In the end, I did rejoice.

FLYING ISLANDS

by Jules Verne
Translated by A. Chekhonte

CHAPTER I

The Talk

“. . . And with this, gentlemen, I conclude my talk,” said Sir John Lund, a young member of the Royal Geographical Society, and, exhausted, sank into his chair. The conference hall resounded with applause and shouts of bravo, and one after another the members came up to Sir John to shake his hand. In token of their enthusiasm, seventeen gentlemen broke seventeen chairs and dislocated eight long necks belonging to eight gentlemen, one of whom was the captain of the Confusion, a 100,009-ton yacht.

“Gentlemen,” Lund began with some emotion. “I consider it my duty to thank you for the infernal patience with which you sat through my talk, which lasted for forty hours, thirty-two minutes, and fourteen seconds”; and, turning to his old servant, he added, “I say, Snipe, wake me in five minutes; I’ll be taking a nap, if these gentlemen will permit me forty winks in their presence.”

“I shall wake you, sir,” Old Snipe replied.

Lund leaned his head back and immediately fell asleep. He was a Scotsman by birth, who had had no schooling whatever, nor had he studied anything—but there was nothing he did not know. He belonged to that small number of happy natures that achieve knowledge of all that is great and wonderful through their intellect alone. The rapture his talk inspired was entirely merited. In the course of the forty hours, he had presented to the assembled gentlemen a grand project, which, if carried out, would bring much glory to Great Britain and demonstrate the heights to which the human intellect could soar. The topic of Lund’s talk was “Drilling Through the Moon with a Giant Drill.”

CHAPTER II

A Mysterious Stranger

Lund had not slept for three minutes when a heavy hand rested on his shoulder and he awoke. Before him towered a man two and a quarter yards tall, thin as a rake and drawn as a dried snake. He was quite bald, dressed entirely in black, and four pairs of spectacles were balanced on his nose. He was sporting two thermometers, one on his chest and one on his back.

“Would you be so kind as to follow me?” the bald-headed gentleman said in a sepulchral voice.

“Whither?”

“Follow me, Sir John.”

“And if I do not?”

“Then I might be constrained to drill through the moon before you do.”

“In that case, sir, I am at your service.”

“Your manservant may accompany us.”

Lund, the bald-headed man, and Tom Snipe left the lecture hall, and the three of them made their way through the gaslit streets of London. They walked quite a distance.

“If you please, sir,” Tom Snipe said to Lund, “if our way is to be as long as this gentleman is tall, then the laws of friction dictate that we will wear down the soles of our shoes to nothing.”

The two gentlemen gave Tom Snipe’s words ten minutes’ thought, and, finding them not without wit, laughed out loud.

“With whom, may I ask, do I have the honor of sharing a good laugh?” Lund asked the bald-headed gentleman.

“You have the honor of walking, laughing, and conversing with a member of every geographical, archaeological, and ethnographical society in the world, doctor of all past and present fields of science, member of the Moscow Arts Circle, honorary trustee of the Southampton School of Bovine Obstetrics, subscriber to The Illustrated Devil, professor of greenish-yellow wizardry and introductory gastronomy at the future University of New Zealand, and director of the Anonymous Observatory, William Dunderheadus. I, sir, am taking you to . . .”—John Lund and Tom Snipe bent their knees in reverence before the great man of whom they had heard so much, and bowed respectfully—“I am taking you, sir, to my observatory, which is located twenty miles from here. I, sir, need a partner for an enterprise, the meaning of which you will only be able to grasp using both hemispheres of your brain. My choice fell upon you. But after a forty-hour talk, I doubt that you will be in a condition to enter any kind of conversation, and I, sir, love nothing more than my telescope and lasting silence. Your manservant’s tongue, I hope, will follow your command.