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The Master of the World

J >> Jules Verne >> The Master of the World




As soon as I set foot on the deck, Turner also embarked. His
companion went forward to the look-out; Turner climbed down into the
engine-room, lighted by electric bulbs, from which not a gleam
escaped outside.

Robur himself was at the helm, the regulator within reach of his
hand, so that he could control both our speed and our direction. As
to me, I was forced to descend into my cabin, and the hatchway was
fastened above me. During that night, as on that of our departure
from Niagara, I was not allowed to watch the movements of the
"Terror."

Nevertheless, if I could see nothing of what was passing on board, I
could hear the noises of the machinery. I had first the feeling that
our craft, its bow slightly raised, lost contact with the earth. Some
swerves and balancings in the air followed. Then the turbines
underneath spun with prodigious rapidity, while the great wings beat
with steady regularity.

Thus the "Terror," probably forever, had left the Great Eyrie, and
launched into the air as a ship launches into the waters. Our captain
soared above the double chain of the Alleghanies, and without doubt
he would remain in the upper zones of the air until he had left all
the mountain region behind.

But in what direction would he turn? Would he pass in flight across
the plains of North Carolina, seeking the Atlantic Ocean? Or would he
head to the west to reach the Pacific? Perhaps he would seek, to the
south, the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. When day came how should I
recognize which sea we were upon, if the horizon of water and sky
encircled us on every side?

Several hours passed; and how long they seemed to me! I made no
effort to find forgetfulness in sleep. Wild and incoherent thoughts
assailed me. I felt myself swept over worlds of imagination, as I was
swept through space, by an aerial monster. At the speed which the
"Terror" possessed, whither might I not be carried during this
interminable night? I recalled the unbelievable voyage of the
"Albatross," of which the Weldon Institute had published an account,
as described by Mr. Prudent and Mr. Evans. What Robur, the Conqueror,
had done with his first airship, he could do even more readily with
this quadruple machine.

At length the first rays of daylight brightened my cabin. Would I be
permitted to go out now, to take my place upon the deck, as I had
done upon Lake Erie?

I pushed upon the hatchway: it opened. I came half way out upon the
deck.

All about was sky and sea. We floated in the air above an ocean, at a
height which I judged to be about a thousand or twelve hundred feet.
I could not see Robur, so he was probably in the engine room. Turner
was at the helm, his companion on the look-out.

Now that I was upon the deck, I saw what I had not been able to see
during our former nocturnal voyage, the action of those powerful
wings which beat upon either side at the same time that the screws
spun beneath the flanks of the machine.

By the position of the sun, as it slowly mounted from the horizon, I
realized that we were advancing toward the south. Hence if this
direction had not been changed during the night this was the Gulf of
Mexico which lay beneath us.

A hot day was announced by the heavy livid clouds which clung to the
horizon. These warnings of a coming storm did not escape the eye of
Robur when toward eight o'clock he came on deck and took Turner's
place at the helm. Perhaps the cloud-bank recalled to him the
waterspout in which the "Albatross" had so nearly been destroyed, or
the mighty cyclone from which he had escaped only as if by a miracle
above the Antarctic Sea.

It is true that the forces of Nature which had been too strong for
the "Albatross," might easily be evaded by this lighter and more
versatile machine. It could abandon the sky where the elements were
in battle and descend to the surface of the sea; and if the waves
beat against it there too heavily, it could always find calm in the
tranquil depths.

Doubtless, however, there were some signs by which Robur, who must be
experienced in judging, decided that the storm would not burst until
the next day.

He continued his flight; and in the afternoon, when we settled down
upon the surface of the sea, there was not a sign of bad weather. The
"Terror" is a sea bird, an albatross or frigate-bird, which can rest
at will upon the waves! Only we have this advantage, that fatigue has
never any hold upon this metal organism, driven by the inexhaustible
electricity!

The whole vast ocean around us was empty. Not a sail nor a trail of
smoke was visible even on the limits of the horizon. Hence our
passage through the clouds had not been seen and signaled ahead.

The afternoon was not marked by any incident. 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. The daylight pierced my
porthole; and at the same moment I felt the pitching and tossing to
which we were subjected by a heavy sea.

I was allowed to take my place once more outside the hatchway; where
my first thought was for the weather. A storm was approaching from
the northwest. Vivid lightning darted amid the dense, black clouds.
Already we could hear the rumbling of thunder echoing continuously
through space. I was surprised--more than surprised, frightened!--by
the rapidity with which the storm rushed upward toward the zenith.
Scarcely would a ship have had time to furl her sails to escape the
shock of the blast, before it was upon her! The advance was as swift
as it was terrible.

Suddenly the wind was unchained with unheard of violence, as if it
had suddenly burst from this prison of cloud. In an instant a
frightful sea uprose. The breaking waves, foaming along all their
crests, swept with their full weight over the "Terror." If I had not
been wedged solidly against the rail, I should have been swept
overboard!

There was but one thing to do--to change our machine again into a
submarine. It would find security and calm at a few dozen feet
beneath the surface. To continue to brave the fury of this outrageous
sea was impossible.

Robur himself was on deck, and I awaited the order to return to my
cabin--an order which was not given. There was not even any
preparation for the plunge. With an eye more burning than ever,
impassive before this frightful storm, the captain looked it full in
the face, as if to defy it, knowing that he had nothing to fear.

It was imperative that the terror should plunge below without losing
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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