Robur the Conqueror by Jules Verne

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"No, Sir, no," said Phil Evans. "If I had had the honor of being
president of the Weldon Institute, there never, no, never, would have
been such a scandal."

"And what would you have done, if you had had the honor?" demanded
Uncle Prudent.

"I would have stopped the insulter before he had opened his mouth."

"It seems to me it would have been impossible to stop him until he
had opened his mouth," replied Uncle Prudent.

"Not in America, Sir; not in America."

And exchanging such observations, increasing in bitterness as they
went, they walked on through the streets farther and farther from
their homes, until they reached a part of the city whence they had to
go a long way round to get back.

Frycollin followed, by no means at ease to see his master plunging
into such deserted spots. He did not like deserted spots,
particularly after midnight. in fact the darkness was profound, and
the moon was only a thin crescent just beginning its monthly life.
Frycollin kept a lookout to the left and right of him to see if he
was followed. And he fancied he could see five or six hulking follows
dogging his footsteps. Instinctively he drew nearer to his master,
but not for the world would be have dared to break in on the
conversation of which the fragments reached him.

In short it so chanced that the president and secretary of the Weldon
Institute found themselves on the road to Fairmount Park. In the full
heat of their dispute they crossed the Schuyllkill river by the
famous iron bridge. They met only a few belated wayfarers, and
pressed on across a wide open tract where the immense prairie was
broken every now and then by the patches of thick woodland--which
make the park different to any other in the world.

There Frycollin's terror became acute, particularly as he saw the
five or six shadows gliding after him across the Schuyllkill bridge.
The pupils of his eyes broadened out to the circumference of his
iris, and his limbs seemed to diminish as if endowed with the
contractility peculiar to the mollusca and certain of the articulate;
for Frycollin, the valet, was an egregious coward.

He was a pure South Carolina Negro, with the head of a fool and the
carcass of an imbecille. Being only one and twenty, he had never been
a slave, not even by birth, but that made no difference to him.
Grinning and greedy and idle, and a magnificent poltroon, he had been
the servant of Uncle Prudent for about three years. Over and over
again had his master threatened to kick him out, but had kept him on
for fear of doing worse. With a master ever ready to venture on the
most audacious enterprises, Frycollin's cowardice had brought him
many arduous trials. But he had some compensation. Very little had
been said about his gluttony, and still less about his laziness.

Ah, Valet Frycollin, if you could only have read the future! Why, oh
why, Frycollin, did you not remain at Boston with the Sneffels, and
not have given them up when they talked of going to Switzerland? Was
not that a much more suitable place for you than this of Uncle
Prudent's, where danger was daily welcomed?

But here he was, and his master had become used to his faults. He had
one advantage, and that was a consideration. Although he was a Negro
by birth he did not speak like a Negro, and nothing is so irritating
as that hateful jargon in which all the pronouns are possessive and
all the verbs infinitive. Let it be understood, then, that Frycollin
was a thorough coward.

And now it was midnight, and the pale crescent of the moon began to
sink in the west behind the trees in the park. The rays streaming
fitfully through the branches made the shadows darker than ever.
Frycollin looked around him anxiously. "Brrr!" he said, "There are
those fellows there all the time. Positively they are getting nearer!
Master Uncle!" he shouted.

It was thus he called the president of the Weldon Institute, and thus
did the president desire to be called.

At the moment the dispute of the rivals had reached its maximum, and
as they hurled their epithets at each other they walked faster and
faster, and drew farther and farther away from the Schuyllkill
bridge. They had reached the center of a wide clump of trees, whose
summits were just tipped by the parting rays of the moon. Beyond the
trees was a very large clearing--an oval field, a complete
amphitheater. Not a hillock was there to hinder the gallop of the
horses, not a bush to stop the view of the spectators.

And if Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans had not been so deep in their
dispute, and had used their eyes as they were accustomed to, they
would have found the clearing was not in its usual state. Was it a
flour mill that had anchored on it during the night? It looked like
it, with its wings and sails--motionless and mysterious in the
gathering gloom.

But neither the president nor the secretary of the Weldon Institute
noticed the strange modification in the landscape of Fairmount Park;
and neither did Frycollin. It seemed to him that the thieves were
approaching, and preparing for their attack; and he was seized with
convulsive fear, paralyzed in his limbs, with every hair he could
boast of on the bristle. His terror was extreme. His knees bent under
him, but he had just strength enough to exclaim for. the last time,
"Master Uncle! Master Uncle!"

