The Master of the World | Page 4

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Produced by Norm Wolcott

THE MASTER OF THE WORLD
By Jules Verne

Contents

1 What Happened in the Mountains 2 I Reach Morganton 3 The Great Eyrie 4 A Meeting
of the Automobile Club 5 Along the Shores of New England 6 The First Letter 7 A Third
Machine 8 At Any Cost 9 The Second Letter 10 Outside the Law 11 The Campaign 12
Black Rock Creek 13 On Board the Terror 14 Niagra 15 The Eagle's Nest 16 Robur, the
Conqueror 17 In the Name of the Law 18 The Old Housekeeper's Last Comment
Chapter 1
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE MOUNTAINS

If I speak of myself in this story, it is because I have been deeply involved in its startling
events, events doubtless among the most extraordinary which this twentieth century will

witness. Sometimes I even ask myself if all this has really happened, if its pictures dwell
in truth in my memory, and not merely in my imagination. In my position as head
inspector in the federal police department at Washington, urged on moreover by the
desire, which has always been very strong in me, to investigate and understand
everything which is mysterious, I naturally became much interested in these remarkable
occurrences. And as I have been employed by the government in various important
affairs and secret missions since I was a mere lad, it also happened very naturally that the
head of my department placed In my charge this astonishing investigation, wherein I
found myself wrestling with so many impenetrable mysteries.
In the remarkable passages of the recital, it is important that you should believe my word.
For some of the facts I can bring no other testimony than my own. If you do not wish to
believe me, so be it. I can scarce believe it all myself.
The strange occurrences began in the western part of our great American State of North
Carolina. There, deep amid the Blueridge Mountains rises the crest called the Great Eyrie.
Its huge rounded form is distinctly seen from the little town of Morganton on the
Catawba River, and still more clearly as one approaches the mountains by way of the
village of Pleasant Garden.
Why the name of Great Eyrie was originally given this mountain by the people of the
surrounding region, I am not quite Sure It rises rocky and grim and inaccessible, and
under certain atmospheric conditions has a peculiarly blue and distant effect. But the idea
one would naturally get from the name is of a refuge for birds of prey, eagles condors,
vultures; the home of vast numbers of the feathered tribes, wheeling and screaming above
peaks beyond the reach of man. Now, the Great Eyrie did not seem particularly attractive
to birds; on the contrary, the people of the neighborhood began to remark that on some
days when birds approached its summit they mounted still further, circled high above the
crest, and then flew swiftly away, troubling the air with harsh cries.
Why then the name Great Eyrie? Perhaps the mount might better have been called a
crater, for in the center of those steep and rounded walls there might well be a huge deep
basin. Perhaps there might even lie within their circuit a mountain lake, such as exists in
other parts of the Appalachian mountain system, a lagoon fed by the rain and the winter
snows.
In brief was not this the site of an ancient volcano, one which had slept through ages, but
whose inner fires might yet reawake? Might not the Great Eyrie reproduce in its
neighborhood the violence of Mount Krakatoa or the terrible disaster of Mont Pelee? If
there were indeed a central lake, was there not danger that its waters, penetrating the
strata beneath, would be turned to steam by the volcanic fires and tear their way forth in a
tremendous explosion, deluging the fair plains of Carolina with an eruption such as that
of 1902 in Martinique?
Indeed, with regard to this last possibility there had been certain symptoms recently
observed which might well be due to volcanic action. Smoke had floated above the
mountain and once the country folk passing near had heard subterranean noises,

unexplainable rumblings. A glow in the sky had crowned the height at night.
When the wind blew the smoky cloud eastward toward Pleasant Garden, a few cinders
and ashes drifted down from it. And finally one stormy night pale flames, reflected from
the clouds above the summit, cast upon the district below a sinister, warning light.
In presence of these strange phenomena, it is not astonishing that the people of the
surrounding district became seriously disquieted. And to the disquiet was joined