And the freedom would be that of an island in chains, obliged to follow a definite line; and such freedom the citizens of free America revolted at.

At this period electricians had fortunately so far advanced that they could obtain almost anything from electricity. And it was to it they entrusted the locomotion of their island. Two establishments were enough to drive dynamos of enormous power, furnishing electrical energy by continuous current under a moderate voltage of two thousand volts. These dynamos drove a powerful system by screws, placed near the two ports. They each developed five millions of horse-power, by means of their hundreds of boilers fed with petroleum briquettes, which are less cumbersome, less dirty than oil, and richer in caloric. These works were under the direction of the two chief engineers, Watson and Somwah, assisted by a numerous staff of engineers and stokers under the supreme command of Commodore Ethel Simcoe. From his residence in the observatory, the commodore was in telephonic communication with the works. From him came the orders for advance or retreat, according to the programme. It was owing to him that, during the night of the 25th, the order to start had been given just as Floating Island was in the vicinity of the Californian coast, at the commencement of its annual campaign.

The maximum speed to which the island could attain, when the engines were developing their ten million horse-power, was eight knots an hour. The most powerful waves, when raised by a storm, could have no influence on it. Its size rendered it unaffected by the undulations of the surge. Fear of sea-sickness there could be none. For the first few days just a slight thrill could be perceived, which the rotation of the screws communicated to its subsoil. Terminated by rams extending at each end for some sixty yards, dividing the waters without effort, it passed without shock or jolt over the immense liquid field open to its excursions.

The electrical energy produced at the works was employed for other purposes than the locomotion of Floating Island. It lighted the country, the park, and the city. It gave the luminant for the lighthouse, whose beams signalled from afar the presence of the island and prevented all chance of collision. It furnished the various currents required by the telegraphs, telephotes, telautographs, telephones used in the private houses and business establishments. It fed the artificial moons, of five thousand candle-power, which lighted an area of five hundred square yards.

This extraordinary construction was now on its second voyage across the Pacific. A month before it had left Madeleine Bay and coasted up to the thirty-fifth parallel, so as to be in the latitude of the Sandwich Islands. It was off the coast of Lower California when Calistus Munbar, learning by telephone that the Concert Quartette had left San Francisco, had started for San Diego to secure those eminent artistes. We know the way he effected this, how he brought them on to Floating Island, then moored a few cable lengths off the coast, and how, thanks to this peculiarly smart proceeding, the dilettanti of Floating Island were to be charmed with chamber music.

Such was this new wonder of the world, this masterpiece of human genius, worthy of the twentieth century, of which two violins, an alto, and a ‘cello were the guests, and which was bearing them to the west across the Pacific.

CHAPTER VI.

Even supposing that Sebastien Zorn, Frascolin, Yvernès, and Pinchinat were men who could be astonished at nothing, it would have been difficult for them to resist a legitimate outburst of anger, and a desire to spring at Calistus Munbar’s throat. To have every reason to think that they were in North America, and yet to be really in mid ocean! To believe that they were within twenty miles of San Diego, where they were expected to give a concert next day, and to suddenly learn that they were moving away from it on an artificial island! Really their anger was excusable.

Fortunately for himself, the American had taken care to get out of the way. Profiting by the surprise, or rather the amazement of the quartette, he had left the platform and gone down in the lift, where he was for the moment out of range of the recriminations and exuberances of the four Parisians.

“Rascal!” exclaimed the ‘cellist.

“Animal!” exclaimed the alto.

“Suppose that, thanks to him, we are to see wonders!”  remarked the solo violin.

“Are you going to make excuses for him, then?” asked the second violin.

“No excuses!” said Pinchinat. “If there is a magistrate on Floating Island, we will have this Yankee hoaxer sent to prison.”

“And if there is an executioner,’ said Zorn, “we will have him hanged.”

But to obtain their different results it was first necessary to descend to the level of the inhabitants of Milliard City, the police not acting at a hundred and fifty feet in the air. And that they would have done in a few moments, if descent had been possible. But the cage of the lift had not come up again, and there was nothing like a staircase. At the summit of this tower the quartette found themselves cut off from communication with the rest of humanity.

After their first outburst of vexation and anger, Sebastien Zorn, Pinchinat, and Frascolin left Yvernès to his admirations and remained silent, and finally motionless. Above them rose the flagstaff on which the flag floated.

Zorn experienced a furious desire to cut the halliards, and bring down the flag, as a ship lowers its colours. But as this might lead to trouble, his comrades restrained him at the moment when his hand was brandishing a bowie-knife.

“Do not put us in the wrong,” said the wise Frascolin.

“Then—you accept the situation?” asked Pinchinat.

“No, but do not complicate it.”

“And our luggage on the road to San Diego!” remarked his highness, crossing his arms.

“And our concert to-morrow!” exclaimed Zorn.

“We will give it by telephone,” said the first violin, but the joke had anything but a soothing effect on the excited ‘cellist.

The observatory, it will be remembered, occupied the middle of a vast square, on which abutted the First Avenue. At the other end of this principal artery, some two miles long, which separated the two sections of Milliard City, the artistes could perceive a sort of monumental palace, surmounted by a belfry of very light and elegant construction. They said to themselves that this must be the seat of government of the island, the residence of the municipality, supposing that Milliard City had a mayor and etceteras. They were not mistaken. And just then the clock in the belfry gave forth a joyous carillon, the notes of which reached the tower with the last undulations of the breeze.

“Listen!” said Yvernès. “That is in D major.”

“And in two-four time,” said Pinchinat.

The clock was striking five.

“And dinner,” exclaimed Sebastien Zorn, “and bed! Are we, owing to this miserable Munbar, to spend the night on this platform a hundred and fifty feet in the air?”

It was to be feared so, if the lift did not afford the prisoners the means of quitting their prison.

In fact the twilight is short in these low latitudes, and the sun falls like a projectile below the horizon.