THE OLD HOUSEKEEPER'S LAST COMMENT When I came to myself after having been unconscious for many hours, a group of sailors whose care had restored me to life surrounded the door of a cabin in which I lay.

By my pillow sat an officer who questioned me; and as my senses slowly returned, I answered to his questioning.
I told them everything.

Yes, everything! And assuredly my listeners must have thought that they had upon their hands an unfortunate whose reason had not returned with his consciousness.
I was on board the steamer Ottawa, in the Gulf of Mexico, headed for the port of New Orleans.

This ship, while flying before the same terrific thunder-storm which destroyed the "Terror," had encountered some wreckage, among whose fragments was entangled my helpless body.
Thus I found myself back among humankind once more, while Robur the Conqueror and his two companions had ended their adventurous careers in the waters of the Gulf.

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.