a moment. Yet Robur seemed to have no thought of doing so. No! He
preserved his haughty attitude as of a man who in his immeasurable
pride, believed himself above or beyond humanity.
Seeing him thus I asked myself with almost superstitious awe, if he
were not indeed a demoniac being, escaped from some supernatural
world.
A cry leaped from his mouth, and was heard amid the shrieks of the
tempest and the howlings of the thunder. "I, Robur! Robur!--The
master of the world!"
He made a gesture which Turner and his companions understood. It was
a command; and without any hesitation these unhappy men, insane as
their master, obeyed it.
The great wings shot out, and the airship rose as it had risen above
the falls of Niagara. But if on that day it had escaped the might of
the cataract, this time it was amidst the might of the hurricane that
we attempted our insensate flight.
The air-ship soared upward into the heart of the sky, amid a thousand
lightning flashes, surrounded and shaken by the bursts of thunder. It
steered amid the blinding, darting lights, courting destruction at
every instant.
Robur's position and attitude did not change. With one hand on the
helm, the other on the speed regulators while the great wings beat
furiously, he headed his machine toward the very center of the storm,
where the electric flashes were leaping from cloud to cloud.
I must throw myself upon this madman to prevent him from driving his
machine into the very middle of this aerial furnace! I must compel
him to descend, to seek beneath the waters, a safety which was no
longer possible either upon the surface of the sea or in the sky!
Beneath, we could wait until this frightful outburst of the elements
was at an end!
Then amid this wild excitement my own passion, all my instincts of
duty, arose within me! Yes, this was madness! Yet must I not arrest
this criminal whom my country had outlawed, who threatened the entire
world with his terrible invention? Must I not put my hand on his
shoulder and summon him to surrender to justice! Was I or was I not
Strock, chief inspector of the federal police? Forgetting where I
was, one against three, uplifted in mid-sky above a howling ocean, I
leaped toward the stern, and in a voice which rose above the tempest,
I cried as I hurled myself upon Robur:
"In the name of the law, I--"
Suddenly the "Terror" trembled as if from a violent shock. All her
frame quivered, as the human frame quivers under the electric fluid.
Struck by the lightning in the very middle of her powerful batteries,
the air-ship spread out on all sides and went to pieces.
With her wings fallen, her screws broken, with bolt after bolt of the
lightning darting amid her ruins, the "Terror" fell from the height
of more than a thousand feet into the ocean beneath.
Chapter 18
THE OLD HOUSEKEEPER'S LAST COMMENT
When I came to myself after having been unconscious for many hours, a
group of sailors whose care had restored me to life surrounded the
door of a cabin in which I lay. By my pillow sat an officer who
questioned me; and as my senses slowly returned, I answered to his
questioning.
I told them everything. Yes, everything! And assuredly my listeners
must have thought that they had upon their hands an unfortunate whose
reason had not returned with his consciousness.
I was on board the steamer Ottawa, in the Gulf of Mexico, headed for
the port of New Orleans. This ship, while flying before the same
terrific thunder-storm which destroyed the "Terror," had encountered
some wreckage, among whose fragments was entangled my helpless body.
Thus I found myself back among humankind once more, while Robur the
Conqueror and his two companions had ended their adventurous careers
in the waters of the Gulf. The Master of the World had disappeared
forever, struck down by those thunder-bolts which he had dared to
brave in the regions of their fullest power. He carried with him the
secret of his extraordinary machine.
Five days later the Ottawa sighted the shores of Louisiana; and on
the morning of the tenth of August she reached her port. After taking
a warm leave of my rescuers, I set out at once by train for
Washington, which more than once I had despaired of ever seeing again.
I went first of all to the bureau of police, meaning to make my
earliest appearance before Mr. Ward.
What was the surprise, the stupefaction, and also the joy of my
chief, when the door of his cabinet opened before me! Had he not
every reason to believe, from the report of my companions, that I had
perished in the waters of Lake Erie?
I informed him of all my experiences since I had disappeared, the
pursuit of the destroyers on the lake, the soaring of the "Terror"
from amid Niagara Falls, the halt within the crater of the Great
Eyrie, and the catastrophe, during the storm, above the Gulf of
Mexico.
He learned for the first time that the machine created by the genius
of this Robur, could traverse space, as it did the earth and the sea.
In truth, did not the possession of so complete and marvelous a
machine justify the name of Master of the World, which Robur had
taken to himself? Certain it is that the comfort and even the lives
of the public must have been forever in danger from him; and that all
methods of defence must have been feeble and ineffective.
But the pride which I had seen rising bit by bit within the heart of
this prodigious man had driven him to give equal battle to the most
terrible of all the elements. It was a miracle that I had escaped
safe and sound from that frightful catastrophe.
Mr. Ward could scarcely believe my story. "Well, my dear Strock,"
said he at last, "you have come back; and that is the main thing.
Next to this notorious Robur, you will be the man of the hour. I hope
that your head will not be turned with vanity, like that of this
crazy inventor!"
"No, Mr. Ward," I responded, "but you will agree with me that never
was inquisitive man put to greater straits to satisfy his curiosity."
"I agree, Strock; and the mysteries of the Great Eyrie, the
transformations of the "Terror," you have discovered them! But
unfortunately, the still greater secrets of this Master of the World
have perished with him."
The same evening the newspapers published an account of my
adventures, the truthfulness of which could not be doubted. Then, as
Mr. Ward had prophesied, I was the man of the hour.
One of the papers said, "Thanks to Inspector Strock the American
police still lead the world. While others have accomplished their
work, with more or less success, by land and by sea, the American
police hurl themselves in pursuit of criminals through the depths of
lakes and oceans and even through the sky."
Yet, in following, as I have told, in pursuit of the "Terror," had I
done anything more than by the close of the present century will have
become the regular duty of my successors?
It is easy to imagine what a welcome my old housekeeper gave me when
I entered my house in Long Street. When my apparition--does not the
word seem just--stood before her, I feared for a moment she would
drop dead, poor woman! Then, after hearing my story, with eyes
streaming with tears, she thanked Providence for having saved me from
so many perils.
"Now, sir," said she, "now--was I wrong?"
"Wrong? About what?"
"In saying that the Great Eyrie was the home of the devil?"
"Nonsense; this Robur was not the devil!"
"Ah, well!" replied the old woman, "he was worthy of being so!"
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