"What is the matter with you?" asked Uncle Prudent.

Perhaps the disputants would not have been sorry to have relieved
their fury at the expense of the unfortunate valet. But they had no
time; and neither even had he time to answer.

A whistle was heard. A flash of electric light shot across the
clearing.

A signal, doubtless? The moment had come for the deed of violence. In
less time that it takes to tell, six men came leaping across from
under the trees, two onto Uncle Prudent, two onto Phil Evans, two
onto Frycollin--there was no need for the last two, for the Negro
was incapable of defending himself. The president and secretary of
the Weldon Institute, although taken by surprise, would have resisted.

They had neither time nor strength to do so. In a second they were
rendered speechless by a gag, blind by a bandage, thrown down,
pinioned and carried bodily off across the clearing. What could they
think except that they had fallen into the hands of people who
intended to rob them? The people did nothing of the sort, however.
They did not even touch Uncle Prudent's pockets, although, according
to his custom, they were full of paper dollars.

Within a minute of the attack, without a word being passed, Uncle
Prudent, Phil Evans, and Frycollin felt themselves laid gently down,
not on the grass, but on a sort of plank that creaked beneath them.
They were laid down side by side.

A door was shut; and the grating of a bolt in a staple told them that
they were prisoners.

Then there came a continuous buzzing, a quivering, a frrrr, with the
rrr unending.

And that was the only sound that broke the quiet of the night.

Great was the excitement next morning in Philadelphia Very early was
it known what had passed at the meeting of the Institute. Everyone
knew of the appearance of the mysterious engineer named Robur--Robur
the Conqueror--and the tumult among the balloonists, and his
inexplicable disappearance. But it was quite another thing when all
the town heard that the president and secretary of the club had also
disappeared during the night.

Long and keen was the search in the city and neighborhood! Useless!
The newspapers of Philadelphia, the newspapers of Pennsylvania, the
newspapers of the United States reported the facts and explained them
in a hundred ways, not one of which was the right one. Heavy rewards
were offered, and placards were pasted up, but all to no purpose. The
earth seemed to have opened and bodily swallowed the president and
secretary of the Weldon Institute.

Chapter VI

THE PRESIDENT AND SECRETARY SUSPEND HOSTILITIES

A bandage over the eyes, a gag in the mouth, a cord round the wrists,
a cord round the ankles, unable to see, to speak, or to move, Uncle
Prudent, Phil Evans, and Frycollin were anything but pleased with
their position. Knowing not who had seized them, nor in what they had
been thrown like parcels in a goods wagon, nor where they were, nor
what was reserved for them--it was enough to exasperate even the
most patient of the ovine race, and we know that the members of the
Weldon Institute were not precisely sheep as far as patience went.
With his violence of character we can easily imagine how Uncle
Prudent felt. One thing was evident, that Phil Evans and he would
find it difficult to attend the club next evening.

As to Frycollin, with his eyes shut and his mouth closed, it was
impossible for him to think of anything. He was more dead than alive.

For an hour the position of the prisoners remained unchanged. No one
came to visit, them, or to give them that liberty of movement and
speech of which they lay in such need. They were reduced to stifled
sighs, to grunts emitted over and under their gags, to everything
that betrayed anger kept dumb and fury imprisoned, or rather bound
down. Then after many fruitless efforts they remained for some time
as though lifeless. Then as the sense of sight was denied them they
tried by their sense of hearing to obtain some indication of the
nature of this disquieting state of things. But in vain did they seek
for any other sound than an interminable and inexplicable f-r-r-r
which seemed to envelop them in a quivering atmosphere.

At last something happened. Phil Evans, regaining his coolness,
managed to slacken the cord which bound his wrists. Little by little
the knot slipped, his fingers slipped over each other, and his hands
regained their usual freedom.

A vigorous rubbing restored the circulation. A moment after he had
slipped off the bandage which bound his eyes, taken the gag out of
his mouth, and cut the cords round his ankles with his knife. An
American who has not a bowie-knife in his pocket is no longer an
American.

But if Phil Evans had regained the power of moving and speaking, that
was all. His eyes were useless to him--at present at any rate. The
prison was quite dark, though about six feet above him a feeble gleam
of light came in through a kind of loophole.

As may be imagined, Phil Evans did not hesitate to at once set free
his rival. A few cuts with the bowie settled the knots which bound
him foot and hand.

Immediately Uncle Prudent rose to his knees and snatched away his
bandage and gag.

"Thanks," said he, in stifled voice.

