I recognized at Messier's and my
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: heart sank, and the whole imposing block of buildings only
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: one window of the living room was illuminated. Now, the
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Corbett's night work is common talk in Pennsylvania. Nightly the
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Festival of Labor illuminates the glass roof of the workshop
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: and long windows of the shed. You can imagine, then,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: what an alarming affair such silence and obscurity had The
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: other night, Jim the Negro opened the door to me
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: in the dark and led me to Corbett's bedroom, the
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: only one lit up. I saw that my brother in
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: law was in bed, and that he looked feverish and yellow.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: At that moment, my sister came in. During the last
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: four years I had only seen her face in the magazines.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: She had scarcely changed at all. Her dress had the
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: same boyish cut, and her short hair was scarcely touched
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: with gray, in spite of her years. How do you do, Archie,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: said Randolph. I had no doubt you would come as
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: quickly as you could. We are in need of you,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: so I should imagine, Randolph, what can I do? Help?
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Don't don't tired yourself interrupted, my sister, I will tell
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: him everything quickly for the time presses, Archie. We have
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: built no there is no need for anxiety. Rudolph is
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: in no danger. It is merely an attack of influenza.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: But he is absolutely obliged to keep his room and
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: his bed. I must beg you not to interrupt me again.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: We have built, in deepest mystery, Randolph, Jim and myself
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: a highly interesting machine, Archie, And for fear that some
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: one should once again forestall us, we have always vowed
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: to give our machine a trial as soon as it
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: should be finished, as ill luck will have it. Influenza
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: has interfered with our plans to day. At this identical moment,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: the thing is ready and Randolph on the road to recovery. Nevertheless,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: it is impossible to postpone the experiment, and three people
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: are necessary for the maneuver. Who is to take Randolph's place?
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: I am who is to take mine, Jim? And who
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: will take Jim's place? Why you? I thought your post
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: exacts no strength or presence of mind. It will merely
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: need a little self control on the trial trip and
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: much discretion afterwards. I know your good qualities, Archie. You
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: can help us better than any one else. Will you
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: do it all right? Forget what is over and done with, Ethel.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: I have come to make myself useful. We shall run
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: some danger, so be warned, pooh. Moreover, how should I
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: put this? This sport in short that we are gonna
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: try is quite out of the way, extraordinary, most odd,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: almost monstrous. That is all the same to me. I
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: have come to make myself useful. Show me my bedroom.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: I'll go to bed at once so as to be
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: quite fit. Tomorrow morning, tomorrow, exclaimed Corbett. It isn't tomorrow,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: it's now at once. There it is striking eleven o'clock. Go,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: my dear boy, go and don't waste time. What the
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: experiment now in the middle of the night. Yes, it
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: has to take place out of doors. And if it
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: were daylight? Would our secret remain a secret? I ask you,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: from all those inquisitive and jealous engineers who are continually
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: spying upon us out of doors? Good? After all, what
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: is it really? But Ethel was full of impatience. Come along, then,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: as it is all settled, she cried, Everything is ready.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: The working of the apparatus will enable you to understand
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: its aim better than any description. What change your clothes? No,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: need for a disguise. We are not going on the stage.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Come along, au revoir, arn't ye, said Randolph, till tomorrow evening.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: What till tomorrow evening? I exclaimed, as I followed my sister.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: You're taking me on a journey, it seems till tomorrow evening.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: But Randolph said, we were not to be seen in
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: broad daylight. So we are to stop somewhere before dawn.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Where shall we spend the day? In fact, where are
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: we going to to Philadelphia? I beg your pardon to Philadelphia?
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: But we are there already. Quite so, my worthy but
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: stupid brother. We shall make a sercent in return. I
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: kept silence, knowing that she would not tell me any more,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: and I was fully occupied in feeling my way in
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: the dark. Ethel did not want to arouse the curiosity
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: of the inquisitive or the watchfulness of spies, which a
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: moving light probably would have done. She led the way
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: along an interminable passage, then through the workshop. There one
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: could see clearly through the glass roof the stars and
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: the rays of the rising moon shone on a chaos
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: of strange forms. To reach the further end of the room,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: we had to walk in zigzag fashion among the most
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: fantastic disorder. Stepped across barriers of iron ties which seemed
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: to rise up against us, avoid weird creatures of steel
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: crouching on their four wheels, and also creep past unexplained
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: mills with sails twisted screw fashion. Ethel threaded her way
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: amidst this queer conglomeration without knocking up against anything. As
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: for me, I but escaped the wire of a rubber
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: tire coiling round my feet to succumb to the noose
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: of a rope twisted in artful folds. Then, after a
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: successful battle against this hemp and python, a sort of
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: spider caught me in its net, and I was entangled
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: in a web of stretched cords. I ended by casting
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: myself on the yielding bosom of what proved to be
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: the cover of a half deflated balloon. Catching hold of
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: what seemed to be an iron shark, I managed to
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: free myself, but only now to knock up against some
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: sort of a wooden bird. But probably the presiding sprite
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: of invention had put my valor sufficiently to the test
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: for all. At once I found myself face to face
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: with Jim in the shed. This shed was as big
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: as the nave of a cathedral, and served as a
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: garage for the balloons they were standing all round it.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: The moon shone on their more or less inflated bodies. Spherical, oval,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: spindle shaped. All these balloons standing against the walls seemed
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: to be drawn back with deference from a kind of
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: shining partition which stretched itself along the middle of the hall.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Ethel pointed it out to me and said, there is
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: our engine. Then she started a low voiced conversation with
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: jim Oh, said, I, so that is the engine an
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: automobile astonishing, or perhaps a boat, as far as I
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: could judge in the half light where electric arcs uselessly
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: dangled their foolish globes. The thing was a gigantic knife blade,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: not with a cutting edge, but extremely pointed. I can
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: find no better comparison. It measured about forty meters in
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: length than eight meters high. What was only one meter
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: deep or thick from stern to midships forward that it
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: tapered away as if to cut air or the water.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: But taper away it did to such a point that
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: it positively stabbed one in the eye at the stern.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: I made out a triangular rudder. Oh it's a boat,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: I said to myself, And yet no, it's an automobile.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: In fact, this enigma of as rested on small stout wheels,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: which were furnished with rubber tires and mounted on extraordinarily
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: powerful springs between them. Under the concern, I could half
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: make out certain dark blocks. As I have said, the
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: whole thing glittered. And yet if one could employ such
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: contradictory terms, it was a dull sort of glitter. Pushing
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: away with their foot some stools which were lying on
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: the ground, ethel opened a door on the side of
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: this titanic blade. Immediately a dazzling electric light bulb lit
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: up the interior of the thing and revealed the existence
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: of a cabin arranged in the lower part of its width.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: It was of exceedingly small compass, to be exact four
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: meters in length to in height one in width. This
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: cabin held three seats, one behind the other. They were comfortable,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: tub shaped automobile seats. In front of the two first
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: glittered a whole system of levers, handles, and petals. Behind
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: the third were the ends of two handlebars, which I
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: guessed to be the steering gear. There is your seat,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: said Ethel. You will be at the helm in front
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: of you, Jimmy in front of me. Oh, don't let
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: us have any false modesty. Please, we shan't ask for
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: you for your pilot's certificate. My dear boy, the use
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: of the rudder is an exception. Perhaps you will not
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: have occasion to touch it. Good. But what on earth
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: are all these contraptions? For Ethel did not hear me.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: Jim had called her to the prow, and she left
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: me in ecstasy at the cabin. What a cabin mess? Hears?
