All at once they felt as though vomited forth from a volcano which alternately breathed fire and ice, the clear light of evening bursting upon their aching, smarting eyes with actual pain, while that horrid roar of warring elements seemed to pass away in the distance, leaving them—where, and how?
“We're falling to—merciful heavens! Hold fast, all!” screamed the professor, desperately striving to regain full command of their air-ship. “The tiller is jammed, but—”
To all seeming, the aerostat had sustained some fatal damage during that brief eruption caused by the professor's little experiment, for it was pitching drunkenly end for end, refusing to obey the hand of its builder, bearing all to certain death upon the earth far below.
Half stupefied with fear, the brothers clung fast to the life-line and glared downward, noting, in spite of themselves, how swiftly yonder dark tree-tops and gray crags were shooting heavenward to meet them and claim the sacrifice.
With fierce energy Professor Featherwit jerked and wrenched at the steering-gear, uttering words such as had long been foreign to his lips, but then—just when destruction appeared inevitable—a wild cry burst from his lungs, as a broken bit of native wood came away in his left hand, leaving the lever free as of old!
And then, with a dizzying swoop and rapid recovery, the gallant air-ship came back to an even keel, sailing along with old-time grace and ease, barely in time to avoid worse mishap as the crest of a tall tree was brushed in their passage.
“Saved,—saved, my lads!” screamed the professor, as his heart-pet soared upward once more until well past the danger-line. “Safe and sound through all,—praises be unto the Lord, our Father!”
Neither brother spoke just then, for they lay there in half stupor, barely able to realise the wondrous truth: that their lives had surely been spared them, even as by a miracle!
That swooping turn now brought their faces towards the tornado, which was at least a couple of miles distant, rapidly making that distance greater even while continuing its work of destruction.
“And we—were in it!” huskily muttered Bruno, his lids closing with a shiver, as he averted his face, unwilling to see more.