“To the house!” cried the professor, raising his voice to overcome yonder sullen roar, which was now beginning to come their way. “Trust all to the aeromotor, and 'twill be well with us!”
The wiry little man of science himself fell to work with an energy which told how serious he regarded the emergency, and, acting under his lead, the brothers manfully played their part.
Just as had been done many times before this day, a queer-looking machine was shoved out from the shed, gliding along the wooden ways prepared for that express purpose, while Professor Featherwit hurried aboard a few articles which past experience warned him might prove of service in the hours to come, then sharply cried to his nephews:
“Get aboard, lads! Time enough, yet none to spare in idle motions. See! The storm is drifting our way in deadly earnest!”
And so it seemed, in good sooth.
Now fairly at its dread work of destruction, tearing up the rain dampened dirt and playing with mighty boulders, tossing them here and there, as a giant of olden tales might play with jackstones, snapping off sturdy trees and whipping them to splinters even while hurling them as a farmer sows his grain.
Just the one brief look at that aerial monster, then both lads hung fast to the hand-rail of rope, while the professor put that cunning machinery in motion, causing the air-ship to rise from its ways with a sudden swooping movement, then soaring upward and onward, in a fair curve, as graceful and steady as a bird on wing.
All this took some little time, even while the trio were working as men only can when dear life is at stake; but the flying-machine was afloat and fairly off upon the most marvellous journey mortals ever accomplished, and that ere yonder death-balloon could cover half the distance between.
“Grand! Glorious! Magnificent!” fairly exploded the professor, when he could risk a more comprehensive look, right hand tightly gripping the polished lever through which he controlled that admirable mechanism. “I have longed for just such an opportunity, and now—the camera, Bruno! We must never neglect to improve such a marvellous chance for—get out the camera, lad!”
“Get out of the road, rather!” bluntly shouted Waldo, face unusually pale, as he stared at yonder awful force in action. “Of course I'm not scared, or anything like that, uncle Phaeton, but—I want to rack out o' this just about the quickest the law allows! Yes, I DO, now!”
“Wonderful! Marvellous! Incredible! That rara avis, an exception to all exceptions!” declared the professor, more deeply stirred than either of his nephews had ever seen him before. “A genuine tornado which has no eastern drift; which heads as directly as possible towards the northwest, and at the same time—incredible!”
Only ears of his own caught these sentences in their entirety, for now the storm was fairly bellowing in its might, formed of a variety of sounds which baffles all description, but which, in itself, was more than sufficient to chill the blood of even a brave man. Yet, almost as though magnetised by that frightful force, the professor was holding his air-ship steady, loitering there in its direct path, rather than fleeing from what surely would prove utter destruction to man and machine alike.
For a few moments Bruno withstood the temptation, but then leaned far enough to grasp both hand and tiller, forcing them in the requisite direction, causing the aeromotor to swing easily around and dart away almost at right angles to the track of the tornado.
That roar was now as of a thousand heavily laden trains rumbling over hollow bridges, and the professor could only nod his approval when thus aroused from the dangerous fascination. Another minute, and the air-ship was floating towards the rear of the balloon-shaped cloud itself, each second granting the passengers a varying view of the wonder.
True to the firm hand which set its machinery in motion, the flying-machine maintained that gentle curve until it swung around well to the rear of the cloud, where again Professor Featherwit broke out in ecstatic praises of their marvellous good fortune.
“'Tis worth a life's ransom, for never until now hath mortal being been blessed with such a magnificent opportunity for taking notes and drawing deductions which—”
The professor nimbly ducked his head to dodge a ragged splinter of freshly torn wood which came whistling past, cast far away from the tornado proper by those erratic winds. And at the same instant the machine itself recoiled, shivering and creaking in all its cunning joints under a gust of wind which seemed composed of both ice and fire.
“Oh, I say!” gasped Waldo, when he could rally from the sudden blow. “Turn the old thing the other way, uncle Phaeton, and let's go look for—well, almost anything's better than this old cyclone!”
“Tornado, lad,” swiftly corrected the man of precision, leaning far forward, and gazing enthralled upon the vision which fairly thrilled his heart to its very centre. “Never again may we have such another opportunity for making—”
They were now directly in the rear of the storm, and as the air-ship headed across that track of destruction, it gave a drunken stagger, casting down its inmates, from whose parching lips burst cries of varying import.
“Air! I'm choking!” gasped Bruno, tearing open his shirt-collar with a spasmodic motion.
“Hold me fast!” echoed Waldo, clinging desperately to the life-line. “It's drawing me—into the—ah!”
Even the professor gave certain symptoms of alarm for that moment, but then the danger seemed past as the ship darted fairly across the storm-trail, hovering to the east of that aerial phantom.
There was no difficulty in filling their lungs now, and once more Professor Featherwit headed the flying-machine directly for the balloon-shaped cloud, modulating its pace so as to maintain their relative position fairly well.
“Take note how it progresses,—by fits and starts, as it were,” observed Featherwit, now in his glory, eyes asparkle and muscles aquiver, hair bristling as though full of electricity, face glowing with almost painful interest, as those shifting scenes were for ever imprinted upon his brain.
“Sort of a hop, step, and jump, and that's a fact,” agreed Waldo, now a bit more at his ease since that awful sense of suffocation was lacking. “I thought all cyclones—”
“Tornado, my DEAR boy!” expostulated the professor.
“I thought they all went in holy hurry, like they were sent for and had mighty little time in which to get there. But this one,—see how it stops to dance a jig and bore holes in the earth!”