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: What a conning tower? What switches? What graduated rings, sectors,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: piston rods, cords, serpentining pipes, keys, wires, buttons, indicators, and
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: other mysterious instruments. There was nothing resembling civilized furniture save
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: the three seats, and perhaps the clock in its pitch
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: pine case fastened on the wall of the forward bulkhead.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: On the whole it bore the face of an honest,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: accurate timekeeper. But why this terrestrial globe half sunk in
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: the clockcase, incapable of revolving on a vertical axis, as
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: if to demonstrate right to some young blockhead. The alternations
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: of day and night. Why this curve needle fixed in
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: the pitch pine case and curve to the convexity of
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: the globe, its point marking Philadelphia. Incapable of solving the query,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: I continued my inspection. A basket filled with victuals and
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: bottles interested in me greatly. What about the inns? Could
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: one not spend a day in a secluded inn near
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: road or river? I had it a fear of meeting
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: some indiscreet person. Really, these precautions were somewhat excessive. But
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: where were the windows? No windows? How are we going
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: to see our way? I murmured, How are we going
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: to know the road? If it is an automobile, the shoals,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: if it is a submarine the mountains. If improbable, as
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: it seems, it proves to be an aeroplane. And to
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: start with, what on earth is this machine? Where is
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: the driving power launched? And its head or in its tail?
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Above the cabin? The tiny room occupies a fourth of
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: the height and one tenth of the length of the concern.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: It is, if I may so put it, the very
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: body of the thing, like the stomach in a whale.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: What is there in the rest of this factitious satatan
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: whose jonahs we are about to become. At that moment,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: my sister's voice rang out, intrepid and quivering with joy.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Jim opened the doors of the shed. It is time
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: to let our pet loose, and the Negro burst into
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: a roar of laughter. I confess I have no great
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: affection for blacks in their guttural talk. They always speak
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: as if suffering from a sore throat. But Jim, with
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: his husky laugh, no, you can't imagine how he disgusted me. However,
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: the darky slid back a doormous folding doors, and from
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: top to bottom of the building, a star filled opening
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: widened out. The track lay before us, quite white and
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: encircled by silvery hills. A little lake reflected the shimmering sky,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: and in face of it all our formidable swords seemed
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: to stand on guard. What terrible and hidden force was
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: going to move this powerful weapon and start this wheeled direction,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: going as weighty to all appearance as a stranded ship.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: We must make haste, Ethel said, I want to start
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: punctually at midnight. Well what is it, archibald? You are
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: you not going to start the engine? Oh? Exclaimed Ethel,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: as if I had proposed something perfectly ridiculous, that would
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: be a nice job, wouldn't it. Jim, Yes, ma'am, gurgled
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: the Negro with an irritating laugh. Yes, Jim remembers the
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: accident to the model. Come, Archie, give us a helping hand,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: continued my sister. And she leaned with all her weight
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: against the back of the enormous machine, as if trying
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: to move it. Jim and I myself, notwithstanding my amazement,
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: stepped forward to help her. When we saw the metal colossus,
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: moved by the merest touch of a woman's shoulder, advanced
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: gently towards its unknown destination. Oh, she is well poised
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: to day, said Ethel, simply. I thought it would take
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: two of us to get her underway. No note, leave
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: it to me. It is mere child's play. As she
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: turned her back to the Sholkill River, an action which
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: effectually did away with any nautical hypothesis, she pushed the
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: vessel towards the center of the track in a westerly direction.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: I escorted her. Jem, at the height of bliss, lightly
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: executed a fandango on our wake. You must forgive me,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: my dear boy, but I will explain the mechanism of
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: the thing and root for the moment. I am too anxious.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: What a world of emotion sounded in her words. Through
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: how many months of laborious anxiety had my companions awaited
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: this thrilling moment? At present, its size diminished by the
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: grandeur of its background, the engine seemed less terrifying. Seen
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: from the front, one saw nothing more than a huge
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: sword blade. Looking at from the point, walking a little
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: way off to look at the whole effect, I discovered
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: one or two slight excrescences on the top, invisible in
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: the shed, and there were several more on the right
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: and left sides. Ethel tested the blocks between the wheels.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: Come along, all is as it should be. No breath
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: of wind, absolutely ideal weather. Let us get on board.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: We entered the great blade. Jim shut the hermetically closing door,
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: and those soft natural sounds that I had taken for
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: absolute silence died in our ears. End of Part two,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: Section three of The Fixed Flight by Maurice Renard the
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: slibrivox recordings in the public Domain read by Ben Tucker.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Part three. At first I thought that the darkness filled
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: the cabin, and again I began to fall into a
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: non comprehension of this expedition undertaken by blind prisoners, and
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: my eyes were drawn to a pale spot of light
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: above Ethel's seat. It was a kind of a large
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: lamp shade, luminous in the interior. I will try and
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: describe it. A large hemispherical funnel, hung mouth downwards, its
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: pipe disappearing straight up into the ceiling. This pipe could
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: be lengthened at will like a telescope. Ethel pulled down
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: the funnel, which fitted over her head, and gave to
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: her face a livid pallor. Then she made me sit
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: down in her seat. To my amazement, I seemed as
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: if by magic, to be transported outside. In reality, the
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: surrounding scene was depicted on the interior of the funnel,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: the sky with the moon's crescent, the milky Way, the
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: azure depths, the glittering stars, and the white track of
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: its silvery hills. I looked behind me, and I saw
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: the outline of Philadelphia, surmounted by a pin's statue and
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: crowned with that halo which floats over all large towns
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: at night. There in the funnel was the Corbette's modest
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: little home where Randolph lay thinking of us on his
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: bed of sickness. Oh, messers, it was simply marvelous. This
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: miniature world positively fascinated me. I can give you some
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: idea of it if I liken it to the reversed
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: image seen by photographers when they examined the ground glass
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: to see how the landscape will come on the plate.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: But in this case the landscape was visible without inversion,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: in the form of a panorama, but with this difference
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: that the onlookers seemed to be perched eight meters above
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: the earth. That is to say, as you will have guessed,
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: at the point where the chimney of this beautifully made
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: periscope issued from the roof of our prison, that is
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: how the steering was managed. I could have remained for
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: a long while with my head under the marvelous lamp shade,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: if my sister had not regained her seat. Why what
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: do you find so fascinating in this plate with lenses?
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: She grumbled. Every submarine in our navy has one nearly good?