"Phil Evans?"

"Uncle Prudent?"

"Here we are no longer the president and secretary of the Weldon
Institute. We are adversaries no more."

"You are right," answered Evans. "We are now only two men agreed to
avenge ourselves on a third whose attempt deserves severe reprisals.
And this third is --"

"Robur!"

"It is Robur!"

On this point both were absolutely in accord. On this subject there
was no fear of dispute.

"And your servant?" said Phil Evans, pointing to Frycollin, who was
puffing like a grampus. "We must set him free."

"Not yet," said Uncle Prudent. "He would overwhelm us with his
jeremiads, and we have something else to do than abuse each other."

"What is that, Uncle Prudent?"

"To save ourselves if possible."

"You are right, even if it is impossible."

"And even if it is impossible."

There could be no doubt that this kidnapping was due to Robur, for an
ordinary thief would have relieved them of their watches, jewelry,
and purses, and thrown their bodies into the Schuyllkill with a good
gash in their throats instead of throwing them to the bottom of--Of
what? That was a serious question, which would have to be answered
before attempting an escape with any chance of success.

"Phil Evans," began Uncle Prudent, "if, when we came away from our
meeting, instead of indulging in amenities to which we need not
recur, we had kept our eyes more open, this would not have happened.
Had we remained in the streets of Philadelphia there would have been
none of this. Evidently Robur foresaw what would happen at the club,
and had placed some of his bandits on guard at the door. When we left
Walnut Street these fellows must have watched us and followed us, and
when we imprudently ventured into Fairmount Park they went in for
their little game."

"Agreed," said Evans. "We were wrong not to go straight home."

"It is always wrong not to be right," said Prudent.

Here a long-drawn sigh escaped from the darkest corner of the prison.
"What is that?" asked Evans.

"Nothing! Frycollin is dreaming."

"Between the moment we were seized a few steps out into the clearing
and the moment we were thrown in here only two minutes elapsed. It is
thus evident that those people did not take us out of Fairmount Park."

"And if they had done so we should have felt we were being moved."

"Undoubtedly; and consequently we must be in some vehicle, perhaps
some of those long prairie wagons, or some show-caravan --"

"Evidently! For if we were in a boat moored on the Schuyllkill we
should have noticed the movement due to the current --"

"That is so; and as we are still in the clearing, I think that now is
the time to get away, and we can return later to settle with this
Robur --"

"And make him pay for this attempt on the liberty of two citizens of
the United States."

"And he shall pay pretty dearly!"

"But who is this man? Where does he come from? Is he English, or
German, or French --"

"He is a scoundrel, that is enough!" said Uncle Prudent. "Now to
work." And then the two men, with their hands stretched out and their
fingers wide apart, began to feel round the walls to find a joint or
crack.

Nothing. Nothing; not even at the door. It was closely shut and it
was impossible to shoot back the lock. All that could be done was to
make a hole, and escape through the hole. It remained to be seen if
the knives could cut into the walls.

"But whence comes this never-ending rustling?" asked Evans, who was
much impressed at the continuous f-r-r-r.

"The wind, doubtless," said Uncle Prudent.

"The wind! But I thought the night was quite calm."

"So it was. But if it isn't the wind, what can it be?"

Phil Evans got out the best blade of his knife and set to work on the
wall near the door. Perhaps he might make a hole which would enable
him to open it from the outside should it be only bolted or should
the key have been left in the lock. He worked away for some minutes.
The only result was to nip up his knife, to snip off its point, and
transform what was left of the blade into a saw.

"Doesn't it cut?" asked Uncle Prudent.

"No."

"Is the wall made of sheet iron?"

"No; it gives no metallic sound when you hit it."

"Is it of ironwood?"

"No; it isn't iron and it isn't wood."

"What is it then?"

"Impossible to say. But, anyhow, steel doesn't touch it." Uncle
Prudent, in a sudden outburst of fury, began to rave and stamp on the
sonorous planks, while his hands sought to strangle an imaginary
Robur.

"Be calm, Prudent, he calm! You have a try."

Uncle Prudent had a try, but the bowie-knife could do nothing against
a wall which its best blades could not even scratch. The wall seemed
to be made of crystal.

So it became evident that all flight was impracticable except through
the door, and for a time they must resign themselves to their fate--
not a very pleasant thing for the Yankee temperament, and very much
to the disgust of these eminently practical men. But this conclusion
was not arrived at without many objurgations and loud-sounding
phrases hurled at this Robur--who, from what had been seen of him at
the Weldon Institute, was not the sort of man to trouble himself much
about them.

