He heard the trampling of feet as the crew ran to and fro, and the shouting of orders in Malvoise's voice. The cabin port was closed and locked on the outside, although the cabin seemed perfectly ventilated by some other aperture; so it was impossible for Frank to distinguish what was said, but the tones of the Frenchman's voice conveyed intense excitement.
The motion of the air-ship, too, seemed strange.
When they had gone to sleep it seemed as if they were sleeping in a room ashore, so perfectly evenly did the ship rush ahead through the night; but now every portion of her frame seemed to be complaining in its own particular voice, and she groaned and strained like a ship in a storm.
Frank aroused Harry, and a few minutes later Ben Stubbs, too, was awakened by the peculiar motion of the ship.
"What's happening?" he demanded, as one of the air sailors ran heavily along the deck overhead.
"I don't know," rejoined Frank; "but it seems to me that we are in a storm of some kind.—Hark!"
As he spoke there was a blue glare of lightning outside, in which the ropes and stays of the ship, seen through the closed port, stood out as in an etching. Simultaneously there came a terrific crash of thunder. They were evidently in a bad storm.
"I wish we were outside instead of cooped up in here," exclaimed Ben. "I like to be out on deck in bad weather and not penned up in a cubby hole."
"Let's try the door," suggested Frank, "we might be able to force the lock."
But the lock was evidently put on to stay, and tug and strain as they would, they could not budge it an inch.