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Are we pointing in the right direction, Jim from the
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: funnel issue to blue phosphorescent light, one after the other
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: of the instruments could be distinctly discerned in the gloom.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: Jim was bending over a compass, he laughed, no longer, Yes, ma'am,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: he said, wueeze exactly on the line from east to west. Good, Archie,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: to your helm. Keep it perfectly straight until further orders,
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: as if you were coxing a rowing boat. Are you there, Archie, Yes,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: are you there, Jim, yes, ma'am. Good, stand by, let
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: her go. The Negro pressed two pedals at once. I
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: heard two simultaneous clicks from under the apparatus in front
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: and behind, and something fell heavily, with a dull thud
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: on the grass below. Then it seemed to me as
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: if a sickening force telescoped me into myself, pressing my
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: head into my breast, my breast into my legs, and
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: my legs into the boards beneath them. In short, I
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: experienced that nauseating feeling of being telescoped produced by the
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: violent starting of the lift. But it lasted only as
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: long as it takes me to describe it. Once more,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: there was nothing to betray the slightest displacement of our vehicle. Hullo,
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: I exclaimed, What's that? Something shone under my feet, I
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: bent down, and all at once, Oh heavens, I shut
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: my eyes. My hands clutched the steering gear under the
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: paralyzing domination of vertigo. The floor of the cabin was
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: made of glass, so transparent that it seemed as nothing.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: And through the gaping hole I saw Philadelphia sinking, sinking
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: with the speed of a falling body. We were mounting.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: Ethel had taken no notice of my exclamation. She was
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: watching a dial and calling aloud the figures It registered
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: three hundred, four hundred, six hundred one thousand. Jim checked
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: that on the statoscope. One thousand, fifty one thousand, one hundred.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: That's right, isn't it? Yes, ma'am, throw out thirty kilograms
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: of ballast. The man touched another pedal. Another click was heard,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: and I saw one of the shadows, which interposed between
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: the abyss and ourselves, diminish in size and grow flabby.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: This time it was not a weight that fell on
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: account of the risk of killing some tardy promenader. But
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: there was an arrangement controlling the emptying of bags of
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: sand or leather bottles filled with water. What object had
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: the corbettes in shutting themselves off so systematically from all
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: direct communication with the exterior. I would have given much
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: to know, but it was not the moment to interview
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: my sister. Like one hypnotized, she bent over the dial
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: of the barometer, enumerating one thousand, four hundred fifty one thousand,
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: four hundred fifty seven fifteen hundred meters. At last, ah,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: fifteen forty five. That's too much. She seized a pendent
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: chain and hung on to it. Now this resulted in
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: a gurgling, a gas escaping from a valve, and what
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: I will call the attic up above us, and the
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: needle of the barometer worked itself back to the figure
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: fifteen hundred. We have arrived, proclaimed Ethel, then, looking at
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: the clock above the negro's head. Five minutes too good.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: We will start punctually at midnight. We will start. What
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: did she mean? With a dull interrogative eye, I gazed
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: on the back of her neck and her boyishly cut hair.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: I was so puzzled that her curly locks seemed to
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: shape themselves into a vague mocking face upon my word,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: I said, at length, unable to contain myself any longer,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: upon my word, what shall start? You say? Have we
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: not started already. No, what do you want? Then? What
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: do you want to do? Ethel? Go round the world,
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: mister inquisitive? What what? Oh? You were making fun of me?
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: Round the round the world in one single day? Is?
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: She trimmed Jim. The horror of an ascension with a
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: mad woman disguised as an aeronaut dimmed my gaze, And
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: it was through a mist of fear that I saw
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: the infernal Zulu, busied with the spirit balance he had
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: found the engine's nose was dipping imperceptibly. A little ballast
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: thrown out in front allowed it to regain the absolute horizontal,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: but this made it rise about twenty meters. Ethel declared that,
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: after all, it was of no importance. The compass consulted
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: confirmed her opinion, and she smiled and murmured, excellent. Heading
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: full west, And as twelve struck in the clock's deep tones,
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: my sister gave the order start the engine, Jim, make contact.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: Jim pressed a big button immediately behind the partition at
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: our backs. With a low and yet powerful purring, the
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: invisible engine woke to life. It hummed louder and louder,
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: and as it became stronger, a wind seemed to blow
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: round us, freshen and grow into a storm wind, then
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: into a veritable tempest, A gale shrieked by the whole
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: length of the aeroplane. It became a somemoon, and then
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: a cataclysmal typhoon, and then something far worse unknown to
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: men until now. Streams of wind keen as endless javelins
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: rushed through the chinks of the doors. Notwithstanding their close fit.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: An army of vipers could not have hissed louder. They
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: made a little tornado rage in the cabin itself. Nevertheless,
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: the noise increased regularly on the surface of the machine,
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: and above all against the sharp cut prow, where one
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: would have said that silk was being torn under the
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: push of the motor. Our sealed shelter shook more and more,
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: and on touching the vibrating wall, I discovered that it
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: was less cold than might have been expected. Indeed, the
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: temperature rose perceptibly. The thermometer was running up without intermission,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: and before long I could have believed myself in an
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: extraordinary stove heated from without on went to proof that
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: our vessel was moving with incredible velocity. Ethel's madness ceased
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: to be a matter of heartrending certitude to me. Moreover,
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: my plucky sister showed no surprise, having certainly foreseen all
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: the incidents of this vertigenous Proceeding at her command, Jim
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: cacked the doors and stopped the drafts with tow driven
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: in with a chisel. While this was doing, Ethel was
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: examining a long graduated scale, whereon a pointer moved forward continuously,
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: and she enumerated more figures five hundred, six hundred, one thousand,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: twelve hundred, one thousand, two hundred fifty. I must explain
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: that the figure one thousand, two hundred fifty was proclaimed
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: with an air of triumph, and at that very instant
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: the pointer stopped on the scale and the column of
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: mercury in the thermometer's tube, while the noise of the
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: motor and the whistling of our passage remained constant. One thousand,
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty, repeated my sister. So we have
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: attained to it, And after a glance at the clock,
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: followed by a brief mental calculation, my sister signed towards
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: the terrestrial globe. Jim, she said, at twelve o'clock three
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: minutes and forty five seconds. You must put the point
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: of the needle at Thorndale. Thorndale, you know we shall
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: pass by there. At that time, Jim awaited the moment
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: and turned the globe in his hand so that the
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: curved needle, which met its curvature, had its point above Thorndale.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: The moment arrived, he pressed a button, and the sphere,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: worked doubtless by the mechanism of the clock, began to
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: turn slowly on itself from left to right. As for me,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: I had hardly got over a breath snatching surprise, Ethel
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: I exclaimed, it can't be possible already, what can't be
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: at Thorndale? No, indeed, she answered, busy with various small maneuvers,
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: Thorndale's behind us. At present we have passing the railway
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: between Valley and Suska. Look at the needle on the globe,
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: and look at that also, Ethel show me the graduated scale,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: whose indicator was permanently fixed at the figure twelve hundred
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: fifty That continued, My sister is a speedometer, a kind
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: of patent log It indicates a rate of more than
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: twenty and three force kilometers a minute, which is as
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: nearly as possible twelve hundred fifty per hour. By Jove,
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: we are moving at no, my dear boy, we are
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: not moving. Upon my word, we are not moving. It
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: is the air which slips by us. Our bark is
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: motionless in a flying atmosphere. And that is why Archie
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: I have christened her the arrow fix. Oh yes, wait
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: a little now, I am at your service. Only this
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: tap to turn off. There, I am ready for you.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: And now I'll let some light into your mind and
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: into this cabin. And my sister turned up the electric
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: light whose intensity put out the moon and stars on
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: the ground of the periscope. Is it the air that moves?
