"Jules Verne. The Mysterious Island" - читать интересную книгу автора

themselves when they alighted, and provisions in the event of their aerial
voyage being prolonged.

The departure of the balloon was fixed for the 18th of March. It should
be effected during the night, with a northwest wind of moderate force, and
the aeronauts calculated that they would reach General Lee's camp in a few
hours.

But this northwest wind was not a simple breeze. From the 18th it was
evident that it was changing to a hurricane. The tempest soon became such
that Forster's departure was deferred, for it was impossible to risk the
balloon and those whom it carried in the midst of the furious elements.

The balloon, inflated on the great square of Richmond, was ready to
depart on the first abatement of the wind, and, as may be supposed, the
impatience among the besieged to see the storm moderate was very great.

The 18th, the 19th of March passed without any alteration in the weather.
There was even great difficulty in keeping the balloon fastened to the
ground, as the squalls dashed it furiously about.

The night of the 19th passed, but the next morning the storm blew with
redoubled force. The departure of the balloon was impossible.

On that day the engineer, Cyrus Harding, was accosted in one of the
streets of Richmond by a person whom he did not in the least know. This was
a sailor named Pencroft, a man of about thirty-five or forty years of age,
strongly built, very sunburnt, and possessed of a pair of bright sparkling
eyes and a remarkably good physiognomy. Pencroft was an American from the
North, who had sailed all the ocean over, and who had gone through every
possible and almost impossible adventure that a being with two feet and no
wings would encounter. It is needless to say that he was a bold, dashing
fellow, ready to dare anything and was astonished at nothing. Pencroft at
the beginning of the year had gone to Richmond on business, with a young
boy of fifteen from New Jersey, son of a former captain, an orphan, whom he
loved as if he had been his own child. Not having been able to leave the
town before the first operations of the siege, he found himself shut up, to
his great disgust; but, not accustomed to succumb to difficulties, he
resolved to escape by some means or other. He knew the engineer-officer by
reputation; he knew with what impatience that determined man chafed under
his restraint. On this day he did not, therefore, hesitate to accost him,
saying, without circumlocution, "Have you had enough of Richmond, captain?"

The engineer looked fixedly at the man who spoke, and who added, in a low
voice,--

"Captain Harding, will you try to escape?"

"When?" asked the engineer quickly, and it was evident that this question
was uttered without consideration, for he had not yet examined the stranger