There was not even any
preparation for the plunge. With an eye more burning than ever,
impassive before this frightful storm, the captain looked it full in
the face, as if to defy it, knowing that he had nothing to fear.
It was imperative that the terror should plunge below without losing
a moment. Yet Robur seemed to have no thought of doing so. No! He
preserved his haughty attitude as of a man who in his immeasurable
pride, believed himself above or beyond humanity.
Seeing him thus I asked myself with almost superstitious awe, if he
were not indeed a demoniac being, escaped from some supernatural
world.
A cry leaped from his mouth, and was heard amid the shrieks of the
tempest and the howlings of the thunder. "I, Robur! Robur!--The
master of the world!"
He made a gesture which Turner and his companions understood. It was
a command; and without any hesitation these unhappy men, insane as
their master, obeyed it.
The great wings shot out, and the airship rose as it had risen above
the falls of Niagara. But if on that day it had escaped the might of
the cataract, this time it was amidst the might of the hurricane that
we attempted our insensate flight.
The air-ship soared upward into the heart of the sky, amid a thousand
lightning flashes, surrounded and shaken by the bursts of thunder.
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