This dire prophecy was, however, not destined to be fulfilled. To the intense joy of the air travelers, the circular motion ceased almost as suddenly as it had begun, and the rest of the wires remained intact. Evidently, the Flying Road Racer had encountered a cross current of wind at the great altitude she had now attained, which brought her safely out of the aerial whirlpool.

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.

“Why—why, then we’ll be compelled to fly above the ocean?”

“It looks that way. I don’t see what else we can do.”

“But in that case we shall be in grave danger?”

“I don’t think the danger will be much greater than the one we have faced. We have plenty of gas still, and can keep in the air for a long time if need be.”

“A week?” asked Captain Andrews. “These hurricanes sometimes last as long as that.”

“I don’t know that we could hold out for a week,” admitted Jack; “but I do know that we cannot avoid being blown out to sea. If the storm does not abate we are likely to be compelled to spend some time above the water.”

“Well, the wind is coming out of the southwest now. If we keep on this way we ought to be blown clear across the Gulf of Mexico and on to the western shore of Florida.”

It was Captain Andrews who vouchsafed this last remark.

“I don’t know that that would be a bad idea,” commented Professor Chadwick.

“How long ought it to take us, going at this rate of speed?” inquired Abner Jennings.

“Let’s see, the least distance across would be about fifteen hundred miles.”

“Then, at the rate we are being driven, it would take about twenty-four hours to make the passage,” calculated Mr. Jesson.

“About that time—yes,” agreed Jack. “I really think we had better try to do that.”

All agreed that it appeared to be the best plan. While they had been discussing this, they had passed over the last few miles of dry land. Looking down now they saw beneath them a vast expanse of gray, tumbling billows, tossing and rolling before the wind.

“If we ever took a tumble into the sea it would be all up with us,” commented Jack in a low voice to Tom.

“Yes; even a ship could hardly live in such a storm, and yet—look. Jack, back yonder,—isn’t that,—yes, surely it’s a craft of some sort!”

The lad indicated a point to the southward of them. Rising and falling in the great trough of the billows was a small vessel of some sort. For an instant Jack thought it was the Tarantula, but the next moment he made out that the vessel they were looking at had two masts and a yellow funnel amidships.

But another shift of the wind gave them something else to think of right then.

The blast “hauled round,” as mariners call it, and shifted to the south. The Flying Road Racer’s head was twisted around to the north and she was deflected from her course to the eastward and the hoped-for Florida coast.

“What shall we do now?” cried Ned Bangs, when he observed this.

“Keep on running before the wind. It’s all we can do,” rejoined Jack.

The storm-beaten air craft, with its heavy human freight, was now being driven almost due north along the coast. Tom kept the prow pointed so as to bring the course almost parallel with the coast. All the time both he and Jack kept a keen lookout for a possible landing place.

But none appeared. The wind, instead of dying down, grew stronger as the day went on.

“What will be the end of this?” was the thought that crossed the minds of all of them in one form or another.

The sun was obscured by scudding clouds, below them rolled the dismal, desolate expanse of salt water, for by this time they had passed over the peninsula of Yucatan and were out over the open gulf. In the distance to the westward, however, lay a dim coast line, and Tom steered toward it.

Suddenly there came a loud, ripping, crashing sound.

As he heard it Jack gave a cry of dismay. It was echoed by Tom and Ned, who both instantly guessed what had occurred.

The rudder had given way under the strain.

Looking over the side of the car they could see it being swept away by the wind, while astern of the tonneau hung a mass of tangled wreckage.

“Good heavens! This is the worst yet,” groaned Captain Andrews. “Adrift in an airship without a rudder! What under the starry dome can we do now?”

“Nothing but hope and pray for the best,” rejoined Jack. “We are helpless indeed without the rudder.”

Fortunately, however, the propeller still worked, and Tom, abandoning the now useless steering wheel, gave all his efforts to aiding Jack in attending to the engines.

The aerial screw helped to keep the Flying Road Racer on a straight course, and onward she flew, a disabled but still staunch craft.

“Is there anything that we can do to help you?” asked Professor Chadwick, after a while.

“Dere ain’t nuffin’ would help now but about a squar’ mile ob good dry lan’,” gloomily remarked Jupe.

Tom shook his head, and so did Jack.

“No, Father,” said the latter, “there isn’t a thing to be done. So long as we can keep the engine going, though, we can manage, at least, to keep before the wind.”

“We’re getting closer to the coast,” cried Mr. Jesson suddenly.

They were indeed. The forms of distant hills and forests could now be made out, and hope began to revive that they might, after all, find a spot to make a safe landing.

“The wind has shifted again,” announced Captain Andrews, glancing over Tom’s shoulder at the compass. “It’s blowing out of the east now, and if it holds will drive us upon the Mexican coast.”

Hardly had he made this announcement than there was an alarming cracking, snapping sound from the bow of the Flying Road Racer.

A dark, sharp-pointed object whizzed through the air, and the next instant there came a sudden sound of ripping fabric, followed by a hissing noise as of escaping steam.

“Great jumping sea serpents, what’s happened now?” bellowed Captain Andrews.

“A blade of the propeller has torn loose from its hub and pierced the gas bag,” shouted Jack in an alarmed tone.

“We’re falling!” suddenly screamed out Abner Jennings.

“Bound for Davy Jones’ locker, sure as fate!” bawled one of the sailors.

“Get out the life jackets!” yelled Tom at the top of his voice. “They are in that locker on the right-hand side of the tonneau.”

All this time the Flying Road Racer was slowly descending. The broken propeller blade had ripped a big hole in the side of the gas bag, through which the vapor was rushing forth.

“Isn’t it possible to repair it?” cried Mr. Jesson.

Jack shook his head.

“Impossible,” he said. “We had better all get on life jackets as quickly as possible. It’s lucky I had them put in that locker; but something I read about an airship being blown out to sea some months ago made me think of it.”

As quickly as possible all of them invested themselves in the cork-lined jackets, which were covered with stout canvas.

“Look! look!” cried Jack suddenly, “isn’t that an island ahead of us!”

Captain Andrews pierced the gloom with his keen eyes.

“It is! It’s an island, sure enough!” he cried joyfully. “If we can make it we are saved.”

But the Flying Road Racer settled lower even as he spoke.

The angry sea beneath looked savage and cruel as it leaped upward toward them, as if impatient for the end to come swiftly.

Ahead lay the island; a large one, with a sandy beach extending in their direction. Could they reach it before the air craft sank into the waves?