Almost immediately a fusillade resounded over the plain.
These menaces did not prevent the "Albatross" from descending boldly to within a hundred and fifty feet of the ground.

Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans, whatever were their feelings towards Robur, could not help joining him in such a work of humanity.
"Let us free the prisoners!" they shouted.
"That is what I am going to do!" said the engineer.
And the magazine rifles of the "Albatross" in the hands of the colleagues, as in the hands of the crew, began to rain down the bullets, of which not one was lost in the masses below.

And the little gun shot forth its shrapnel, which really did marvels.
The prisoners, although they did not understand how the help had come to them, broke their bonds, while the soldiers were firing at the aeronef.

The stern screw was shot through by a bullet, and a few holes were made in the hull.

Frycollin, crouching in his cabin, received a graze from a bullet that came through the deck-house.
"Ah! They will have them!" said Tom Turner.