Suddenly Frycollin began to give unequivocal signs of being unwell.
He began to writhe in a most lamentable fashion, either with cramp in
his stomach or in his limbs; and Uncle Prudent, thinking it his duty
to put an end to these gymnastics, cut the cords that bound him.

He had cause to be sorry for it. Immediately there was poured forth
an interminable litany, in which the terrors of fear were mingled
with the tortures of hunger. Frycollin was no worse in his brain than
in his stomach, and it would have been difficult to decide to which
organ the chief cause of the trouble should be assigned.

"Frycollin!" said Uncle Prudent.

"Master Uncle! Master Uncle!" answered the Negro between two of his
lugubrious howls.

"It is possible that we are doomed to die of hunger in this prison,
but we have made up our minds not to succumb until we have availed
ourselves of every means of alimentation to prolong our lives,"

"To eat me?" exclaimed Frycollin.

"As is always done with a Negro under such circumstances! So you had
better not make yourself too obvious --"

"Or you'll have your bones picked!" said Evans.

And as Frycollin saw he might be used to prolong two existences more
precious than his own, he contented himself thenceforth with groaning
in quiet.

The time went on and all attempts to force the door or get through
the wall proved fruitless. What the wall was made of was impossible
to say. It was not metal; it was not wood; it was not stone, And all
the cell seemed to be made of the same stuff. When they stamped on
the floor it gave a peculiar sound that Uncle Prudent found it
difficult to describe; the floor seemed to sound hollow, as if it was
not resting directly on the ground of the clearing. And the
inexplicable f-r-r-r-r seemed to sweep along below it. All of which
was rather alarming.

"Uncle Prudent," said Phil Evans.

"Well?"

"Do you think our prison has been moved at all?"

"Not that I know of."

"Because when we were first caught I distinctly remember the fresh
fragrance of the grass and the resinous odor of the park trees. While
now, when I take in a good sniff of the air, it seems as though all
that had gone."

"So it has."

"Why?"

"We cannot say why unless we admit that the prison has moved; and I
say again that if the prison had moved, either as a vehicle on the
road or a boat on the stream, we should have felt it."

Here Frycollin gave vent to a long groan, which might have been taken
for his last had he not followed it up with several more.

"I expect Robur will soon have us brought before him," said Phil
Evans.

"I hope so," said Uncle Prudent. "And I shall tell him --"

"What?"

"That he began by being rude and ended in being unbearable."

Here Phil Evans noticed that day was beginning to break. A gleam,
still faint, filtered through the narrow window opposite the door. It
ought thus to be about four o'clock in the morning for it is at that
hour in the month of June in this latitude that the horizon of
Philadelphia is tinged by the first rays of the dawn.

But when Uncle Prudent sounded his repeater--which was a masterpiece
from his colleague's factory--the tiny gong only gave a quarter to
three, and the watch had not stopped.

"That is strange!" said Phil Evans. "At a quarter to three it ought
still to be night".

"Perhaps my watch has got slow," answered Uncle Prudent.

"A watch of the Wheelton Watch Company!" exclaimed Phil Evans.

Whatever might be the reason, there was no doubt that the day was
breaking. Gradually the window became white in the deep darkness of
the cell. However, if the dawn appeared sooner than the fortieth
parallel permitted, it did not advance with the rapidity peculiar to
lower latitudes. This was another observation--of Uncle Prudent's -
a new inexplicable phenomenon.

"Couldn't we get up to the window and see where we are?"

"We might," said Uncle Prudent. "Frycollin, get up!"

The Negro arose.

"Put your back against the wall," continued Prudent, "and you, Evans,
get on his shoulders while I buttress him up."

"Right!" said Evans.

An instant afterwards his knees were on Frycollin's shoulders, and
his eyes were level with the window. The window was not of lenticular
glass like those on shipboard, but was a simple flat pane. It was
small, and Phil Evans found his range of view was much limited.

"Break the glass," said Prudent, "and perhaps you will be able to see
better."

Phil Evans gave it a sharp knock with the handle of his bowie-knife.
It gave back a silvery sound, but it did not break.

Another and more violent blow. The same result.

"It is unbreakable glass!" said Evans.

It appeared as though the pane was made of glass toughened on the
Siemens system--as after several blows it remained intact.

The light had now increased, and Phil Evans could see for some
distance within the radius allowed by the frame.

"What do you see?" asked Uncle Prudent.

"Nothing."

