Free The Floating Island by Jules Verne Page B

opportunely.
    The tram road skirted the coast,
with the sea on one side, the fields on the other. The cars ran along in this
way for about four miles. Then they stopped before a battery of twelve guns of
heavy calibre, the entrance to which bore the inscription “Prow Battery.”
    “Cannons which load but do not
discharge by the breech, like so many of those in Old Europe,” said Calistus
Munbar.
    Hereabouts the coast was deeply
indented. A sort of cape ran out, very long and narrow, like the prow of a
ship, or the ram of a man-of-war, on which the waves divided, sprinkling it
with their white foam. The effect of the current probably, for the sea in the
offing was reduced to long undulations, which were getting smaller and smaller
with the setting of the sun.
    From this point another line of
rails went off towards the centre, while the other continued to follow the
curve of the coast; and Calistus Munbar made his friends change cars,
announcing that they would return direct towards the city.
    The excursion had lasted long
enough.
    Calistus Munbar drew out his
watch, a masterpiece of Sivan, of Geneva — a
talking watch, a phonographic watch — of
which he pressed the button, and which distinctly spoke, “Thirteen minutes past
four.”
    “You will not forget the ascent
of the observatory?” Frascolin reminded him.
    “Forget it, my dear, and I may
say my old, friends! I would sooner forget my own name, which enjoys a certain
celebrity, I believe. In another four miles we shall be in front of the
magnificent edifice, built at the end of First Avenue, that which divides the
two sections of our town.”
    The tram started. Beyond were the
fields, on which fell the afternoon rain, as the American called it; here again
was the enclosed park with its fences, its lawns, its beds and its shrubberies.
    Half-past four then chimed. Two
hands indicated the hour on a gigantic dial, like that of the Houses of
Parliament at Westminster, on the face of a quadrangular tower.
    At the foot of this tower were
the buildings of the observatory, devoted to different duties, some of which,
with round metal roofs and glass windows, allowed the astronomers to follow the
circuit of the stars. There were arranged round a central court, from the midst
of which rose the tower for a hundred and fifty feet. From its upper gallery
the view around would extend over a radius of sixteen miles, if the horizon
were not bounded by any high ground or mountains.
    Calistus Munbar, preceding his
guests, entered a door which was opened to him by a porter in superb livery.
    At the end of the hall the lift
cage was waiting, which was worked by electricity. The quartette took their
places in it with their guide. The cage ascended slowly and quietly. Forty-five
seconds after they stopped at the level of the upper platform of the tower.
From this platform rose the staff of a gigantic flag, of which the bunting
floated out in the northerly breeze.
    Of what nationality was this flag?
None of our Parisians could recognize it. It was like the American ensign, with
its lateral stripes of white and red, but the upper canton, instead of the
sixty-seven stars which twinkled in the Confederation at this epoch, bore only
one, a star or rather a sun of gold on a blue ground, which seemed to rival in
brilliancy the star of day.
    “Our flag, gentlemen,” said
Calistus Munbar, taking off his hat as a mark of respect.
    Sebastien Zorn and his comrades
could not do otherwise than follow his example. Then they advanced to the
parapet and looked over.
    What a shriek — at first of
surprise and then of anger — escaped them!
    The country lay extended beneath
them. The country was a perfect oval, surrounded by a horizon of sea, and as
far as the eye could carry no land was in sight. And yet the night before,
after leaving the village of Freschal in the American’s company, Zorn, Frascolin,
Yvernès, Pinchinat had travelled for two miles on the land. They had then
crossed the river in