In an almost unbelievably short time the wind had increased to a gale.
It shrieked and moaned among the wire supports of the car, and the great
bag that held it in mid-air swayed and tore furiously at its fastenings.
Jack kept a sharp lookout for a good spot to land, while Tom relieved
Ned at the wheel. Once they saw beneath them a big area of smooth,
park-like land, almost devoid of trees. It would have made an ideal
landing place, but as they tried to force the Flying Road Racer around
to head for it the full force of the wind struck them.
While traveling with the gale they had not noticed its full fury. Now,
however, it battered them viciously, tearing at the gas bag as if it had
been some monster bent on its destruction. The car swung wildly
underneath its support, and they had to cling on to avoid being hurled
out into space.
Their intention of battling with the wind was quickly given up. Tom
brought the helm around and the Flying Road Racer hurtled off before the
blast at a speed the indicator showed to be sixty-five miles.
“Is there no possibility of turning around and landing?” asked Mr.
Jesson somewhat anxiously.
“It is out of the question,” declared Jack; “we’d rip this craft to
pieces if we even attempted to buffet the storm.”
“It’s a bad one, all right,” said Abner Jennings.
“And may be worse afore it’s better,” said Captain Andrews, casting an
anxious eye aloft at the scudding clouds among which they were sailing.
“The wind is blowing about sixty miles an hour,” said Jack, looking at
the anemometer. “That means practically a hurricane speed.”
“Are we in danger?” asked Mr. Jesson.
“Not as long as we can keep in the air,” said Jack; “but if anything
should go wrong it would be awkward, to say the least of it.”
“Then something may happen at any minute?”
“I didn’t say so. Uncle; but, as Captain Andrews said, the wind may grow
stronger.”
“It’s hard to tell what these tropical hurricanes will do, once they get
started,” said the burly captain. “I’ve seen ’em blow for a week and
flatten out whole groves of cocoanuts.”
It grew blacker and blacker. The Flying Road Racer was now scudding
through ragged white clouds that drove as fast as she did under a
panoply of inky black. The scream of the rigging as the wind rushed
against the taut, straining wires, sounded almost like the cries of some
live thing in pain.
Every now and again there would come a sudden burst of vicious fury, and
once or twice it actually appeared as if the great air craft would be
ripped in pieces. But so far every wire and brace and turnbuckle in her
construction had held bravely.
Jack watched the engine anxiously, attending to the lubricating devices
and adjusting the gas mixers. The machine was behaving splendidly, and
Jack felt that if only the connections between the gas bag and the car
would hold they might still weather the fury of the gale.
He knew that these tropical hurricanes while furious are often not of
very long duration. He stuck to his post, keeping hope alive in his
heart, while the others pluckily enough endured the situation without
flinching.
All at once, the wind stopped as suddenly as if it had been cut off at a
gigantic spigot.
The calm, after that raging, furious gale, was positively startling.
“Is the storm over?” asked Ned.
“No. It’s only just beginning,” was the alarming response from Captain
Andrews.
“I understand you now,” came from Mr. Jesson suddenly; “it’s a circular
storm.”
“That’s it, sir. In a few minutes it will be blowing just as hard out of
the west as a few minutes ago it was blowing from seaward.”
“We’d better put the craft about,” said Tom.
“Yes; bring her round as quick as you can,” said Jack. “Goodness! how
queer this sudden calm feels.”
It was indeed an uncanny feeling. So still had the air become that a
candle might have been lighted and its flame would hardly have
flickered.
Through this stagnant atmosphere the Flying Road Racer was worked around
till her bow was pointing seaward.
“Gracious!” exclaimed Tom, “if the wind doesn’t come from the quarter
Captain Andrews expected we’ll be blown to bits.”
Jack said nothing. Any reply he might have made was, in fact, cut short
at this moment by a moaning sound from the direction of the mountains.
It was caused by the wind sweeping through the canyons and deep abysses
that scared them.
“Put on full speed, Tom,” urged Jack; “the faster we are going when that
wind strikes us the less chance there will be of our being ripped to
bits.”
The greatest speed of which she was capable was placed on the Flying
Road Racer. The indicator showed in turn fifty, sixty, sixty-five and
then seventy miles!
Just as she attained this remarkable speed the wind struck the straining
air craft with its full velocity.
“Fo’ de Lawd’s sake!” shrilled out Jupe, “we done bin gone dis time fo’
shoh.”
But he was wrong. The stout fabric of the wonderful craft withstood even
the terrific assault now made upon her. But her forward motion suddenly
ceased. Caught in the vortex created by the meeting point of the two
conflicting storms, she was whirled round and round as if she had been
gripped in a maelstrom of the winds.
The boys could do nothing to control this nauseating, dizzying, rotating
motion. Upward and forward the Flying Road Racer was forced, climbing at
terrifying speed the aerial circular staircase. One by one her occupants
succumbed to the effects of the rapid circling. It caused a helpless,
miserable feeling similar to seasickness and quite as prostrating.
“Back! back! Go down lower!” shouted Captain Andrews in Tom’s ear.
“We can’t,” yelled the lad; “we’re being dragged to the sky. We’ve lost
all control.”
“Oh, but this is fearful!” exclaimed Mr. Jesson. “Nothing made by human
hands can stand this much longer.”
Truly it seemed a marvel that the craft had held together as long as it
had. So fast were they being swung round and round by this time that the
car was suspended at quite a sharp angle, swinging outward from the gas
bag by the force of the centrifugal motion.
It was terrifying, awe-inspiring, prostrating. Not one of those clinging
for dear life to the dizzy car had ever had such an experience, and one
or two among them had faced death not a few times.
All at once there came a sharp snap from above them.
To their overstrung nerves it sounded like a pistol shot.
“One of the wires has parted!” cried Ned in a terror-stricken tone.
“It is the beginning of the end,” groaned Captain Andrews, sinking his
head in his hands.
“Can nothing be done?” gasped out Mr. Jesson, who alone of all that
pallid-faced crew could find his voice at that instant.
“Nothing,” was the reply. “In ten minutes or less every wire holding us
to that gas bag will have parted like that one.”
“And then?”
“And then, my friend, we shall be dropped five thousand feet through
space.”