ness."

"Do not fear for me," said Lyone; "even a storm is not
insurmountable."

"Shall I descend, your holiness, or keep to our course?" inquired the
captain with some trepidation.

"Keep to your course," replied Lyone.

Just then a hollow booming was heard, and then a fierce explosion in
which the darkened sky became enveloped in a sheet of flame.

In a moment the cyclone struck the ship!

Some of the terrified voyagers shrieked and others remained silent,
but all held tightly on to the nearest thing they could get hold of.

The ship lay at an angle of forty-five degrees from the plane of the
rotating storm, having been caught by the wind with a fearful shock,
snapping several of the cables that bound cabins and decks together.
Strangely enough, the ship did not become a wreck, but was blown out
of its course, the toy of the wind. We lost sight of the other ship
containing the sailors, and could certainly only care for ourselves.

The cyclone proved to be a storm five hundred miles in diameter. The
currents of air most remote from the centre did not sweep round in the
same uniform plane. The entire circumference of wind was composed of
two enormous waves each seven hundred and fifty miles in length and
four miles in perpendicular height. It was as if the rings of Saturn
had suddenly assumed a vertical as well as a spinning motion, and both
movements of the storm produced an appalling splendor of flight
hitherto unknown to human sensation. Can the _Aeropher_ survive the
roaring storm? was the thought of every heart. Bravery was of no avail
with the destroying force that had so suddenly overwhelmed us.

CHAPTER XXV.

ESCAPING FROM THE CYCLONE.

The ship, lifting her prow, would spring into the sky upon the bosom
of the whirling waste of air. The sun was completely obscured by dense
masses of flying clouds and we were deluged with torrents of water.
The terror of the situation obliterated all thoughts of country or
home or friends. All worldly consciousness had evaporated from the
pale beings that in despair held on to the ship for life or death.

The ravages of the storm on the earth beneath could be heard with
startling distinctness. We heard at times the roaring of forests and
saw the shrieking, whirling branches in every earth-illuminating flash
of lightning.

The goddess stood holding on to the outer rail of the deck, the
incarnation of courage. She had risen to meet the danger at its worst.