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: I resumed in a favor of curiosity. Look here, my
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: dear boy, Philistine as you are, have you never thought
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: how ridiculous men are in the way they travel. Ridiculous
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: to move themselves as they do with great expenditure of steam,
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: petrol or electricity on a moving globe, when it is
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: enough to remain stationary above it, for every point on
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: the parallel to defile under your eyes one after another,
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: with the possibility of landing there the deuce that, nevertheless
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: is the idea we have put into action, Randolph and I.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: Our aerofix is the proof of it. The air flies
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: by us and the earth beneath us. From their point
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: of view, we are motionless. The laws of gravitation to
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: which our balloon remains subjected hold it always at the
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: same distance from the center of the Earth. But it
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: possesses a motor which frees it from the drag of
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: the globe revolving on itself. It is in that sense
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: that it does not move, for our ancient planet continues
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: to carry it on its journey round the Sun, and
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: the Sun carries it on its own journey across space
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: and its sidereal revolutions. Only the Earth turning from west
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: to east on its axial revolution. We have all the
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: appearance of making a tour of the world from east
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: to west in twenty four hours, or to be more exact,
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: in twenty three hours fifty six minutes four seconds, just
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: like the Sun. But I hazarded. After scrawling some calculations
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: on a scrap of paper, I remember that the Earth
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: is forty thousand kilometers round. This being the case, as
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: it takes twenty four hours to pivot on its axis,
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: and ought to pass by under the machine at the
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: rate of one thousand, six hundred sixty six odd kilometers
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: an hour, not so bad for a clerk in a
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: cable factory. The man of figures begins to show in you.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: But my dear stupid brother, it is at the equator
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: that you'll find a girth of forty thousand kilometers. And
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: at the equator alone, if we descend at Quito, for example,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: the spedometer would register one million, six hundred sixty six thousand,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: six hundred sixty six But as Philadelphia. Whence the aero
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: fix ascended is on the fortieth parallel north, which measures
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: but thirty thousand kilometers as it is nearer the pole.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: So the globe only revolves at one thousand, two hundred
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: and fifty kilometers per hour. And what would you have
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: said if the ascension had taken place from one of
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: the poles, which remains stationary as docks every point of
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: the axis. We should then have the same place under
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: our feet all the time, and the scene would be
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: a circle of icebergs revolving around the center of the pole,
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: like the disk of a gramophone. Above all observed, the
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: higher the balloon rises on the bosom of the mass
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: of air drawn into the terrestrial race elevation, which enlarges
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: a little the circle we seem to describe. The greater
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: is the speed of the fluid which surrounds it, because
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: the latter is getting farther away from the center of rotation.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: This peculiarity would augment the effort which has to be
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: made to remain stationary against a strong current if this
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: vapor which one finds an ascending did not become more
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: rarefied as the speak grows greater, the more furiously the
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: wind buffets us, the less body it has, so the
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: ram pierces it with the same ease, the two phenomena
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: counterbalancing each other. But while remain stationary at fifteen hundred
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: meters because the highest peak on the fortieth parallel does
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: not quite reach this altitude, and we don't want a
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: collision with the rocky mountains, do we, So we follow
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: this fortieth parallel strictly. Strictly, Maybe one day our machine
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: will be able to direct its fixity by the gravitational
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: attraction of the stars, or perhaps by the assistance of
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: the Earth's progression and its orbit. It would then be
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: a question of attaining immobility by proper relation with the sun,
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: so as to accomplish an oblique trajectory round the Earth,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: at least to appear to journey in this wise, But
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: we are far from that at present to day. We
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: must follow our chosen parallel like a rail. The rud
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: is merely an accessory design to put the aviator in
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: the right direction at the start, and to combat any
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: dangerous winds during the descent. Nolan's volins. We are globe trotters,
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: my dear boy, Look at the compass. Its needle will
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: not fall off one point in twenty four hours, except
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: for the declination. The north is always on our right,
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: so I stammered, dazed and overcome. So we shall be
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: in Philadelphia again tomorrow, having covered all the fortieth parallel.
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: Is that the circuit you spoke of? That is so?
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: Now look at the clockwork globe. It is at once
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: an indication of our successive positions and an epitome of
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: the whole thing. The point of the immovable needle represents
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: the aerofix. Every twenty four hours the same places pass
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: under it. Tomorrow Philadelphia will make its appearance, but we
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: shall be a little late because of the time lost
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: in taking up our station, and in recatching the drag
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: of the earth. These two maneuvers demand a very gradual
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: PROGRESSI and if, when in station I suddenly stopped the motor,
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: which by the way, is impossible, the aerial stream would
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: immediately seize upon our stern and our forward bulkheads would
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: be smashed in upon us with the force of a shell.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: I felt beads of sweat pearling my brow, and the
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: palms of my hands were wet. And found the heat,
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: I grumbled, And this infernal whistling. You are speaking at
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: the top of your voice, and yet I can scarcely
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: hear you. Yes, it is all caused by the friction
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: of the air. Don't you find it stifling? She uncovered
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: some small apertures pierced in the doors given on the
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: outer air by means of pipes bent aft in the
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: direction of the wind. These ventilators were exceedingly well thought out,
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: and a delicious freshness soon made itself fell. My sister continued,
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: what trouble we had to find a remedy against the
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: excessive heat. Ralph invented a heat proof coating which the
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: hole is painted a non conducting layer. I was just
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: about to give expression to some judicious reflections on the
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: subject of air and on the contradictory qualities It manifests
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: of chilling bodies moving at great rate, and heating those
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: moving at a prodigious rate. When my sister put out
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: the light again, once the dizziness induced by the darkness
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: was dissipated, I saw ethel capped with the periscope, livid
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: under its milk white light. There are serene highnesses, the
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: rocky mountains, she proclaimed, Look at them, Archie. The magic
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: funnel was blue with the reflection in the sky. Clouds
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: wandered across it. The more distance seemed to mount in
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: leisurely fashion. The nearer passed like flakes a light others
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: which we passed right through, hid the view from me.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: For the wink of an eye emerging from the horizon,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: I mean to say, from the edge of the lamp shade,
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: a dark patch mounted rapidly towards the stars. It was
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: queerly indented. White lights played on its jagged edges, and
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: I saw it was the redoubtable chain of mountains, which
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: was coming on full steam ahead under the full moon.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: The swathed glaciers trailed their opalescent forms like comets, tails
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: and a flying whiteness lit up our transparent floor. Their
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: curves swelled beneath us, their great peaks sprang at us.
