and the air-ship was whirled high and higher, in a dizzy dance,
those luckless creatures clinging fast to whatever their frenzied
hands might clutch, feeling that this was the end of all.

Further sight was denied them. They were powerless to move a
limb, save as jerked painfully by those shrieking currents.
Breath was taken away, and an enormous weight bore down upon
them, threatening to produce a fatal collapse through their ribs
giving way.

Upward whirled the flying-machine, powerless now as those
wretched beings within its cunning shape, smitten sharply here
and there by some of those ascending missiles, yet without
receiving material injury; until a last shivering lurch came,
ending in a sudden fall.

A dizzying swoop downward, but not to death and destruction, for
the aerostat alighted easily upon what appeared to be a sort of
air-cushion, and, though unsteady for a brief space, then settled
upon an even keel.

"Cling fast--for life!" huskily gasped the professor, unwittingly
repeating the caution which had last crossed his lips, which he
had ever since been striving to enunciate, faithful to his
guardianship over these, his sole surviving relatives.

"I don't--where are we?"

Waldo lifted his head to peer with half-blind eyes about them, in
which action he was imitated by both brother and uncle; but, for