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Updated: June 1, 2025
War with England!! War!!! Then he disappeared in a cloud of dust down the Salisbury Road like a streak of Greased Lightnin'." Nine days brought the indefatigable courier past Hillsboro, Salisbury, Morganton, Jonesboro, and Knoxville to Nashville a daily average of ninety-five miles over mountains and through uncleared country.
It was dated, to my extreme stupefaction, from that mysterious Great Eyrie: Great Eyrie, Blueridge Mtns, To Mr. Strock: North Carolina, June 13th. Chief Inspector of Police, 34 Long St., Washington, D. C. Sir, You were charged with the mission of penetrating the Great Eyrie. You came on April the twenty-eighth, accompanied by the Mayor of Morganton and two guides.
It was a single sheet, folded in four, and written on one side only. My first glance was for the signature. There was no signature! Nothing but three initials at the end of the last line! "The letter is not from the Mayor of Morganton," said I. "Then from whom?" asked the old servant, doubly curious in her quality as a woman and as an old gossip.
Naturally I connected this with the phenomena observed at the Great Eyrie, the flames which rose above the crest, the noises which had so frightened the people of Pleasant Garden and Morganton. But of what mechanisms were these the fragments, and what reason had our captain for destroying them? At this moment I felt a breath of air; a breeze came from the east. The sky swiftly cleared.
Thus there were many thousands of people threatened, if the Great Eyrie proved indeed a volcano, if the convulsions of nature extended to Pleasant Garden and to Morganton. The mayor of Morganton, Mr. Elias Smith, was a tall man, vigorous and enterprising, forty years old or more, and of a health to defy all the doctors of the two Americas.
And above all, avoid arousing any fresh panic." "It is understood." "You will be accredited to the Mayor of Morganton, who will assist you. Once more, be prudent, Strock, and acquaint no one with your mission, unless it is absolutely necessary. You have often given proofs of your intelligence and address; and this time I feel assured you will succeed." I asked him only "When shall I start?"
However, when it is a matter of real need with me, I trust I shall never be backward, being resolute by nature and well-trained in bodily exercise. Where James Bruck went, I was determined to go, also; though it might cost me some uncomfortable falls. But it was not the same with the first magistrate of Morganton, less young, less vigorous, larger, stouter, and less persistent than we others.
At the moment when the flames showed most sharply, I was on my farm of Wildon, less than a mile from the Great Eyrie. There was certainly a tumult in the air, but I felt no quivering of the earth." "But in the reports sent to Mr. Ward " "Reports made under the impulse of the panic," interrupted the mayor of Morganton. "I said nothing of any earth tremors in mine."
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.
The provisions were unpacked, and John Hart and Nab Walker spread out a meal on the grass at the foot of a superb cypress which recalled to me the forest odors of Morganton and Pleasant Garden. We were hungry and thirsty; and food and drink were not lacking. Then our pipes were lighted to calm the anxious moments of waiting that remained. Silence reigned within the wood.
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