sly than
either above or below, but this was not much relief. It seemed as if
the airship would go to pieces, so much was it swayed and tossed
about. But Mr. Fenwick, if he had done nothing else, had made a
staunch craft, which stood the travelers in good stead.

All the rest of that day they swept on, at about the same speed.
There was nothing for them to do, save watch the machinery,
occasionally replenishing the oil tanks, or making minor
adjustments.

"Well," finally remarked Mr. Damon, when the afternoon was waning
away, "if there's nothing else to do, suppose we eat. Bless my
appetite, but I'm hungry! and I believe you said, Mr. Fenwick, that
you had plenty of food aboard."

"So we have, but the excitement of being blown out to sea on our
first real trip, made me forget all about it. I'll get dinner at
once, if you can put up with an amateur's cooking."

"And I'll help," offered Mr. Damon. "Tom can attend to the airship,
and we'll serve the meals. It will take our minds off our troubles."

There was a well equipped kitchen aboard the WHIZZER and soon savory
odors were coming from it. In spite of the terror of their
situation, and it was not to be denied that they were in peril, they
all made a good meal, though it was difficult to drink coffee and
other liquids, owing to the sudden lurches which the airship gave
from time to time as the gale tossed her to and fro.

Night came, and, as the blackness settled down, the gale seemed to
increase in fury. It howled through the slender wire rigging of the
WHIZZER, and sent the craft careening from side to side, and
sometimes thrust her down into a cavern of the air, only to lift her
high again, almost like a ship on the heaving ocean below them.

As darkness settled in blacker and blacker, Tom had a glimpse below
him, of tossing lights on the water.

"We just passed over some vessel," he announced. "I hope they are in
no worse plight than we are." Then, there suddenly came to him a
thought of the parents of Mary Nestor, who were somewhere on the
ocean, in the yacht RESOLUTE bound for the West Indies.

"I wonder if they're out in this storm, too?" mused Tom. "If they
are, unless the vessel is a staunch one, they may be in danger."

The thought of the parents of the girl he cared so much for being in
peril, was not reassuring to Tom, and he began to busy himself about
the machinery of the airship, to take his mind from the presentiment
that something might happ