ves at the same instant close to the towering hull of the _Flying
Fish_.

"Last man in, close the trap!" gasped the baronet as he dashed up first
to the opening in the ship's bottom. The others were only a few yards
behind him and heard his command; so he wasted no more time in
conversation, but bounded up the long spiral staircase leading to the
pilot-house, having reached which he laid his hands upon the engine
lever and tiller, and gaspingly awaited the signal shout which should
tell him he might move the ship, gazing anxiously out through the
windows meanwhile on the watch for some sign of the bursting of the
hurricane.

He had not long to wait. Almost before he had found time to remove his
hat and wipe the perspiration from his brow a shout came echoing up the
staircase shaft from the bottom of the ship, announcing the fact that
the trap-door was securely closed; and Sir Reginald instantly raised the
ship from the ground, sending the engines gently ahead at the same
moment, and putting the helm hard over so as to bring the _Flying Fish_
stem-on to the direction from which he expected the hurricane.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

A BATTLE ON LAKE TANGANYIKA.

The ship had risen about one hundred feet from the ground, and her
engines had just completed a single revolution, when the black pall of
murky cloud suddenly burst apart on the south-western horizon, revealing
a broad patch of livid coppery-looking sky behind it; and at the same
moment a low moaning sound became audible in the breathless air. A dull
smoky grey veil of vapour seemed at the same time to overspread the more
distant features of the landscape in that quarter, and through it the
baronet and his three companions, who had now rejoined him, saw the
trees and foliage of the most remote clumps of bush bowing themselves
almost to the ground before some mighty invisible force. The moaning
sound rapidly increased in power and volume, the cloud of vapour rushed
down toward them with appalling speed; the long billowy grass was
flattened down to the earth, as if under the pressure of a heavy roller;
the successive clumps of bush were seen to yield one after the other to
the resistless power of the hurricane, and the air in that direction
grew dark with the leaves and branches which were torn from the trees.

"Raise the ship higher. Lift her above the power of the hurricane
altogether if you have still time to do so," shouted the professor in
Sir Reginald's