“Another exception to the general rule, which is as you say,” admitted the professor. “Different tornadoes have been timed as moving from twelve to seventy miles an hour, one passing a given point in half a score of seconds, at another time being registered as fully half an hour in clearing a single section.
“Take the destructive storm at Mount Carmel, Illinois, in June of '77. That made progress at the rate of thirty-four miles an hour, yet its force was so mighty that it tore away the spire, vane, and heavy gilded ball of the Methodist church, and kept it in air over a distance of fifteen miles.
“Still later was the Texas tornado, doing its awful work at the rate of more than sixty miles an hour; while that which swept through Frankfort, Kansas, on May 17, 1896, was fully a half-hour in crossing a half-mile stretch of bottom-land adjoining the Vermillion River, pausing in its dizzy waltz upon a single spot for long minutes at a time.”
“Couldn't have been much left when it got through dancing, if that storm was anything like this one,” declared Waldo, shivering a bit as he watched the awful destruction being wrought right before their fascinated eyes.
Trees were twisted off and doubled up like blades of dry grass. Mighty rocks were torn apart from the rugged hills, and huge boulders were tossed into air as though composed of paper. And over all ascended the horrid roar of ruin beyond description, while from that misshapen balloon-cloud, with its flattened top, the electric fluid shone and flashed, now in great sheets as of flame, then in vicious spurts and darts as though innumerable snakes of fire had been turned loose by the winds.
Still the aerial demon bored its almost sluggish course straight towards the northwest, in this, as in all else, seemingly bent on proving itself the exception to all exceptions as Professor Featherwit declared.
The savant himself was now in his glory, holding the tiller between arm and side, the better to manipulate his hand-camera, with which he was taking repeated snap-shots for future development and reference.
Truly, as he more than once declared, mortal man never had, nor mortal man ever would have, such a glorious opportunity for recording the varying phases of nature in travail as was now vouchsafed themselves.
“Just think of it, lads!” he cried, almost beside himself with enthusiasm. “This alone will be sufficient to carry our names ringing through all time down the corridors of undying fame! This alone would be more than enough to—Look pleasant, please!”
In spite of that awful vision so perilously close before them, and the natural uncertainty which attended such a reckless venture, Waldo could not repress a chuckle at that comical conclusion, so frequently used towards himself when their uncle was coaxing them to pose before his pet camera.
“Is it—surely this is not safe, uncle Phaeton?” ventured Bruno, as another retrograde gust of air smote their apparently frail conveyance with sudden force.
“Let's call it a day's work, and knock off,” chimed in Waldo. “If the blamed thing should take a notion to balk, and rear back on its haunches, where'd we come out at?”
Professor Featherwit made an impatient gesture by way of answer. Speech just then would have been worse than useless, for that tremendous roaring, crashing, thundering of all sounds, seemed to fall back and envelop the air-ship as with a pall.
A shower of sand and fine debris poured over and around them, filling ears and mouths, and blinding eyes for the moment, forcing the brothers closer to the floor of the aerostat, and even compelling the eager professor to remit his taking of notes for future generations.
Then, thin and reed-like, yet serving to pierce that temporary obscurity and horrible jangle of outer sounds, came the voice of their relative:
“Fear not, my children! The Lord is our shield, and so long as he willeth, just so long shall we—Ha! didn't I tell ye so?”
For the blinding veil was torn away, and once again the trio of adventurers might watch yonder grandly awesome march of devastation.
“Heading direct for the Olympics!” declared Professor Featherwit, digging the sand out of his eyes and striving to clean his glasses without removing them, clinging to tiller and camera through all. “What a grand and glorious guide 'twould be for us!”
“If we could only hitch on—like a tin can to the tail of a dog!” suggested Waldo, with boyish sarcasm. “Not any of that in mine, thank you! I can wait. No such mighty rush. No,—SIR!”
There came no answer to his words, for just then that swooping air-demon turned to vivid fire, lightning playing back and forth, from side to side, in every conceivable direction, until in spite of the broad daylight its glory pained those watching eyes.
“Did you ever witness the like!” awesomely cried Bruno, gazing like one fascinated. “Who could or would ever believe all that, even if tongue were able to portray its wondrous beauty?”
“What a place that would be for popping corn!” contributed Waldo, practical or nothing, even under such peculiar circumstances. “If I had to play poppy, though, I'd want a precious long handle to the concern!”
More intensely interested than ever, Professor Featherwit plied his shutter, taking shot after shot at yonder aerial phenomena, feeling that future generations would surely rise up to call him blessed when the results of his experiments were once fairly spread before the world.
And hence it came to pass that still more thrilling experiences came unto these daring navigators of space, and that almost before one or the other of them could fairly realise that greater danger really menaced both their air-ship and their lives.
Another whirly-gust of sand and other debris assailed the flying-machine, and while sight was thus rendered almost useless for the time being, the aerostat began to sway and reel from side to side, shivering as though caught by an irresistible power, yet against which it battled as though instinct with life and brain-power.
Once again the adventurers found it difficult to breathe, while an unseen power seemed pressing them to that floor as though—Thank heaven!
Just as before, that cloud was swept away, and again air came to fill those painfully oppressed lungs. Once again the trio cleared their eyes and stared about, only to utter simultaneous cries of alarm.
For, brief though that period of blindness had been, 'twas amply sufficient to carry the aeromotor perilously near yonder storm-centre, and though Professor Featherwit gripped hard his tiller, trying all he knew to turn the air-ship for a safer quarter,-'twas all in vain!
“Haste,—make haste, uncle Phaeton!” hoarsely panted Bruno, leaning to aid the professor. “We will be sucked in and—hasten, for life!”
“I can't,—we're already—in the—suction!”
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