Once more Jerry tried to start the propellers, so that he might guide the craft upward, but there was no power. He had hoped that perhaps the storage battery might have been only temporarily polarized, but this was not the case. It was “dead.”
“I guess we’re in for it,” murmured the tall lad. “Better get outside, boys,” he went on. “She may go all to pieces when we strike, and we don’t want to get tangled up in the wreckage. Get out on the main deck, and stand ready to jump clear. We can float for some time in the life preservers, and in the morning a steamship may pick us up. It’s our only chance.”
It was still raining hard, but the storm did not seem to be quite as severe as at first. There were many flashes of lightning, and the thunder still rolled and crashed about, but after that one terrific stroke the elements seemed to be satisfied with the damage they had wrought, and were now subsiding.
When a particularly bright and far-illuminating flash came Jerry looked down through the glass cabin floor.
“Only a few seconds left!” he cried, as he saw the waves of the ocean close to them. “Come on out, boys. Professor, I’m afraid you’ll have to leave your specimens.”
“Never!” cried the brave little scientist. “I’ll take them with me, or——”
It was no time for ceremony. Jerry took hold of his scientific friend, who had consented to don a life preserver, and fairly carried him out on the deck. Fortunately the Comet had assumed an even keel after her first sickening plunge, so the boys could move about unhampered.
They all reached the deck in safety, and not a moment too soon. A second later and with a splash that sent a shower of spray high into the air, the Comet landed on the surface of the sea.
There was a crash—a sound of splitting and rending wood—then a silence.
“We struck something!” cried Ned. “We sure hit something as we came down, Jerry! What was it?”