and there, as a giant of olden tales might play with jackstones,
snapping off sturdy trees and whipping them to splinters even
while hurling them as a farmer sows his grain.

Just the one brief look at that aerial monster, then both lads
hung fast to the hand-rail of rope, while the professor put that
cunning machinery in motion, causing the air-ship to rise from
its ways with a sudden swooping movement, then soaring upward and
onward, in a fair curve, as graceful and steady as a bird on
wing.

All this took some little time, even while the trio were working
as men only can when dear life is at stake; but the
flying-machine was afloat and fairly off upon the most marvellous
journey mortals ever accomplished, and that ere yonder
death-balloon could cover half the distance between.

"Grand! Glorious! Magnificent!" fairly exploded the professor,
when he could risk a more comprehensive look, right hand tightly
gripping the polished lever through which he controlled that
admirable mechanism. "I have longed for just such an
opportunity, and now--the camera, Bruno! We must never neglect
to improve such a marvellous chance for--get out the camera,
lad!"

"Get out of the road, rather!" bluntly shouted Waldo, face
unusually pale, as he stared at yonder awful force in action. "Of
course I'm not scared, or anything like that, uncle Phaeton,
but--I want to rack out o' this just about the quickest the law
allows! Yes, I DO, now!"