CHAPTER 2

An Incident in the War of Secession—The Engineer Cyrus Harding— Gideon Spflett—The Negro Neb—Pencroft the Sailor—The Night Rendezvous—Departure in the Storm. Those whom the hurricane had just thrown on this coast were neither aeronauts by profession nor amateurs. They were prisoners of war whose boldness had induced them to escape in this extraordinary manner. A hundred times they had almost perished! A hundred times had they almost fallen from their torn balloon into the depths of the ocean. But Heaven h…