Verne A Floating City

1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-3-8496-4569-4
Verlag: Jazzybee Verlag
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 136 Seiten

Verne's story describes a trip on the 'Great Eastern,' from Liverpool to New York, and a journey afterwards up the Hudson and to the Falls of Niagara. The descriptive parts of the story are free from Verne's well-known peculiarities, and therefore seem tame coming from his pen ; but in making ' the floating city' the scene of a dramatic love story, he is all himself again-particularly at the end, where the hero engages in a duel on deck in the night during a frightful storm, and his antagonist catches the lightning on his uplifted sword and is killed, thus saving the hero from the unpleasantness of killing tbe husband of the woman he loves.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Verne, Jules

Weitere Mitwirkende

Férat, Jules

Leseproben

Chapter XIX

 Leaving the brilliantly lighted saloon I went on deck with Captain Corsican. The night was dark; not a star in the firmament; an impenetrable gloom surrounded the ship. The windows of the saloon shone like the mouths of furnaces; the man on watch, heavily pacing the poop, was scarcely discernible, but one could breathe the fresh air, and the Captain inhaled it with expanded lungs.

 “I was stifled in the saloon,” said he; “here at least I can breathe. I require my hundred cubic yards of pure air every twenty-four hours, or I get half suffocated.”

 “Breathe, Captain, breathe at your ease,” said I to him; “the breeze does not stint your wants. Oxygen is a good thing, but it must be confessed Parisians and Londoners know it only by reputation.”

 “Yes,” replied the Captain, “and they prefer carbonic acid. Ah well! every one to his liking; for my own part I detest it, even in champagne.”

 Thus talking, we paced up and down the deck on the starboard side, sheltered from the wind by the high partitions of the deck cabins. Great wreaths of smoke, illuminated with sparks, curled from the black chimneys; the noise of the engines accompanied the whistling of the wind in the shrouds, which sounded like the cords of a harp. Mingling with this hubbub, each quarter of an hour, came the cry of the sailors on deck, “All’s well, all’s well.”

 In fact no precaution had been neglected to insure the safety of the ship on these coasts frequented by icebergs. The Captain had a bucket of water drawn every half-hour, in order to ascertain the temperature, and if it had fallen one degree he immediately changed his course, for he knew that the “Peruvian” had been seen but a fortnight since blocked up by icebergs in this latitude; it was therefore a danger to be avoided. His orders for night were to keep a strict look-out. He himself remained on the bridge with an officer each side of him, one at the wheel signal, the other at the screw; besides these a lieutenant and two men kept watch on the poop, whilst a quarter-master with a sailor stood at the stern; the passengers might therefore rest quietly.

 After noticing these arrangements we went back again to the stern, as we had made up our minds to stay some time longer, walking on deck like peaceful citizens taking an evening stroll in their town squares.

 The place seemed deserted. Soon, however, our eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, and we perceived a man leaning perfectly motionless, with his elbow on the railing. Corsican, after looking at him attentively for some time, said to me,—

 “It is Fabian.”

 It was indeed Fabian. We recognized him, but absorbed as he was in a profound contemplation he did not see us. His eyes were fixed on an angle of the upper deck; I saw them gleam in the dark. What was he looking at? How could he pierce this black gloom? I thought it better to leave him to his reflections, but Captain Corsican went up to him.

 “Fabian,” said he.

 Fabian did not answer; he had not heard. Again Corsican called him. He shuddered, and turned his head for a moment, saying,—

 “Hush.”

 Then with his hand he pointed to a shadow which was slowly moving at the further end of the upper deck. It was this almost invisible figure that Fabian was looking at, and smiling sadly he murmured,—

 “The black lady.”

 I shuddered. Captain Corsican took hold of my arm, and I felt that he also was trembling. The same thought had struck us both. This shadow was the apparition about which Dean Pitferge had spoken.

 Fabian had relapsed into his dreamy contemplation. I, with a heaving breast and awe-struck glance, looked at this human figure, the outline of which was hardly discernible; but presently it became more defined. It came forward, stopped, turned back, and then again advanced, seeming to glide rather than walk. At ten steps from us it stood perfectly still. I was then able to distinguish the figure of a slender female, closely wrapped in a kind of brown burnous, and her face covered with a thick veil.

 “A mad woman, a mad woman, is it not?” murmured Fabian.

 It was, indeed, a mad woman; but Fabian was not asking us: he was speaking to himself.

 In the meantime the poor creature came still nearer to us. I thought I could see her eyes sparkle through her veil, when they were fixed on Fabian. She went up to him, Fabian started to his feet, electrified. The veiled woman put her hand on her heart as though counting its pulsation, then, gliding swiftly away, she disappeared behind the angle of the upper deck. Fabian staggered, and fell on his knees, his hands stretched out before him.

 “It is she,” he murmured.

 Then shaking his head.—

 “What an hallucination!” he added.

 Captain Corsican then took him by the hand.

 “Come, Fabian, come,” said he, and he led away his unhappy friend.

Chapter XX

 Corsican and I could no longer doubt but that it was Ellen, Fabian’s betrothed, and Harry Drake’s wife. Chance had brought all three together on the same ship. Fabian had not recognized her, although he had cried, “It is she, it is she!” and how was it possible that he could have done so? But he was not mistaken in saying, “A mad woman!” Ellen was mad, undoubtedly; grief, despair, love frozen in her heart, contact with the worthless man who had snatched her from Fabian, ruin, misery, and shame had broken her spirit. It was on this subject that Corsican and I spoke the following morning. We had no doubt as to the identity of the young woman; it was Ellen, whom Harry Drake was dragging with him to the American continent. The Captain’s eyes glowed with a dark fire at the thought of this wretch, and I felt my heart stir within me. What were we against the husband, the master? Nothing. But now, what was most important, was to prevent another meeting between Fabian and Ellen, for Fabian could not fail at last to recognize his betrothed, and thus the catastrophe we wished to avoid would be brought about.

 At the same time we had reason to hope that these two poor creatures would not see each other again, as the unhappy Ellen never appeared in the daytime, either in the saloons or on the deck. Only at night, perhaps eluding her gaoler, she came out to bathe herself in the damp air, and demand of the wind a smooth passage. In four days, at the latest, the “Great Eastern” must reach New York harbour; therefore we might hope that accident would not dally with our watchfulness, and that Fabian would not discover Ellen during this time; but we made our calculations without thinking of events.

 The steamer’s course had been slightly altered in the night, three times the ship, being in water twenty-seven degrees Fahrenheit—that is to say, five degrees below zero, had been turned towards the south. There was no longer any doubt of icebergs being very near, for the sky that morning had a peculiarly brilliant aspect; the atmosphere was misty, and the northern sky glittered with an intense reverberation, evidently produced by the powerful rejection from the icebergs. There was a piercing wind, and about ten o’clock the deck was powdered by a slight snow fall, then dense fog surrounded us, in which we gave warning of our approach, by deafening whistles, which scared away the flocks of sea-gulls in the ship’s yards. At half-past ten, the fog having cleared off, a screw steamer appeared on the horizon, a-starboard, the white tops of her chimneys indicating that she was an emigrant ship, belonging to the Inman Company.

 Before lunch several of the passengers organized a pool, which could not fail to please those fond of betting and gambling. The result of this pool was not to be known for four days; it was what is called the “pilot’s pool.” When a ship arrives at the land-falls every one knows that a pilot comes on board; so they divide the twenty-four hours of the day and night into forty-eight half-hours, or ninety-six quarters, according to the number of the passengers....