rather than himself alone, and pantingly spoke, as he dragged
himself to the snug locker, where many important articles had
been stowed away:

"Here--suck life--compressed air!"

With husky cries the brothers caught at the tubes offered, the
method of working which had so often been explained by their
relative.

Once more the tube became a chamber, and that horrid force
threatened to flatten their bodies; but the worst had passed, for
that precious cylinder now gave them air to inhale, and they were
enabled to wait for the lifting of the cloud once more.

Thanks to this important agency, strength and energy both of body
and of mind now came back to the air-voyagers, and after a little
they could lift their heads to peer around them with growing
wonder and curiosity.

There was little room left for doubting the wondrous truth, and
yet belief was past their powers during those first few minutes.

All around them whirled and sped those maddened winds, curling
and twisting, rising and falling, mixing in and out as though
some unknown power might be weaving the web of destiny.

Now dull, now brilliant, never twice the same, but ever changing
in colour as in shape, while stripes and zigzags of lightning
played here and there with terrifying menace, those walls of wind