On this last day I made another attempt.
In the afternoon I walked up and down before the large grotto where
my captors were at work. Robur, standing at the entrance, followed me
steadily with his eyes. Did he mean to address me?
I went up to him. "Captain," said I, "I have already asked you a
question, which you have not answered. I ask it again: What do you
intend to do with me?"
We stood face to face scarce two steps apart. With arms folded, he
glared at me, and I was terrified by his glance. Terrified, that is
the word! The glance was not that of a sane man. Indeed, it seemed to
reflect nothing whatever of humanity within.
I repeated my question in a more challenging tone. For an instant I
thought that Robur would break his silence and burst forth.
"What do you intend to do with me? Will you set me free?"
Evidently my captor's mind was obsessed by some other thought, from
which I had only distracted him for a moment. He made again that
gesture which I had already observed; he raised one defiant arm
toward the zenith. It seemed to me as if some irresistible force drew
him toward those upper zones of the sky, that he belonged no more to
the earth, that he was destined to live in space; a perpetual dweller
in the clouds.
Without answering me, without seeming to have understood me, Robur
reentered the grotto.
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