In the meantime our young people were half way to Europe in the midst of a terrible thunder storm and now it was that “The Queen” showed the perfection of her mechanism, for with sails lowered, and all things shipshape, she was ready for anything, and though the wind blew hurricanes, the thunder sounded with deafening crashes, and the lightning fairly blinded them with its lurid glare, the ship floated serenely onward. Storms had no visible effect upon this queer-shaped air craft. It shot through the storm clouds like a meteor with no trouble whatsoever, while the rain and hail slipped off doing no damage. Once or twice the girls had a scare when it turned bottom side up and over and over two or three times like a bucket of water when twirled at arms length, but it righted itself at once and all was done so quickly that not even a dish fell from the shelves or a chair moved from its place any more than a drop of water would fall from a bucket swung in that way. At another time it spun round and round like a top until they were all dizzy and could scarcely sit up, then it shot forward hither and thither with lightning-like speed. At last the old man disentangled the wires and adjusted the steering apparatus, when all was again smooth sailing, but he found that in doing so he had sustained several shocks from the electric wires and some bad burns. “Now is the time for me to experiment on myself and see what radium will do for me. It is claimed to effect wonderful cures for such things.” He made the experiment and found that it not only effected a painless but also a quick cure. “It is an ill wind that blows no one any good,” he said, “and now I can recommend the use of this element for burns and blisters.” He seemed quite delighted to think that he had been hurt since it gave him an opportunity of proving the wonderful power of this new metal. While the storm was raging, our party had heard the booming of cannon and had seen sky-rockets ascend. “Are they signals of distress from some ship underneath us?” asked Harold. “I think so,” answered the captain, as they now called the old man. “I’ll lower our ship and see if we cannot assist them.” Presently they saw an ocean-liner breasting the winds and breakers, helpless in midocean, without masts and with a big hole in its side. “It is doomed!” cried the captain; “but we can save the passengers. Our ship will float above her steady as a rock and I can lower rope ladders so that her passengers can reach our deck in safety.”