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: It was a flock of mountains and a panic. They
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: all sank away. The summits, dipping re entered the zone
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: of the invisible in the sky, free of clouds, once
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: more filled the periscope with its magnificence. End of Part three,
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: Section four of the Fixed Flight by Maurice Renard. This
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recordings in the public domain read by Ben Tucker,
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: Part four and on the instant. The glass flooring seemed
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: to sparkle with innumerable facets, and to become a bediamond
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: pane with the living fire of a jim and its
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: dancing lights. The negro was seized with a foolish gayety.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: His hoarseness increased with his joy and became a raucous hilarity.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: He choked, heaving his shoulders, and gurgled some remarks in
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: honor of the pacific. Ethel confirmed him. Yes, here's the
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: ocean right enough, twenty two minutes past three. It is
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: punctual to its tryst. A cry escaped me. If we fail,
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: fear nothing cowardly brother mine. The aerofix is solidly built,
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: hum said I put out by her assurance and wishing
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: to make a better effect. Truly, it's a very fine
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: heavier than air, a very fine one. It is a balloon, archie,
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: a real balloon filled with gas. No monoplane could sustain
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: itself or retain its grip in this atmospheric avalanche. Its
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: hold would be too slippery. It is a balloon. But
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: as you can well understand in dealing with an aerofix,
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: that portion where the motor is found must be absolutely
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: of a piece with the envelope. Otherwise the former, following
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: the rotation of the earth, would spread itself on the
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: courting and break it if it was not itself crumpled
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: at the very outset. So our vessel is built of
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: one single sheath, the metal of which is an alloy
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: of aluminium, and of another substance which weighs the same
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: as cork, but unfortunately somewhat lacks resistance. This hull is
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: divided into two floors by a horizontal partition. The upper
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: floor up above us is filled with a gas whose
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: composition is known only to us, and which possesses a
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: lift force six times that of hydrogen. The ground floor
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: is divided into three compartments, the cabin in the middle,
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: where I now have the pleasure of instructing you forward,
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: an exceedingly narrow receptacle, where the corbet accumulators are stored
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: alive but almost inexhaustible store of electric energy. And lastly
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: aft the engine room. Ah that motor. It is our
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: pride and glory. You think, perhaps of millions of horse power,
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: not at all. The aerofix has nothing in common with
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: a steamer, which, struggling against a strong current, should have
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: just sufficient force to prevent its drifting and to keep
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: it in position. If those were our conditions, you could
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: say that the Corbettes have invented nothing. Their balloon would
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: simply be the most rapid of aerostats, capable of doing
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: its twelve hundred and fifty kilometers an hour, capable therefore
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: of appearing motionless, having regard to the center of the
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: Earth and to the condition of following a certain parallel.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: Oh in theory, the thing is understandable enough in the
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: idea might occur to the first comer given a simple
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: multiplication of current rates of speed and the power needed
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: for them. But put into practice, it comes to forcing
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: a blue bottle to fly with the energy of a
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: steam engine, And after all it would be a poor result, inelegant,
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: and the mere effect of brute force. Our motor does
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: not propel the aero fix, but it delivers it from
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: the drag of the earth. It is a generator of
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: the power of inertia, do you understand? And it produces
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: the same effect as a flying gas work affair launched
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: from east to west. It employs very little strength in
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: so doing. But what is it? I asked, on what principle? Ah,
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: just that I cannot tell you. Do not bear me
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: any ill. Will Randolph Wood be so displeased? You know
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: my discretion. Look here, Archie, I will put you on
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: the road to it. Don't ask me anything further. Do
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: you remember those tops called gyroscopes with which we played
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: as children. They spin in all positions on a taut
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: string without falling on this support. They formed the most
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: amazing angles and seemed to defy the laws of equilibrium
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: and gravitation. Think of how they were recently employed in England.
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: Lewis Brennan, the engineer, fitted a series to his two
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: wheeled tramway in such wise that the machine as ill
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: balanced as a stop bicycle could rest on a single
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: rail or on a cable thrown across an abyss, rest
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: fixed and not to be overturned. In short, everybody that
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: is fitted with the gyroscope remains stable in unstable equilibrium,
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: as if it were going at a great speed. So
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: the gyroscope takes the place of acquired speed. It is
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: this power which a special arrangement of machinery has allowed
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: us to increase. Behind you, six gyroscopes, six perfected tops
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: revolve and avoid good Heavens. Supposing they stop without notice,
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: it would have to be very unlikely accident. Brennan has
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: shown that after one has cut off the motive power,
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: a gyroscope will continue to revolve for twenty four hours,
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: eight of which can be turned to account a respite
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: more than sufficient to resume without shock the rush of
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: the atmosphere and choose a good landing place. An accident
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: could only come about by the destruction of certain special machinery,
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: and unless it were done on purpose. Ethyl Ethyl, I
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: am simply astounded. You can imagine I suppose went on
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: my sister. How I managed to moved the vessel so
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: easily weights hung underneath it, equalizing the lifting force, which
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: was thus neutralized, so that our balloon only weighed a
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: few pounds necessary to keep it down on the ground.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: These compensatory weights were detached automatically from the cabin. It
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: was the simplest kind of let go all. Oh, yes,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: the smallest detail is thought out. We first made experiments
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: with a model on a reduced scale, no bigger than
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: a canoe. But by some inadvertence we started the motor
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: in the workshop, whereupon our little aerow fix left us
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: without taking leave, smashing the wall. It buried itself in
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: a hillside at Belmont. It is there still, but said
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: I quickly, Is here no chance of this heat flashing
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: the gas. Don't be alarmed. Even the enormous and explosive
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: bag of a balloon cannot explode except by contact with
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: a flame or spark. It is a chimera. Very good,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: Say no more. I understand the system thoroughly. Though at
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: first I took your auto immobile for an indubitable motor,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: I bet that was on account of the wheels. The
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: wheels and springs, those are simple buffers which are of
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: use in coming to earth. We come down to land
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: without shock under the impetus, and run a few meters
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: before stopping. Every aeroplane is provided with them. Good good,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: I said, feebly, that's all right. My stupefaction in living
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: this paradoxical dream in my own person dulled my understanding,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: and I could not take my eyes from the revolving globe,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: whose slow and regular revolution showed our passage along the
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: fortieth parallel. Ethel saw the state I was in. I
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: guess the reason of your discouragement, she said. It is
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: the peculiar property of unexpected discoveries to appear contrary to
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: the laws of nature, and to seem in their origin
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: in fractions of the universal order of things. On every invention,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: the world cries a miracle for eight days and with
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: a kind of terror. And certain victims of science have
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: a false appearance of being criminals, justly punished for having
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: contravened the existing code. Archibald Clark thinks he is witnessed
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: to a sinister outrage, But I had no wish to
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: take her up. The psychology of crowds in the presence
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: of scientific phenomena left me cold. Terrible, I muttered, terrible,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: All this water without end what depth have we beneath
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: our feet? What is the depth of the sea here?
