Swift, quietly. "In the
first place, it isn't going to be an easy matter to get out of here."

He looked around the storeroom, which was then their prison. It was
illuminated by a single electric light, which showed some boxes and
barrels piled in the rear.

"Nothing in them to help us get out," Tom went on, for he knew what the
contents were.

"Oh, we'll get out," declared Ned confidently, "but I don't believe
we'll find a policeman ready to take our complaint. The upper air isn't
very well patrolled as yet."

"That's so," agreed Mr. Damon. "I forgot that we were in an airship.
But what is to be done, Tom? We really are captives aboard our own
craft."

"Yes, worse luck," returned the young inventor. "I feel foolish when I
think how we let them take us prisoners."

"We couldn't help it," Ned commented. "They came on us too suddenly. We
didn't have a chance. And they outnumbered us two to one. If they could
take care of big Koku, what chance did we have?"

"Very little," said Engineer Mound. "They were desperate fellows. They
know something about aircraft, too. For, as soon as Koku, Ventor and I
were disposed of, some of them went at the machinery as if they had
been used to running it all their lives."

"Oh, the foreigners are experts when it comes to craft of the air,"
said Captain Warner.

"Well, they seem to be running her, all right," admitted the young
inventor, "and at good speed, too. They have increased our running
rate, if I am any judge."

"By several miles an hour," confirmed the assistant pilot. "Though in
which direction they are heading, and what they are going to do with us
is more than I can guess."

"That's so!" agreed Mr. Damon. "What is to become of us? They may heave
us overboard into the ocean!"

"Into the ocean!" cried Ned apprehensively. "Are we near the sea?"

"We must be, by this time," spoke Tom. "We were headed in that
direction, and we have come almost far enough to put us somewhere over
the Atlantic, off the Jersey coast."

A look of apprehension was on the faces of all. But Tom's face did not
remain clouded long.

"We won't try to swim until we have to," he said. "Now, let's take an
account of stock, and see if we have any means of getting out of this
prison."

CHAPTER XXIII

ACROSS THE SEA

With one accord the hands of the captives sought their pockets.
Probably the first thought of each one was a knife--a pocket knife. But
blank looks succeeded their fi