Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans clung to the rail and wondered if the cyclone was not playing their game in destroying the aeronef and with her the inventor--and with the inventor the secret of his invention.
But if the "Albatross" could not get out of the cyclone vertically could she not do something else?
Could she not gain the center, where it was comparatively calm, and where they would have more control over her?
Quite so, but to do this she would have to break through the circular currents which were sweeping her round with them.

Had she sufficient mechanical power to escape through them?
Suddenly the upper part of the cloud fell in.

The vapor condensed in torrents of rain.

It was two o'clock in the morning.

The barometer, oscillating over a range of twelve millimeters, had now fallen to 27.91, and from this something should be taken on account of the height of the aeronef above the level of the sea.
Strange to say, the cyclone was out of the zone to which such storms are generally restricted, such zone being bounded by the thirtieth parallel of north latitude and the twenty-sixth parallel of south latitude.