."

"And so," said Uncle Prudent, explosively, "you are not content with
being our jailer, but you insult us."

"Oh! a little irony, that is all!"

"Are there any weapons on board?"

"Oh, quite an arsenal."

"Two revolvers will do, if I hold one and you the other."

"A duel!" exclaimed Robur, "a duel, which would perhaps cause the
death of one of us."

"Which certainly would cause it."

"Well! No, Mr. President of the Weldon Institute, I very much prefer
keeping you alive."

"To be sure of living yourself. That is wise."

"Wise or not, it suits me. You are at liberty to think as you like,
and to complain to those who have the power to help you--if you can."

"And that we have done, Mr. Robur."

"Indeed!"

"Was it so difficult when we were crossing the inhabited part of
Europe to drop a letter overboard?"

"Did you do that?" said Robur, in a paroxysm of rage.

"And if we have done it?"

"If you have done it--you deserve--"

"What, sir?"

"To follow your letter overboard."

"Throw us over, then. We did do it."

Robur stepped towards them. At a gesture from him Tom Turner and some
of the crew ran up. The engineer was seriously tempted to put his
threat into execution, and, fearful perhaps of yielding to it, he
precipitately rushed into his cabin.

"Good!" exclaimed Phil Evans.

"And what he will dare not do," said Uncle Prudent, "I Will do! Yes,
I Will do!"

At the moment the population of Timbuktu were crowding onto the
squares and roads and the terraces built like amphitheaters. In the
rich quarters of Sankere and Sarahama, as in the miserable huts at
Raguidi, the priests from the minarets were thundering their loudest
maledictions against the aerial monster. These were more harmless
than the rifle-bullets; though assuredly, if the aeronef had come to
earth she would have certainly been torn to pieces.

For some miles noisy flocks of storks, francolins, and ibises
escorted the "Albatross" and tried to race her, but in her rapid
flight she soon distanced them.

The evening came. The air was troubled by the roarings of the
numerous herds of elephants and buffaloes which wander over this
land, whose fertility is simply marvelous. For forty-eight hours the
whole of the region between the prime meridian and the second degree,
in the bend of the Niger, was viewed from the "Albatross."

If a geographer had only such an apparatus at his command, with what
facility could he map the country, no