Captain Nemo: The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius (38 page)

“Drop the grappling hook anyway,” Fergusson suggested, “all the way to the ground.
 
Perhaps we’ll snag it on a rock, eh?”

Nemo followed the command, but the colorful balloon continued to drift unhindered.
 
The anchor plowed a furrow through the grasses, doing little to slow the
Victoria
’s progress.
 
As if to spite them, the breezes increased, and the balloon drifted rapidly over the elephant herd.
 

Fergusson loaded both of his rifles then looked in dismay at the pachyderms.
 
He didn’t shoot because he had no way to retrieve his prize.
 
But then, as the anchor dragged through the herd, its hooks snagged on something.
 
With a lurch, the balloon jerked to a halt.
 

“Ah, we’re caught,” Fergusson said.
 
“Now we can --”

The balloon began to move again, tugged along as if by a locomotive.
 
Hearing a loud bellow, Nemo looked over the basket to find that the hook had caught on the curved tusk of a huge bull elephant.
 
Tangled, the beast trumpeted with its long trunk and thrashed its head from side to side, which only set the sharp grappling hook tighter.

Furious, the elephant charged across the plain, dragging the
Victoria
along.
 
Thinking of practical matters, Caroline secured the loose equipment to the wicker walls of the basket.
 
Normally, the breezes gave them a gentle ride, but now the three were yanked about as the maddened creature stampeded, first in one direction, then the other.

Within moments, Dr. Fergusson regained his senses enough to pick up his first rifle.
 
He leaned over the basket, pointed the barrel at the elephant below, and let loose a shot.
 
Against the thick hide, however, the bullet did little damage other than spurring the elephant to a greater frenzy.
 
As the beast ran, the balloon bobbed along behind it like a fish on the end of a hook.
 

Fergusson shot his second rifle, saw that the bullet struck the elephant squarely in the back of the head.
 
He reloaded and fired again and again, until at last the animal slowed to a plod, bleeding from numerous wounds.
 
With a great wheeze of pain and exhaustion, it dropped in its tracks.

Nemo and Caroline were both sad for the magnificent creature, but Fergusson saw it as no more than another set of descriptions to be entered into his logbook.
 
They winched the balloon closer to the ground, and the doctor leaped over the side without even bothering to use the ladder.
 
Enormous vultures and ravens circled around, waiting for the feast.
 

Nemo and Fergusson spent an hour poking and prodding the carcass, measuring, estimating weight, making notes.
 
Then they stored both of the elephant’s tusks, each worth a fortune in ivory, inside the balloon’s basket.
 

From her lookout above, Caroline sketched the scene and added more poignancy to the dramatic flight of the elephant than pure scientific analysis required.

iii

In misery, Jules Verne sat alone in a bistro by the river Seine.
 
The waiter served him a bottle of cheap wine, strong cheese, bread, and poached fish with a mushroom cream sauce.
 
At any other time, he would have savored every morsel; now, though, the future loomed like a yawning chasm, and made him lose his appetite.

The bistro owner presumed the red-bearded student was celebrating his graduation, though Verne’s lack of enthusiasm suggested otherwise.
 
“No, Monsieur,” he answered the grinning man’s question.
 
“This is most definitely
not
the happiest day of my life.”

At the Paris Academy, Verne had reviewed every legal detail he’d learned in the past several years.
 
The dry words crawled across the pages like listless insects, and he stared until his eyes burned and his head ached.
 
He remained uninterested in the law -- but he didn’t dare face the consequences of letting his father down. . . .

When he received his grade and discovered that his score was sufficient for a diploma (by a scant few points in his favor), Verne realized that he no longer had any escape.
 
His dismal future had been set.
 
Not as a literary genius, not a world-explorer, not a brave adventurer . . . but a small-town lawyer.

As he watched a pleasure boat go by on the Seine, he took a forkful of fish and chewed.
 
Now that he was certified as a practicing attorney, his father would expect him to settle down in Nantes and, over time, take over the family trade.
 
Proud of his son’s accomplishment, the older man had already mounted a new sign above the door to his offices:
 
“Pierre Verne, et fils.”
 
Verne & Son
.
 

The very thought horrified Jules.
 
He felt as if he were on the deck of a sinking ship.

He forced himself to finish every scrap of his dinner and all the wine, regardless of whether his digestive system -- queasy at the best of times -- would appreciate it.
 
Since he’d paid for the meal, he vowed to consume it . . . not that he ever let good food go to waste.

His theatre work had been both amusing and difficult, sapping his strength but teaching him many things (none of which, unfortunately, would benefit an attorney).
 
He had earned little money in the theatre -- just enough to repay his expenses and supplement the meager allowance his father sent him each month.
 
If he defied his father and remained in Paris, the allowance would stop abruptly, no matter how much his sympathetic mother might argue.
 
And Verne could not live on a theatre worker’s salary.

By now he had hoped to become a renowned playwright.
 