"What? Not any trees?"

"No."

"Not even the top branches?"

"No."

"Then we are not in the clearing?:

"Neither in the clearing nor in the park."

"Don't you see any roofs of houses or monuments?" said Prudent, whose
disappointment and anger were increasing rapidly.

"No."

"What! Not a flagstaff, nor a church tower, nor a chimney?"

"Nothing but space."

As he uttered the words the door opened. A man appeared on the
threshold. It was Robur.

"Honorable balloonists" he said, in a serious voice, "you are now
free to go and come as you like."

"Free!" exclaimed Uncle Prudent.

"Yes--within the limits of the "Albatross!" "

Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans rushed out of their prison. And what did
they see?

Four thousand feet below them the face of a country they sought in
vain to recognize.

Chapter VII

ON BOARD THE ALBATROSS

"When will man cease to crawl in the depths to live in the azure and
quiet of the sky?"

To this question of Camille Flammarion's the answer is easy. It will
be when the progress of mechanics has enabled us to solve the problem
of aviation. And in a few years--as we can foresee--a more
practical utilization of electricity will do much towards that
solution.

In 1783, before the Montgolfier brothers had built their
fire-balloon, and Charles, the physician, had devised his first
aerostat, a few adventurous spirits had dreamt of the conquest of
space by mechanical means. The first inventors did not think of
apparatus lighter than air, for that the science of their time did
not allow them to imagine. It was to contrivances heavier than air,
to flying machines in imitation of the birds, that they trusted to
realize aerial locomotion.

This was exactly what had been done by that madman Icarus, the son of
Daedalus, whose wings, fixed together with wax, had melted as they
approached the sun.

But without going back to mythological times, without dwelling on
Archytas of Tarentum, we find, in the works of Dante of Perugia, of
Leonardo da Vinci and Guidotti, the idea of machines made to move
through the air. Two centuries and a half afterwards inventors began
to multiply. In 1742 the Marquis de Bacqueville designed a system of
wings, tried it over the Seine, and fell and broke his arm. In 1768
Paucton conceived the idea of an apparatus with two screws,
suspensive and propulsive. In 1781 Meerwein, the architect of the
Prince of Baden, built an orthopteric machine, and protested against
the tendency of the aerostats which had just been invented. In 1784
Launoy and Bienvenu had maneuvered a helicopter worked by springs. In
1808 there were the attempts at flight by the Austrian Jacques Degen.
In 1810 came the pamphlet by Denian of Nantes, in which the
principles of "heavier than air" are laid down. From 1811 to 1840
came the inventions and researches of Derblinger, Vigual, Sarti,
Dubochet, and Cagniard de Latour. In 1842 we have the Englishman
Henson, with his system of inclined planes and screws worked by
steam. In 1845 came Cossus and his ascensional screws. In 1847 came
Camille Vert and his helicopter made of birds' wings. in 1852 came
Letur with his system of guidable parachutes, whose trial cost him
his life; and in the same year came Michel Loup with his plan of
gliding through the air on four revolving wings. In 1853 came
Beleguic and his aeroplane with the traction screws,
Vaussin-Chardannes with his guidable kite, and George Cauley with his
flying machines driven by gas. From 1854 to 1863 appeared Joseph
Pline with several patents for aerial systems. Breant, Carlingford,
Le Bris, Du Temple, Bright, whose ascensional screws were
left-handed; Smythies, Panafieu, Crosnier, &c. At length, in 1863,
thanks to the efforts of Nadar, a society of "heavier than air" was
founded in Paris. There the inventors could experiment with the
machines, of which many were patented. Ponton d'Amecourt and his
steam helicopter, La Landelle and his system of combining screws with
inclined planes and parachutes, Louvrie and his aeroscape, Esterno
and his mechanical bird, Groof and his apparatus with wings worked by
levers. The impetus was given, inventors invented, calculators
calculated all that could render aerial locomotion practicable.
Bourcart, Le Bris, Kaufmann, Smyth, Stringfellow, Prigent, Danjard,
Pomes and De la Pauze, Moy, Penaud, Jobert, Haureau de Villeneuve,
Achenbach, Garapon, Duchesne, Danduran, Pariesel, Dieuaide,
Melkiseff, Forlanini, Bearey, Tatin, Dandrieux, Edison, some with
wings or screws, others with inclined planes, imagined, created,
constructed, perfected, their flying machines, ready to do their
work, once there came to be applied to thereby some inventor a motor
of adequate power and excessive lightness.

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