Free Jules Verne by Robur the Conqueror

in your club in such a way that I am astonished I came
out of it alive?"
    "To ask is not to answer," said Phil Evans, "and I repeat, by what
right?"
    "Do you wish to know?"
    "If you please."
    "Well, by the right of the strongest!"
    "That is cynical."
    "But it is true."
    "And for how long, citizen engineer," asked Uncle Prudent, who was
nearly exploding, "for how long do you intend to exercise that right?"
    "How can you?" said Robur, ironically, "how can you ask me such a
question when you have only to cast down your eyes to enjoy a
spectacle unparalleled in the world?"
    The "Albatross" was then sweeping across the immense expanse of Lake
Ontario. She had just crossed the country so poetically described by
Cooper. Then she followed the southern shore and headed for the
celebrated river which pours into it the waters of Lake Erie,
breaking them to powder in its cataracts.
    In an instant a majestic sound, a roar as of the tempest, mounted
towards them and, as if a humid fog had been projected into the air,
the atmosphere sensibly freshened. Below were the liquid masses. They
seemed like an enormous flowing sheet of crystal amid a thousand
rainbows due to refraction as it decomposed the solar rays. The sight
was sublime.
    Before the falls a foot-bridge, stretching like a thread, united one
bank to the other. Three miles below was a suspension-bridge, across
which a train was crawling from the Canadian to the American bank.
    "The falls of Niagara!" exclaimed Phil Evans. And as the exclamation
escaped him, Uncle Prudent was doing all could do to admire nothing
of these wonders.
    A minute afterwards the "Albatross" had crossed the river which
separates the United States from Canada, and was flying over the vast
territories of the West.

Chapter IX - Across the Prairie
*
    In one, of the cabins of the after-house Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans
had found two excellent berths, with clean linen, change of clothes,
and traveling-cloaks and rugs. No Atlantic liner could have offered
them more comfort. If they did not sleep soundly it was that they did
not wish to do so, or rather that their very real anxiety prevented
them. In what adventure had they embarked? To what series of
experiments had they been invited? How would the business end? And
above all, what was Robur going to do with them?
    Frycollin, the valet, was quartered forward in a cabin adjoining that
of the cook. The neighborhood did not displease him; he liked to rub
shoulders with the great in this world. But if he finally went to
sleep it was to dream of fall after fall, of projections through
space, which made his sleep a horrible nightmare.
    However, nothing could be quieter than this journey through the
atmosphere, whose currents had grown weaker with the evening. Beyond
the rustling of the blades of the screws there was not a sound,
except now and then the whistle from some terrestrial locomotive, or
the calling of some animal. Strange instinct! These terrestrial
beings felt the aeronef glide over them, and uttered cries of terror
as it passed. On the morrow, the 14th of June, at five o'clock, Uncle
Prudent and Phil Evans were walking on the deck of the "Albatross."
    Nothing had changed since the evening; there was a lookout forward,
and the helmsman was in his glass cage. Why was there a look-out? Was
there any chance of collision with another such machine? Certainly
not. Robur had not yet found imitators. The chance of encountering an
aerostat gliding through the air was too remote to be regarded. In
any case it would be all the worse for the aerostat—the earthen pot
and the iron pot. The "Albatross" had nothing to fear from the
collision.
    But what could happen? The aeronef might find herself like a ship on
a lee shore if a mountain that could not be outflanked or passed
barred the way. These are the reefs of the air, and they have to be
avoided as a ship avoids the reefs of the sea. The engineer, it is
true, had given the course, and in doing so had taken into