interminable night? I recalled the unbelievable voyage of the
"Albatross," of which the Weldon Institute had published an account,
as described by Mr. Prudent and Mr. Evans. What Robur, the Conqueror,
had done with his first airship, he could do even more readily with
this quadruple machine.

At length the first rays of daylight brightened my cabin. Would I be
permitted to go out now, to take my place upon the deck, as I had
done upon Lake Erie?

I pushed upon the hatchway: it opened. I came half way out upon the
deck.

All about was sky and sea. We floated in the air above an ocean, at a
height which I judged to be about a thousand or twelve hundred feet.
I could not see Robur, so he was probably in the engine room. Turner
was at the helm, his companion on the look-out.

Now that I was upon the deck, I saw what I had not been able to see
during our former nocturnal voyage, the action of those powerful
wings which beat upon either side at the same time that the screws
spun beneath the flanks of the machine.

By the position of the sun, as it slowly mounted from the horizon, I
realized that we were advancing toward the south. Hence if this
direction had not been changed during the night this was the Gulf of
Mexico which lay beneath us.

A hot day was announced by the heavy livid clouds which clung to the
horizon. These warnings of a coming storm did not escape the eye of
Robur when toward eight o'clock he came on deck and took Turner's
place at the helm. Perhaps the cloud-bank recalled to him the
waterspout in which the "Albatross" had so nearly been destroyed, or
the mighty cyclone from which he had escaped only as if by a miracle
above the Antarctic Sea.

It is true that the forces of Nature which had been too strong for
the "Albatross," might easily be evaded by this lighter and more
versatile machine. It could abandon the sky where the elements were
in battle and descend to the surface of the sea; and if the waves
beat against it there too heavily, it could always find calm in the
tranquil depths.

Doubtless, however, there were some signs by which Robur, who must be
experienced in judging, decided that the storm would not burst until
the next day.

He continued his flight; and in the afternoon, when we settled down
upon the surface of the sea, there was not a sign of bad weather. The
"Terror" is a sea bird, an albatross or frigate-bird, which can rest
at will upon the waves! Only we have this advantage,