The Master of the World had disappeared
forever, struck down by those thunder-bolts which he had dared to
brave in the regions of their fullest power. He carried with him the
secret of his extraordinary machine.
Five days later the Ottawa sighted the shores of Louisiana; and on
the morning of the tenth of August she reached her port. After taking
a warm leave of my rescuers, I set out at once by train for
Washington, which more than once I had despaired of ever seeing again.
I went first of all to the bureau of police, meaning to make my
earliest appearance before Mr. Ward.
What was the surprise, the stupefaction, and also the joy of my
chief, when the door of his cabinet opened before me! Had he not
every reason to believe, from the report of my companions, that I had
perished in the waters of Lake Erie?
I informed him of all my experiences since I had disappeared, the
pursuit of the destroyers on the lake, the soaring of the "Terror"
from amid Niagara Falls, the halt within the crater of the Great
Eyrie, and the catastrophe, during the storm, above the Gulf of
Mexico.
He learned for the first time that the machine created by the genius
of this Robur, could traverse space, as it did the earth and the sea.
In truth, did not the possession of so complete and marvelous a
machine justify the name of Master of the World, which Robur had
taken to himself? Certain it is that the comfort and even the lives
of the public must have been forever in danger from him; and that all
methods of defence must have been feeble and ineffective.
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