yers could not much longer follow
her. If it pleased our accursed captain to plunge us into the vortex
of the falls, surely they did not mean to follow into the abyss!

Indeed, at this moment they signaled each other, and stopped the
pursuit. They were scarce more than six hundred feet from the
cataract. Then their thunders burst on the air and several cannon
shot swept over the "Terror" without hitting its low-lying deck.

The sun had set, and through the twilight the moon's rays shone upon
us from the south. The speed of our craft, doubled by the speed of
the current, was prodigious! In another moment, we should plunge into
that black hollow which forms the very center of the Canadian Falls.

With an eye of horror, I saw the shores of Goat Island flashed by,
then came the Isles of the Three Sisters, drowned in the spray from
the abyss.

I sprang up; I started to throw myself into the water, in the
desperate hope of gaining this last refuge. One of the men seized me
from behind.

Suddenly a sharp noise was heard from the mechanism which throbbed
within our craft. The long gangways folded back on the sides of the
machine, spread out like wings, and at the moment when the "Terror"
reached the very edge of the falls, she arose into space, escaping
from the thundering cataract in the center of a lunar rainbow.

Chapter 15

THE EAGLE'S NEST

On the morrow, when I awoke after a sound sleep, our vehicle seemed
motionless. It seemed to me evident that we were not running upon
land. Yet neither were we rushing through or beneath the waters; nor
yet soaring across the sky. Had the inventor regained that mysterious
hiding-place of his, where no human being had ever set foot before
him?

And now, since he had not disembarrassed himself of my presence, was
his secret about to be revealed to me?

It seemed astonishing that I had slept so profoundly during most of
our voyage through the air. 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