checked the descent; and the "Albatross" remained at her slight
elevation while her propellers drove her swiftly out of reach of the
storm.

Frycollin, of course, had a bath--though only for a few seconds.
When he was dragged on deck he was as wet as if he had been to the
bottom of the sea. As may be imagined, he cried no more.

In the morning of the 4th of July the "Albatross" had passed over the
northern shore of the Caspian.

Chapter XIV

THE AERONEF AT FULL SPEED

If ever Prudent and Evans despaired on escaping from the "Albatross"
it was during the two days that followed. It may be that Robur
considered it more difficult to keep a watch on his prisoners while
he was crossing Europe, and he knew that they had made up their minds
to get away.

But any attempt to have done so would have been simply committing
suicide. To jump from an express going sixty miles an hour is to risk
your life, but to jump from a machine going one hundred and twenty
miles an hour would be to seek your death.

And it was at this speed, the greatest that could be given to her,
that the "Albatross" tore along. Her speed exceeded that of the
swallow, which is one hundred and twelve miles an hour.

At first the wind was in the northeast, and the "Albatross" had it
fair, her general course being a westerly one. But the wind began to
drop, and it soon became impossible for the colleagues to remain on
the deck without having their breath taken away by the rapidity of
the flight. And on one occasion they would have been blown overboard
if they had not been dashed up against the deck-house by the pressure
of the wind.

Luckily the steersman saw them through the windows of his cage, and
by the electric bell gave the alarm to the men in the fore-cabin.
Four of them came aft, creeping along the deck.

Those who have been at sea, beating to windward in half a gale of
wind, will understand what the pressure was like. But here it was the
"Albatross" that by her incomparable speed made her own wind.

To allow Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans to get back to their cabin the
speed had to be reduced. Inside the deck-house the "Albatross" bore
with her a perfectly breathable atmosphere. To stand such driving the
strength of the apparatus must have been prodigious. The propellers
spun round so swiftly that they seemed immovable, and it was with
irresistible power that they screwed themselves through the air.

The last town that had been notic