It puzzled me and I asked if this sleep
had not been caused by some drug, mixed with my last meal, the
captain of the "Terror" having wished thus to prevent me from knowing
the place where we landed. All that I can recall of the previous
night is the terrible impression made upon me by that moment when the
machine, instead of being caught in the vortex of the cataract rose
under the impulse of its machinery like a bird with its huge wings
beating with tremendous power!
So this machine actually fulfilled a four-fold use! It was at the
same time automobile, boat, submarine, and airship. Earth, sea and
air, -- it could move through all three elements! And with what
power! With what speed! Al few instants sufficed to complete its
marvelous transformations. The same engine drove it along all its
courses! And I had been a witness of its metamorphoses! But that of
which I was still ignorant, and which I could perhaps discover, was
the source of the energy which drove the machine, and above all, who
was the inspired inventor who, after having created it, in every
detail, guided it with so much ability and audacity!
At the moment when the "Terror" rose above the Canadian Falls, I was
held down against the hatchway of my cabin. The clear, moonlit
evening had permitted me to note the direction taken by the air-ship.
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