CHAPTER XX.
THROUGH THE AIR.
For the fraction of a second the faculties of both boys were paralyzed. A tingling sensation was in their limbs. Jack was the first to recover his wits. He snatched his hands from his eyes and seized the wheel. In a jiffy the Wondership's earthward plunge was checked. Once more she regained an even keel.
"Wh-what happened?" stuttered Tom anxiously.
"We were hit by lightning," replied Jack.
"Goodness! I thought we were goners, for a minute."
"I confess that I did, too. But I guess the 'electric cage' worked. Everything seems to be shipshape."
Jack was right. Thanks to his ingenious invention, the lightning, which had struck the aircraft, had been diffused through the safety "cage" and safely convoyed to the earth by the ground chain made of light manganese bronze, which had been lowered when the storm broke.
"Just the same I don't want to get hit again," said Tom. "I thought for a minute the world had come to an end."
"My fingers are tingling yet," said Jack, "and I can see stars, but I think if it hadn't been for the cage we would have likely been blown to smithereens."
By this time they were almost over the doctor's house and extensive grounds. Jack manipulated the Wondership against the storm, flying in a circle, and snapped on the powerful searchlight. With the help of its rays he picked out a good landing place, and having set the pumps at work abstracting gas from the bag, they soon made a good landing.
Doctor Mays stood on his porch as they left the ship and ran through the downpour for the house.
"Gracious, boys!" he exclaimed, "but you certainly gave me a fright. I thought when that bolt hit you that you were going to be annihilated."
"How did it look from below?" asked Jack.
"As if you were enveloped in blue flame. Then suddenly a ball of red fire slid from the ship to the ground——"
"Down the conducting rope," put in Jack.
"And exploded with a loud bang when it struck the ground," continued the doctor. "But all's well that ends well, and now tell me what brings you here, for I know it must be urgent business or you'd never have ventured through such a storm."
Jack hastily told the doctor of his father's stroke. The medical man looked grave.
"I'll go with you just as soon as I can pack my bag," he said. "Your father had been overworking. I warned him of what would happen if he did not rest up, some time ago, but he has, seemingly, disregarded my advice."
In a few minutes the doctor, muffled up in a raincoat, was ready to start. But he stipulated that the run to High Towers should be made by the road.
"I like excitement as well as anybody," he said, "and I've been up in your Wondership before——"
"When it was the Roadracer," interpolated Jack.
"Exactly; but I must confess that when I saw you a short time ago looking like a floating ball of fire, I lost my taste for aërial travel."
"We'll go back by road, then," said Jack, as through the rain, which was falling in torrents, they ran to the Wondership.
"My, but you have it snug in here," said the doctor, as he entered the tight, waterproof cabin.
"Hang up your coat, doctor," said Tom, and he took the physician's dripping mackintosh and slung it on a hook attached to one of the stanchions. Then the start was made, with the bag partially deflated and lying in limp, wet folds on its framework.
Through the night, under skies fretted with lightning, the Wondership shot forward. Out on the open road Jack ordered full speed, the great searchlights illuming the roadway as if it were day. He felt little apprehension of meeting other vehicles. The night was too bad to permit of any save emergency traveling.
The roads were deep in mud, and water spurted up from the wheels of the flying car as it raced through the storm. But seated snug and dry in the cabin none of them bothered about this. Little was said. Jack had to concentrate his mind on handling the Wondership, for driving under the conditions, and at such speed, required all the wheel-handler's attention.
On and on they flew, down hills and over bridges, under which, ordinarily, quiet streams flowed, but now swollen by the rains, they boiled and raced like angry torrents. They flashed through villages and past farmhouses without encountering a soul, while overhead the tempest roared and raged and flared.
They were shooting down a hill at top speed when Jack suddenly gave a gasp. Right in front of them, vividly outlined in the searchlight's glare, was an obstacle. A big wagonload of hay, covered with a tarpaulin, and deserted by its driver who, despairing of mounting the hill in the storm, had unhitched his horses and driven off till the weather cleared.
The wagon was in such a position that it blocked the road, which was sunken between high banks at that point. Jack ground down his brakes in chagrin.
"Blocked!" he exclaimed disgustedly.