It was an almost miraculous escape, and they were all duly thankful when once more their voyage was resumed on an even keel.
But the wind still blew hard, and it was impossible for them to stem it without running too grave a risk to attempt such a task.
In this way an hour or more passed, and then suddenly Jack, who had been looking out ahead, gave a startled cry.
“What’s the matter?” asked his father.
“Matter? Good heavens, we are being blown out to sea!”
While he spoke the Flying Road Racer was being hurtled along at a dizzy sped above bending tree tops and a storm-stressed expanse of country. Tom had brought the craft much lower, and it was now not more than five hundred feet above the earth. Beneath them the landscape whizzed by like a colored moving picture.
But the peril Jack had called attention to lay directly in front of them. Beyond the trees came a strip of white beach, and beyond that again the vast troubled expanse of the heaving ocean billows, lashed into fury by the storm.
Their situation was indeed critical.
“We’re going from bad to worse,” exclaimed Mr. Jesson. “Is there no way of landing?”
“Not without the risk of killing or injuring most of us,” rejoined Jack soberly.