The poetry that had always delighted his family and friends did not seem brilliant enough to warrant publication.
 
His historical novels, pale imitations of the works of Dumas and Hugo, were tedious, dry, melodramatic.
 
The more he worked at them, the duller they became (at least according to his literary associates who read them and gleefully offered their acid criticism).

But Verne wanted to find some way to be successful through his writing, no matter the cost.
 
It was time to give up those aspirations and slink home in the night in hopes that no one had noticed his dreams . . . or he must swallow his pride and ask a tremendous favor from his strongest literary acquaintance.
 

By now, he vowed, it was no longer time to be polite or subtle.

Verne paid the waiter, then returned to his apartment where he changed into his best clothes, well-worn though they were.
 
Alexandre Dumas hired writers to assist in the production of his novels and plays, and Verne had always hoped to join them.
 
He had dropped hints during visits to the Monte Cristo chateau, but the enormous man with his booming laugh and glittering jewelry had ignored each gentle reminder.
 
Now, though, Verne would be direct, drop to his knees if necessary.
 
If he could work for the great “fiction factory,” perhaps he would earn enough to make a living.
 
He had no other choice, besides being a lawyer.

As he rode in a carriage to the outskirts of Paris, Verne worked up his courage, remembering all he had learned in the theatre and in law school.
 
He had to make a compelling case for himself.
 
Nothing he’d ever done would matter as much as this.

When the carriage pulled up to the graveled courtyard of Monte Cristo, Verne handed the appropriate coins to the driver, along with a very small tip, then climbed out.

Into total chaos.
 

The carriage rattled away with a surly comment from the driver.
 
Verne stood astonished as the front door was flung open and well-dressed men marched out of the entrance.

Inside the huge house, crews of workers bustled about, dragging furniture, taking down paintings, wrapping statuary for transport.
 
The sound of hammers rang out from the magnificent marble-tiled ballroom as carpenters assembled storage crates.
 
Grim-faced businessmen slapped labels on tapestries or alabaster busts of Dumas himself.
 
Secretaries recorded the items in heavy ledger books.

“What is going on here?”
 
Verne caught the elbow of a well-muscled workman who had extraordinarily hairy arms.
 
He felt too intimidated to speak to any of the businessmen.

The worker brushed sweat from his forehead.
 
“You another creditor?
 
I only take orders from
him
.”
 
He nodded toward a small man with a wispy beard and a bright red cravat.

Gathering his courage, Verne hurried to the indicated man.
 
“What is the meaning of this?
 
Are you thieves?
 
By what right are you taking these treasures from the great Dumas?”

“They’re being marked for auction,” the man said.
 
“Monsieur Dumas is bankrupt.
 
Even selling the chateau and its contents will not pay all his bills.”

Verne was astonished.
 
“Impossible!
 
He is one of the most successful writers in France.”

The small man gave a brief, maddening chuckle.
 
“And he is also one of the greatest spendthrifts.
 
Now be on your way.”

Verne spluttered.
 
“But . . . but have you no respect for books?”

“Aye -- for ledger books.
 
You’ll have to find a new patron if you’re another of those leeches who clung to Dumas and his wealth.”
 
The man sneered.
 
“Or else find legitimate work of your own.”

The haughty man marched off into another room, where a beautiful gilt-framed mirror was being hauled down with two ropes and a great deal of clumsiness.
 
He bellowed an admonition to the workmen, and the startled brutes let loose the ropes.
 
The mirror crashed into thousands of shards upon the polished floor.

Verne stopped another businessman on his way out to the reflecting pond.
 
“Where is Monsieur Dumas?
 
I must speak with him.”

The potbellied man just snorted.
 
“We
all
want to speak with Monsieur Dumas, but he has made himself conveniently scarce.
 
If you find him, send him back to the main house.”

With a sinking heart, Verne strode across the beautifully kept grounds, past hedges and flower boxes, fountains that now sat quiet instead of spraying torrents of diamond-like droplets.
 
A handful of droopy-eyed writers stood in the manicured orange grove; two sat on stone benches.
 
No one spoke, all their conversation smothered by a pall of despair.

Verne hurried up to them and repeated his questions, but got the same answers.
 
They looked toward the tiny island where Dumas did his writing.
 
Swans still drifted across the water, unconcerned about their future -- although from the looks of Monte Cristo, there might not even be enough money left to feed the birds.
 
No doubt they’d end up in someone’s oven.

Even with his own dismal prospects, Verne found the moaning writers depressing.
 
Dumas could pay none of them, not even for work they’d already done.
 
Still, Verne found himself as much concerned for his enormous, good-natured mentor as he was filled with gloom about his precarious situation.

He wandered around the grounds, past the now-empty servants’ quarters to the stables and the carriage house.
 
There he heard people moving about with hushed whispers.
 
Curious, Verne entered the carriage house and saw a footman lashing a harness to the single remaining horse.