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: Anything from one thousand to two thousand meters. We are
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: somewhere between the one hundred fortieth and one hundred and
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: sixtieth meridians. Yes, true, it will soon be five o'clock
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: five o'clock at Philadelphia, but not at any place we
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: visit here, it is always midnight. Midnight goes on with
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: us today. The aerofix fulfills her midnight journey motionless in
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: the terrestrial space, and as we count time, fear clutched
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: at my throat. True, the sun never rises, I observed
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: naturally the sun is always on the other side of
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: the Earth. After a fashion, it plays hide and seek
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: with the machine. Mid day begins to rewarm the flying antipodes.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: Since we are in the center point of that darkness
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: which sweeps, or seems to do so round the globe, Archibald,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: we shall lose a day of light, and shall have lived,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: on the other hand, a night too long later on,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: when our discovery will be made use of, when every
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: one will possess his own aerofix, daytime journeys will no
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: doubt be made probably at least by foes to darkness.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: Who will be able to live facing eternal sunsets or
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: bathed in the glories of unending dawn. Look at the
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: sky on the ground of the periscope, the cupola of
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: one is reflected on the cap of the other. Nothing
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: moves but the moon. Even the constellations advance no longer.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: You might think the clock of the heavens has stopped.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: I no one that goes admirably. Nevertheless, said I. It
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: is in my stomach, and repeatedly strikes the dinner hour.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: I've had no dinner. My dear girl, we dined. You
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: will have noticed, gentlemen, by the manifestations of my hunger,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: that your humble servant's courage has risen a little. It
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: rose a good deal more after our meal, brisked up
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: with excellent tinned provisions and a glass of brandy, I
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: found myself no more uncomfortable in this narrow sheath than
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: in the corridor of a pullman car. Only a general
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: lassitude bore witness to the nervous strain I had just undergone,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: but folded in the warm half light. The piece following
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: a good dinner weighed down my eyelids. They closed to
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: the monotonous cradle song, of the whistling air, and the
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: humming gyroscopes. As if through a fog, I heard the
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: clock strike an Ethel murmur that we had done a
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: quarter of our journey and then sleep entirely overcame me,
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: aie ai, none of that, my dear boy, you are asleep,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: I believe. Come, Come, I made neat of you at
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: a minute. You must keep a look out, You must
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: be vigilant. Humph, Think of the charms of Japan which
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: we are now traveling over to the devil with your Japan,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: I retorted, it is as black as if it had snoweds.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: Jim seemed intensely amused, And as to you, shut up,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: I said, drawing myself up. You have no right to
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: be so amused at the words soot old chimney, sweep, hush, hush,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: ar ye, keep your seat. The negro was bent double,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: his shoulders shook with a secret joy, and across his
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: heavy face I caught sight of a thick lipped smile.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: But Ethel's imperious tone had quieted me. I asked her dryly,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: still a little vexed, where are we some miles south
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: of Pekin? That is the desert of Alaska still fifteen
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: hundred meters above the earth. No, of course, not fifteen
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: hundred meters above the level of the sea. The mean
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: altitude of the desert brings us as near as five
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: hundred meters to the land. Then silence fell again. Truly,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: I may call it silence, the perpetual noise made by
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: the air and the motor. I no longer heard it
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: any more than we hear the thousand and one rustlings
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: with which our greatest solitude is filled. For a long while,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: I struggled against sleep to overcome, and I tried to
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: interest myself in various things, my companion's attitudes, the changing
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: faces in Ethel's curling hair, and all these soupine countries
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: where strange men slept on extraordinary beds under twisted roofs.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: But imagination in no wise takes the place of knowledge.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: And I knew nothing of all these out of the
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: way lands, and I could not even distinguish a tree.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: I was reduced to inventing the world after the fashioned
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: children who stride across a wooden, hoppy horse and remained
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: lost in deep thought, imagining the road they have traveled.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: None the less I suffered two alarms. The first was
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: caused by a shock, a very slight one at the
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: ram of the aerostat, something soft had got in its way.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: My sister dissipated with a word the fear which had
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: made me jump. She had seen in the periscope two
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: large wings, which were no sooner viewed than they were eclipsed.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: The second alarm was due to the Negro, looking half wild.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: He suddenly got up in his seat, asking were we
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: always in the right direction? It would be too terrible
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: if we had deviated because of the Cashmere mountains thirty
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: eight hundred meters in height. He himself was too unnerved
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: to have taken note. A glass of brandy put fresh
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: life into him. Becoming once more lucid and self possessed,
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: he took up his place again before the clock. At length,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: my sister announced gaily, like the steward of a dining car,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: the first luncheon is served. It is midday, midday, I repeated,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: assuring myself of the darkness midday. At midnight, the Chinese
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: firmament starred the shade of the periscope with its cosmographic dome,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: like those maps of the heavens curved in their imitation
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: and called uranoramas. The knight's blackness seemed tinged with green
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: cloud similar to our cumuli hid and revealed the same stars,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: the solitary exception being the moon, which rising had enlarged
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: its melon slice and traveled to the southeast. Lunch seemed
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: like supper, and dinner resembled it. We did not do
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: the latter much justice. The nocturnal afternoon had slipped by
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: the Caspian Sea. Turkey Grease, Calabria, Spain, and Portugal had
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: succeeded one another invisible, in lacking all interest for us,
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: an unreasoning irritation made me beat my foot on the
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: transparent floor, through which we could discern nothing. I became restless,
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: I moved about in the confined space, and I was
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: childishly overjoyed when towards a quarter to twelve I received
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: the command to be at my post. My sister added
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: that they were going to stop the engine and put
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: a brake on the gyroscopes so as to gradually regain
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: little by little the drag of the earth and ultimately
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: be enabled to land at Philadelphia. The electric light shone
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: with a hard glitter. Jim pressed a big button and
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: pulled over several levers, which caught in a serrated rack.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: In the after hold, one could hear the steel shoes
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: grinding against the spinning tops. The humming grew deeper, the
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: air whistled less and less strongly, and the speedometer's indicator
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: began to run backwards. I clutched the handles of the
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: steering gear feverishly. My sister had ordered me not to
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: make use of them without a given signal. At times,
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: beneath my feet, some great Atlantic steamer, glitteringly illuminated, stripped
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: a glistening stretch of sea with its white and red lights.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: The situation lasted for what seemed to me an excessively
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: long period. Leaning over my sister's shoulder to catch sight
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: of her face, I found it expressing great annoyance. We
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: are not slowing down enough, she said, in answer to
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: my question, I am afraid of passing by Philadelphia. The
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: clock pointed to half past twelve, and the air whistled
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: still violently. I wiped my brow with a nervous gesture.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: Do you not think we might land in one of
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: the suburbs, even if it were more than a hundred
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: kilometers out of the town. The negro shook his head. No, Jim,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: we had better not, had we. It is no good
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: to toil upon it. I set to work too late. Well,
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: what's the trouble, I exclaimed, once stopped. You back your engine, Archie.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: You are an ass The balloon, as you yourself very
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: sensibly observed, is not an automobile, but an auto immobile.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: To go back on our flight, the Earth would have
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: to begin revolving in the opposite direction, and the end
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: of the world would follow your little fantasy because of
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: the shock. No, no, we are well supplied with gas, ballast,
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: electricity and victuals. The only sensible thing to do is
