ndred feet from the level of
the sea. The air was calm, but in certain parts of the sky were thick
black clouds, massed in mountains, on their upper surface, and ruled
off below by a sharp horizontal line. From these clouds a few lengthy
protuberances escaped, and their points as they fell seemed to draw
up hills of foaming water to meet them.

Suddenly the water shot up in the form of a gigantic hourglass, and
the "Albatross" was enveloped in the eddy of an enormous waterspout,
while twenty others, black as ink, raged around her. Fortunately the
gyratory movement of the water was opposite to that of the suspensory
screws, otherwise the aeronef would have been hurled into the sea.
But she began to spin round on herself with frightful rapidity. The
danger was immense, and perhaps impossible to escape, for the
engineer could not get through the spout which sucked him back in
defiance of his propellers. The men, thrown to the ends of the deck
by centrifugal force, were grasping the rail to save themselves from
being shot off.

"Keep cool!" shouted Robur.

They wanted all their coolness, and their patience, too. Uncle
Prudent and Phil Evans, who had just come out of their cabin, were
hurled back at the risk of flying overboard. As she spun the
"Albatross" was carried along by the spout, which pirouetted along
the waves with a speed enough to make the helices jealous. And if she
escaped from the spout she might be caught by another, and jerked to
pieces with the shock.

"Get the gun ready!" said Robur.

The order was given to Tom Turner, who was crouching behind the
swivel amidships where the effect of the centrifugal force was least
felt. He understood. In a moment he had opened the breech and slipped
a cartridge from the ammunition-box at hand. The gun went off, and the
waterspouts collapsed, and with them vanished the platform of cloud
they seemed to bear above them.

"Nothing broken on board?" asked Robur.

"No," answered Tom Turner. "But we don't want to have another game of
humming-top like that!"

For ten minutes or so the "Albatross" had been in extreme peril. Had
it not been for her extraordinary strength of build she would have
been lost.

During this passage of the Atlantic many were the hours whose
monotony was unbroken by any phenomenon whatever. The days grew
shorter and shorter, and the cold became keen. Uncle Prudent and Phil
Evans saw little of Robur. Seated in his cabin, the engineer was busy