“We must be running into another storm.  Feel how she heaves and rolls!”

Indeed the Mars was most unsteady.

“It sure is a storm!” cried Ned, “and a heavy one, too,” for there came a burst of thunder, that seemed like a report of Tom’s giant cannon.

In another instant they were in the midst of a violent thunderstorm, the airship pitching and tossing in a manner to almost throw them from their feet.

As Tom reached up to switch on the electric light again, there came a flash of lightning that well nigh blinded them.  And so close after it as to seem simultaneous, there came such a crash of thunder as to stun them all.  There was a tingling, as of a thousand pins and needles in the body of each of the captives, and a strong smell of sulphur.  Then, as the echoes of the clap died away, Tom yelled: 

“She’s been struck!  The airship has been struck!”

CHAPTER XXV FREEDOM

For a moment there was silence, following Tom’s wild cry and the noise of the thunderclap.  Then, as other, though less loud reverberations of the storm continued to sound, the captives awoke to a realization of what had happened.  They had been partially stunned, and were almost as in a dream.

“Are—­are we all right?” stammered Ned.

“Bless my soul!  What has happened?” cried Mr. Damon.

“We’ve been struck by lightning!” Tom repeated.  “I don’t know whether we’re all right or not.”

“We seem to be falling!” exclaimed Lieutenant Marbury.

“If the whole gas bag isn’t ripped to pieces we’re lucky,” commented Jerry Mound.

Indeed, it was evident that the Mars was sinking rapidly.  To all there came the sensation of riding in an elevator in a skyscraper and being dropped a score of stories.

Then, as they stood there in the darkness, illuminated only by flashes from the lightning outside the window, waiting for an unknown fate, Tom Swift uttered a cry of delight.

“We’ve stopped falling!” he cried.  “The automatic gas machine is pumping.  Part of the gas bag was punctured, but the unbroken compartments hold!”

“If part of the gas leaked out I don’t see why it wasn’t all set on fire and exploded,” observed Captain Warner.

“It’s a non-burnable gas,” Tom quickly explained.  “But come on.  This may be our very chance.  There seems to be something going on that may be in our favor.”

Indeed the captives could hear confused cries and the running to and fro of many feet.

He made for the sawed panel, and, in another instant, had burst out and was through it, out into the passageway between the after and amidship cabins.  His companions followed him.

They looked into the rear cabin, or motor compartment, and a scene of confusion met their gaze.  Two of the foreign men who had seized the ship lay stretched out on the floor near the humming machinery, which had been left to run itself.  A look in the other direction, toward the main cabin, showed a group of the foreign spies bending over the inert body of La Foy, the Frenchman, stretched out on a couch.