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: make us second tour the planet into slow down earlier,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: start the engine again, jem, and take off the bricks.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: While she was forming this exasperating decision, which was immediately
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: put into action, a misty patch seemingly spangled with fireflies,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: unrolled itself the bottom of the abyss Philadelphia was passing.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: Poor Randolph sighed ethel how anxious he will be, and
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: without taking breath, she launched out on a small, dry,
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: wordy discourse, after the manner of people who expect to
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: be blamed by their opponent. And will not let him
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: speak accordingly, She took it on herself to inform me
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: of the best method of making Belmont after the next
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: day's descent. As she wished things, the apparatus must not
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: come to ground at more than twenty kilometers from the town.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: From there a horse could haul it to the hangar,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: which would be re entered before daybreak. In spite of
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: her verbosity, the word loosened the flow of my lamentations.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: Daybreak alas ye may well say, so, my good Ethel,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: I am just longing for it. It seems to me
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: that the sun has gone out forever. Well, there I
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: came to make myself useful. I am resigned, but promised
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: me that we shall be at Philadelphia tomorrow without fail.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: I swear it tomorrow at one o'clock or a little after.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: In one way or another, by our maneuvers, we have
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: lost sixty minutes. Jim put back the globe of the
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: clock twelve hundred and fifty kilometers. But now Ethel busied
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: herself with procuring necessary repose for herself and her assistance.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: She and Jim were to take watch and watch about.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: As for me, the strayed outsider of this expedition. I
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: unexpectedly got leave to do what I liked. I think
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: our captain rather feared the jumpiness that I had shown
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: before in my abuse of Jim end of Part four,
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: Section five of The Fixed Flight by Maurice Renard. This
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recordings in the public domain read by Ben Tucker.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: Part five. Worn out with fatigue, I stretched myself on
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: the glass floor, the pedestal of my seat between my legs,
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: under the cloak of rest. I became a victim for
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: long hours to the horridest nightmare. But no dream could
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: equal and extravagance the fabulous reality, and my awakening seemed
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: the beginning of a nightmare more horrible than all the others.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: When I recognized that I must live again for good,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: this delirious dream, all the disagreeables of the situation fell
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: on me. At a blow. The periscope shed its peep
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: of light in the cabin ethel her face, blanched by
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: its livid glimmer, slept even as a corpse sleeps. Jimmy
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: stern and seemingly sculptured in bronze, mounted guard at his post,
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: and implacable night reigned over us. I knew fear and
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: made a despairing movement, whereupon my hand struck something cold
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: and smooth. It was the brandy bottle. In three seconds
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: time for a bumper, I could conquer my panic. What
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: was I thinking of? Since the memory of man fear
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: has never seized on my vlorous soul. Nevertheless, the sinister
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: visitant returned to the charge, and to exercise it, I
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: had recourse to frequent drafts of courage, and courage of
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: this sort tastes good. Valiantly I swallowed it without reflecting
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: on the consequences of valor, assimilated in this wise incorporated
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: and liquid form, in this confined cell, where I shared
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: my sad lot with an impudent negro and a well
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: bred lady. Ah, gentlemen, you must forgive this illusion. It
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: bears witness to the veracity of my story and shows
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: in a strong light how very different are the tale
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: of Jules Verne and other stay at home writers from
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: an authentic voyage. And so my intemperance was big with consequences,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: and very considerable ones, which I will confide to you alone.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: It was seven o'clock when passing over the Bealaaric Aisles
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: Ethel gave orders preparatory to stopping. Now, then Archie, wake up,
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: you have slept enough. Take your tiller ropes aye aye,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: Madame Corbett, said I with a gracious smile, entirely at
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: your service, Madame Corbett, quickly turning up the lamp. My
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: sister looked me up and down. During the whole day
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: that she had had me behind her, she had never
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: looked to see whether I slept or weight. My joyous
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: countenance now merely showed a keen and highly legitimate satisfaction
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: at landing. At last, at Belmont, the brakes made a
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: grating sound, the wind began to go down. My companions,
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: busily occupied, did not cease from manipulating, one after the
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: other the infinity of regulating instruments. I was ashamed of
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: doing nothing, but a just pride filled my heart at
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: the thought of the services I would render with my rudder.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: They should see what a pilot I could be. Yes,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: there should be no two opinions about that. I was
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: jolly well going to astonish missus Ethel the masculine, and
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: that rapscallion of a chimney sweep, one to port your helm,
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: one to starboard your helm, and just to see I
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: pulled alternately on either hand. Needless to say, the rudder
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: did not move. Held stiffly in the atmosphere extreme whose
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: speed lent it the resistance of a solid, it was
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: almost prevented from turning on its pivots. My efforts made
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: me breathe hard. My tiller rope seemed screwed to something
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: perfectly immovable, and it enraged me. You shall, you brute,
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: I said inwardly to the recalcitrant rudder, move you shall
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: if I die for it. Thereupon I pulled for all
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: I was worth, and so violently that one of the
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: rods detached itself from the cursed thing. Unable to check
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: my effort, I pulled away a great length of it
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: from the bulkhead. Hello, I said to myself, suddenly sobered,
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: I hope they won't notice anything. It was extremely unlikely.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: The thoughts of the other two were on their maneuvers.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: The accident might perhaps be made good. So I fumbled
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: about with my rod, trying to refix it. But the rod,
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: which ran through the whole body of the motor, had
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: got out of the orifice. Whence it issued from the
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: stern of the balloon, and it was the act of
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: an idiot to try to put it back without entering
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: the engine room, to try from a distance to readjust
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: it to the rudder. Nevertheless, that is what I tried
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: to do, with puckered brow. All at once, anger overcame me.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: I banged the rod in with all my force, backwards
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: and upwards. Something it met with gave way as easily
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: as a bit of cardboard it went through. I felt
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: the end of the rod caught in the hole it
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: had made, and I pulled it out with a brusque movement,
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: whereon a distinct whistling made itself heard, rising shriller than
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: that of the surrounding air current. Ethel was listening. Desperate
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: in perceiving that the rod was still stuck in something
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: soft and hampering, I tried to tear away the clinging hindrance.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: My sister and Jim turned round on hiarying the suspicious whistling,
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: and saw me on my feet tugging at the cordage
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: with both hands. They sprang forward too late. The hidden
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: entanglement had come away. In the outer darkness, and far
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: down beneath us there was a sort of frying sound
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: which crackled, crackled, good heavens. Jim cried, my sister, the
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: gas is escaping. I seem to hear sparks striking, quick,
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: quick run. Jim fled towards the gyroscopes, and I, losing
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: my head, opened a door on to the void, but
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: I had no time to throw myself through it. A
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: furnace flash, a deafening thunder, a paroxysmal impression of light,
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: and a most terrific uproar. I clung to the metal
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: door and lost consciousness. The end of the story, gentlemen,
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: you know more about than I do. Mister Archibald Clark
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: had ceased speaking open mouthed. We watched him finish his
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: last claireroat and his last glass of liquor. Thanks to him,
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: the box of cigars had diminished, and the circle of
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: whiskey in the bottle had sunk to a very thin disk,
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: like a fluid counter. We had frequently interrupted mister Clark
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: with the admiring ohs and ohs. On several occasions, I'd
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: been required to help him with expressions which failed him,
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: and the worthy victim had profited by these numerous delays
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: to abuse the supply of whiskey and tobacco with a
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: queer ostentation. Gayton looked at him, wide eyed, staring at
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: the sole survivor of such an incredible freak. Mister Clark
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: rose from his chair and leaned against one of the portholes.
