Page:Tom Swift and His Wireless Message.djvu/108

98 but I'm hungry! and I believe you said, Mr. Fenwick, that you had plenty of food aboard."

"So we have, but the excitement of being blown out to sea on our first real trip, made me forget all about it. I'll get dinner at once, if you can put up with an amateur's cooking."

"And I'll help," offered Mr. Damon. "Tom can attend to the airship, and we'll serve the meals. It will take our minds off our troubles."

There was a well equipped kitchen aboard the Whizzer and soon savory odors were coming from it. In spite of the terror of their situation, and it was not to be denied that they were in peril, they all made a good meal, though it was difficult to drink coffee and other liquids, owing to the sudden lurches which the airship gave from time to time as the gale tossed her to and fro.

Night came, and, as the blackness settled down, the gale seemed to increase in fury. It howled through the slender wire rigging of the Whizzer, and sent the craft careening from side to side, and sometimes thrust her down into a cavern of the air, only to lift her high again, almost like a ship on the heaving ocean below them.

As darkness settled in blacker and blacker, Tom had a glimpse below him, of tossing lights on the water.

"We just passed over some vessel," he