The Dreadnought of the Air was now utterly out of control. At one moment her bows were pointing upwards at an angle of forty-five degrees and to the horizontal. At another she was plunging obliquely with her nose downwards. She rolled like a barrel, and strained and writhed like a human being in torment.
Elevating planes and vertical rudders were alike useless. The only chance of escape was to drop vertically.
Staggering to the engine-room indicators the Captain ordered the motors to be switched off Now the motion was slightly less erratic. Hailstones the size of pigeons' eggs were falling upon her aluminium deck—not with the metallic clang that characterizes their fall on the land, but with comparative lightness, for the airship was still within a few hundred feet of the cloud in which the frozen rain-drops were generated.
Two thousand feet. The "Meteor" was now regaining her normal stability. Her seaward descent was momentarily becoming slower. She had emerged from the rain-cloud, and although the lightning still played, the danger seemed to have passed.
Something had to be done to save the airship from violently alighting upon the water. Her present rate of retardation was insufficient.
"Telegraph for half speed ahead," ordered Captain Whittinghame. "Trim the forward elevating planes there, doctor."
Back came the startling information from both the fore and after motor-rooms: the ignition had failed.
"Short circuit somewhere," muttered the Captain. "I'm not surprised. Recharge those three ballonettes, Dacres."
A thousand feet. With a succession of sharp hisses the ultra-hydrogen escaped from the cylinder in which it had been stored under pressure and re-entered the ballonettes. The crew could feel the sudden check to the downward plunge, but in spite of the additional gas the "Meteor" was still falling.
The four searchlights were still running: two practically parallel beams showing ahead and two astern. In the after motor-room—whence were actuated the still intact propellers—Parsons was hard at work trying to locate the source of the mischief. Could these motors be started in time the attraction due to gravity would yet be overcome.