Read Online Jules Verne by Robur the Conqueror - Free Book Online

was a
chain of mountains extending out of sight.
    "And will you tell us where we are?" asked Uncle Prudent, in a voice
tremulous with anger.
    "I have nothing to teach you," answered Robur.
    "And will you tell us where we are going?" asked Phil Evans.
    "Through space."
    "And how long will that last?"
    "Until it ends."
    "Are we going round the world?" asked Phil Evans ironically.
    "Further than that," said Robur.
    "And if this voyage does not suit us?" asked Uncle Prudent.
    "It will have to suit you."
    That is a foretaste of the nature of the relations that were to
obtain between the master of the "Albatross" and his guests, not to
say his prisoners. Manifestly he wished to give them time to cool
down, to admire the marvelous apparatus which was bearing them
through the air, and doubtless to compliment the inventor. And so he
went off to the other end of the deck, leaving them to examine the
arrangement of the machinery and the management of the ship or to
give their whole attention to the landscape which was unrolling
beneath them.
    "Uncle Prudent," said Evans, "unless I am mistaken we are flying over
Central Canada. That river in the northwest is the St. Lawrence. That
town we are leaving behind is Quebec."
    It was indeed the old city of Champlain, whose zinc roofs were
shining like reflectors in the sun. The "Albatross" must thus have
reached the forty-sixth degree of north latitude, and thus was
explained the premature advance of the day with the abnormal
prolongation of the dawn.
    "Yes," said Phil Evans, "There is the town in its amphitheater, the
hill with its citadel, the Gibraltar of North America. There are the
cathedrals. There is the Custom House with its dome surmounted by the
British flag!"
    Phil Evans had not finished before the Canadian city began to slip
into the distance.
    The clipper entered a zone of light clouds, which gradually shut off
a view of the ground.
    Robur, seeing that the president and secretary of the Weldon
Institute had directed their attention to the external arrangements
of the "Albatross," walked up to them and said: "Well, gentlemen, do
you believe in the possibility of aerial locomotion by machines
heavier than air?"
    It would have been difficult not to succumb to the evidence. But
Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans did not reply.
    "You are silent," continued the engineer. "Doubtless hunger makes you
dumb! But if I undertook to carry you through the air, I did not
think of feeding you on such a poorly nutritive fluid. Your first
breakfast is waiting for you."
    As Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans were feeling the pangs of hunger
somewhat keenly they did not care to stand upon ceremony. A meal
would commit them to nothing; and when Robur put them back on the
ground they could resume full liberty of action.
    And so they followed into a small dining-room in the aftermost house.
There they found a well-laid table at which they could take their
meals during the voyage. There were different preserves; and, among
other things, was a sort of bread made of equal parts of flour and
meat reduced to powder and worked together with a little lard, which
boiled in water made excellent soup; and there were rashers of fried
ham, and for drink there was tea.
    Neither had Frycollin been forgotten. He was taken forward and there
found some strong soup made of this bread. In truth he had to be very
hungry to eat at all, for his jaws shook with fear, and almost
refused to work. "If it was to break! If it was to break!" said the
unfortunate Negro. Hence continual faintings. Only think! A fall of
over four thousand feet, which would smash him to a jelly!
    An hour afterwards Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans appeared on the deck.
Robur was no longer there. At the stem the man at the wheel in his
glass cage, his eyes fixed on the compass, followed imperturbably
without hesitation the route given by the engineer.
    As for the rest of the crew, breakfast probably kept them from their
posts. An assistant engineer, examining the