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: Their little round openings lined the panels of the dining saloon,
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: like so many sea scapes set in medallions, but they
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: would have been considered wretched canvases, circles which cut out
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: the mass of sea in the empty sky to enclose
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: them in flat geometrical shapes, which the horizon split into
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: two sections, one green and one blue. The American declared
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: that it was not all pretty well, my man, well,
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: murmured Gayton, who was meditating on Clark's exploits. And so
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: monsieur I said, after a moment to mister Clark, And
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: so your sister and the negro are dead. I'm certainly,
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: he replied, and mister Clark threw the stub of his
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: cigar into the sea, as if Ethel Corbett's end in
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: the Destiny of jem and the fate of a cigar
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: stump weighed all the same upon his phlegmatic soul. Niggers pooh,
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: you know what they are? A dirty race. As to
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: my sister, Well, the poor girl sometimes had these whims
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: that story of the legacy. You can't imagine what is
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: the good of wasting words upon the subject. Bah At
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: this speech we were lost once more in silent contemplation
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: of this individual. Monsieur said, I at length, can you
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: explain this to me? When the Aerofix passed through the
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: air above the Ushinid, I noticed something strange about the
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: whistling the first day it began to make itself heard.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: I am careful not to say after the appearance of
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: the vessel, for its light could not be perceived afar off.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: Very much later than when still visible the vessel issued
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: from the horizon, and the arrowfix had, on the other hand,
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: sunk far into the west while we could still hear
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: its whistling. The second time, there was approximate coincidence of
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: duration between the sound of your vessel and the rainbow
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: like curve it would have made had it not been
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: for the accident. After a moment's reflection, Clark explained, it
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: is very simple, mister Sinclair. The first day, having attained
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: a point above the oceaneed, we scarcely slowed down at all,
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: and our speed was superior to that of the sound,
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: which travels at forty six meters sixty six per second.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: You grasp my meaning. The second day, our slowing down
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: was more marked and would have about equalized the two rates.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: Do you want further details? Unnecessary? After all, it is
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: merely a problem for the lower form given a train,
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: et cetera. But by jove, exclaimed Gayton, were their powers
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: of understanding, which seem very unusual. It is hardly possible
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: that you cannot give us some tips about the aerofix,
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: the lightweight accumulators, for instance. I've told you all I know,
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: replied Clark. And if I have confided in you under
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: the seal of secrecy, it is because you fished me
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: out of the water, and your anxiety to know my
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: story had to be satisfied. I can only tell you
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: again that the working parts of the motor, its interesting parts,
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: were hidden from me, and in no circumstances did I
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: catch sight of them, nor was I enabled to form
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: an idea of them. Perhaps from certain remarks let fall
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: in the cabin, a learned professor or an engineer might
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: have deduced the contents of the closed engine room and
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: the particulars of the gyroscopes. For my part, I was
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: incapable of doing so, and I only grasped my poor
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: sister's explanation purposely succinct, as it was by reason of
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: its simplicity, because I possess, in common with everyone in
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: this age of sport, some elements of mechanics. If I
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: have retained some of the figures fairly easily, do not
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: put it down to my knowledge, which is nil, but
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: attract it to my business of accountant, whose practice, with
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: its stay at home quiet interests, I look forward to
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: enjoying once more. Having delivered himself of these words of wisdom,
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: mister Clark thenceforward held his peace, and, notwithstanding our pressing him,
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: he would never return to the amazing flight of the Aerofix,
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: pretending that it reminded him of such unhappy circumstances. Until
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: we reached Havre, where mister Clark took leave of us.
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: It must be acknowledged that he kept an inveterate silence,
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: not only regarding the fixed flight, but on every other subject.
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: We had great difficulty in dragging any details out of
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: him about Trenton, the cable manufactory and his beloved robling brothers,
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: and then again he would only speak to me. It
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: was plain he did not like Gayton, and as long
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: as circumstances force him to frequent his host's society, he
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: was civilly grateful towards him, but remarkably laconic. As soon
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: as the oceaneed came alongside the landing stage, mister Clark,
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: having refused the wherewithal Gayton had offered to lend him
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: to return home, left us with a low bow and
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: crossed the gangway at a run. The result of his
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: departure was naturally to relegate mister Clark to one's list
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: of souvenirs and ideas. An absent person is no more
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: than a thought, and as such, his whole being simplified, classified,
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: reduced to essentials, appears to us with its peculiar characteristics,
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: as violently marked as in a character on a stage.
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: Those who are dead and those who travel one seems
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: to look at from afar. Off of their finer shades
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: and of their appearances, one can perceive but one dominant color,
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: and that a mere silhouette, often enough caricatured. Mister Clark
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: bore the aspect in our memories of some extraordinary puppet.
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: The fellow's eccentricity jumped to the eye, as they say,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: now that he was no longer with us, a palpable
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: witness of the marvelous adventure. His tale seemed like a
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: dream to us, and he himself an hallucination. I proposed
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: somewhat late in the day to institute an inquiry on
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: board we set to work. It was carried out rather unmathodically,
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: and merely ended in exasperating our curiosity. The sole information
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: we can gained concern the tips he had distributed before leaving.
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: Mister Clark had tipped the crew and the servants magnificently.
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: That this cashier scattered the contents of his purse like
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: a nabob already seemed to form an indefinite kind of
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: charge against him. But that was not all. These gratuities
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: had been paid by him, an American coming straight from
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: Pennsylvania in French bank notes and Louise the Paris train
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: bore me away, my imagination full of this affair, while
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: Gayton sped in his motor car towards his castle of
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: Venues a Lois without wasting more ink that the incident deserves.
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: I must make a note of this stupid argument that
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: preceded our good byes, which serving to convert a momentary
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: disagreement into an irrevocable rupture, has authorized me to set
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: down a picture of the Baron de Venu's paradole as
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: he really is. If he finds it not to his taste,
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: let him say so, I am at his service. But
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: let us get back to our subject. Some weeks after
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: my return, I was the owner of quite a little
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: dossier concerning mister Clark and the events seating has fallen
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: to the Atlantic. First, there were newspaper cuttings and bulletins
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: from various observatories noting such showers of shooting sparks as
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: occurred on the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty first of August,
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: and the passing of a bow light across Europe during
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: the night of the nineteenth to the twentieth. Then there
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: were ready translated for my use divers attestations of Italian,
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: Spanish and Portuguese correspondence dwelling on the fortieth parallel, who
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: certified having spent the nights of twentieth and twenty first
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: of August up and about without observing any abnormal light
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: or hearing any unusual whistling. That they had seen nothing
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: was not unnatural. Missus Corbett cut off the electric light
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: when they were above continents, But that they heard nothing,
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: What do you make of that? Now, regarding the question
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: of these depositions, it was necessary to have guarantees of
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: the perfect good faith of their signatories. Here is the
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: source of my information. One of my nephews takes in
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: a little popular review printed in various languages. It is
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: the organ one of the most respectable international clubs. Its
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: subscribers Polyglots, take pleasure in exchanging all kinds of things,
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: from picture postcards to certain poems which will never make
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: any of them famous. I am indebted to my nephew
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: for the reports from Italy, Spain and Portugal, as also
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: for all the remaining information. There were also translations of letters,
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: but letters sent from Philadelphia and from Trenton. They form
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: a formidable pile of evidence against mister Clark. Certainly, there
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: was a Fairmount Park at Philadelphia, and in Fairmount Park,
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: west of the Schuylkill River, a place Belmont, with an
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: open plain surrounded by hills, exceedingly suitable for launching an aeroplane.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: As our civil informant observed, but the Corbetts did not
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: exist at Trenton. Among the manufacturers of pottery, in the
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: less honest fabricators of Egyptian scarabs, the cable manufactory of
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: Roebling Brothers was known, but no cashier in the establishment
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: answered to the high sounding name of Archibald, or to
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: the crisp and clear cut one of Clark. Our men
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: had again become the sinister, being the unknown. The Castaway
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: end of Part five end of the Fixed Flight by
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: Maurice Renard