Evidently if the violence of the cyclone went on increasing the
"Albatross" would be but as a straw caught in one of those whirlwinds
that root up the trees, carry off roofs, and blow down walls.

Robur and Tom could only speak by signs. Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans
clung to the rail and wondered if the cyclone was not playing their
game in destroying the aeronef and with her the inventor--and with
the inventor the secret of his invention.

But if the "Albatross" could not get out of the cyclone vertically
could she not do something else? Could she not gain the center, where
it was comparatively calm, and where they would have more control
over her? Quite so, but to do this she would have to break through
the circular currents which were sweeping her round with them. Had
she sufficient mechanical power to escape through them?

Suddenly the upper part of the cloud fell in. The vapor condensed in
torrents of rain. It was two o'clock in the morning. The barometer,
oscillating over a range of twelve millimeters, had now fallen to
27.91, and from this something should be taken on account of the
height of the aeronef above the level of the sea.

Strange to say, the cyclone was out of the zone to which such storms
are generally restricted, such zone being bounded by the thirtieth
parallel of north latitude and the twenty-sixth parallel of south
latitude. This may perhaps explain why the eddying storm suddenly
turned into a straight one. But what a hurricane! The tempest in
Connecticut on the 22nd of March, 1882, could only have been compared
to it, and the speed of that was more than three hundred miles an