The "Terror" advanced
at easy speed. What her captain intended to do, I could not guess. If
he continued in this direction, we should reach some one of the West
Indies, or beyond that, at the end of the Gulf, the shore of
Venezuela or Colombia. But when night came, perhaps we would again
rise in the air to clear the mountainous barrier of Guatemala and
Nicaragua, and take flight toward Island X, somewhere in the unknown
regions of the Pacific.
Evening came. The sun sank in an horizon red as blood. The sea
glistened around the "Terror," which seemed to raise a shower of
sparks in its passage. There was a storm at hand. Evidently our
captain thought so. Instead of being allowed to remain on deck, I was
compelled to re-enter my cabin, and the hatchway was closed above me.
In a few moments from the noises that followed, I knew that the
machine was about to be submerged. In fact, five minutes later, we
were moving peacefully forward through the ocean's depths.
Thoroughly worn out, less by fatigue than by excitement and anxious
thought, I fell into a profound sleep, natural this time and not
provoked by any soporific drug. When I awoke, after a length of time
which I could not reckon, the "Terror" had not yet returned to the
surface of the sea.
This maneuver was executed a little later.
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