I was assured that neither the country-folk throughout the region, nor the townfolk of Pleasant Garden and Morganton were in danger of volcanic eruptions or earthquakes.

No subterranean forces whatever were battling within the bowels of the mountains.

No crater had arisen in this corner of the Alleghanies.

The Great Eyrie served merely as the retreat of Robur the Conqueror.

This impenetrable hiding-place where he stored his materials and provisions, had without doubt been discovered by him during one of his aerial voyages in the "Albatross." It was a retreat probably even more secure than that as yet undiscovered Island X in the Pacific.
This much I knew of him; but of this marvelous machine of his, of the secrets of its construction and propelling force, what did I really know?
Admitting that this multiple mechanism was driven by electricity, and that this electricity was, as we knew it had been in the "Albatross," extracted directly from the surrounding air by some new process, what were the details of its mechanism?
I had not been permitted to see the engine; doubtless I should never see it.
On the question of my liberty I argued thus: Robur evidently intends to remain unknown.