Chapter Three.
The Flying Fish.
Towering high in the air, and almost filling the glade from end to end with her enormous length, was an object measuring no fewer than six hundred feet long, of cylindrical shape, sixty feet in diameter at her so-called “midship” section, and tapering away fore and aft by a series of finely curved lines, to the pointed extremities of the bow and stern. The bow portion of the structure was considerably longer and more sharply pointed than the after extremity, to which was attached, by a very ingeniously devised universal joint, in such a manner as to render a rudder unnecessary, a huge propeller having four tremendously broad sickle-shaped blades, the palms of which were so cunningly shaped and hollowed as to gather in and concentrate the air—or water, as the case might be—about the boss and powerfully project it thence in a direct line with the longitudinal axis of the ship. To give this cigar-shaped curvilinear hull perfect stability when resting upon the ground, it was fitted with a pair of deep and broad bilge-keels, one on either side of the ship, extending fore and aft for just a third of her length. These bilge-keels contained four grip-anchors—one at either extremity of each keel—by means of which the ship could, when necessary, be firmly secured to the ground, as she now was, in fact; and they also formed chambers for the reception of water-ballast, when such was required. Immediately over the “midship” section of the hull, and extending one hundred and fifty feet in either direction fore and aft from this point, placed upon the “back,” so to speak, of the hull, was a superstructure shaped somewhat like the above-water portion of a double-ended Thames steamboat, with a deck, thirty feet in width at its broadest part, protected by an open railing in place of the usual bulwarks. And in the exact centre of this deck stood a two-storey pilot-house, the lower storey of which permitted ingress and egress between the promenade deck and the interior of the ship, while the upper storey—completely surrounded by large circular scuttles, or windows, which afforded an unobstructed view all round—constituted the navigating platform from which the ship was worked.
The whole of this enormous fabric, with the exception of the planking of the promenade deck, was built of the wonderful metal called aethereum, discovered by Professor von Schalckenberg, which, being unpainted, shone in the sunlight like burnished silver. There was only one exception to the rule which appeared to have forbidden the use of paint on the exterior of this wonderful ship, and that was in the case of the superstructure supporting the promenade deck and the pilot-house. This portion of the hull was painted a light, delicate, blue-grey tint, which was relieved by an ornamental scroll-work of gold and colours at each end of the ship enclosing the name Flying Fish on each bow and quarter, the whole connected by a massive gold cable moulding running fore and aft along the sheer strake of that portion of the ship. The painting and gilding had all been done when the ship was built, nearly seven years ago, and it had then been coated with a transparent, protective varnish of the professor’s own concoction, which had proved so absolutely water-tight and imperishable that, although the Flying Fish had lain submerged at the bottom of the Hurd Deep for more than six years, the paint and gilding now looked as fresh and clean and brilliant as though it had been newly applied. It may be as well to mention here that all the interior decks, bulkheads, doors, staircases, machinery, and furniture of every kind, even to the boats, and the guns, firearms, and weapons of every description with which the ship was liberally provided, were, like her hull, constructed of aethereum, the most striking properties of which metal were its extraordinary lightness, toughness, hardness, strength, and its stubborn resistance to all tarnishing or oxidising influences.
There were two modes of ingress to the interior of the ship, one, as has already been mentioned, from the deck, by way of the pilot-house, and the other by way of a trap-door in the bottom of the ship, behind the starboard bilge-keel. This latter was used when it was desired to enter or leave the ship when she was resting upon the solid ground, either above or under water, and it was the means of entrance which the party used upon the present occasion. The professor, to whose genius was due the entire design of the wonderful ship, undertook, at Sir Reginald’s request, to point out to Lady Elphinstone a few of the most remarkable characteristics of the structure; and accordingly, when her ladyship had exhausted her wonder at the enormous proportions of the Flying Fish, Herr von Schalckenberg conducted his hostess forward and into the space between the starboard bilge-keel and the bottom of the ship, where there was just sufficient room for a tall man to stand upright close to the inner face of the bilge-keel. At a certain point in the tunnel-like passage the professor came to a halt, and remarked—
“Now, Lady Olivia, kindly favour me with your attention. Although you cannot distinguish it, there is a trap-door here, giving ingress to the interior of the ship, and as it is possible that you may at some time or other wish to make use of it when none of us are at hand to help you, I should like to show you how the door is to be opened or closed. Now, in the first place, you will observe that there is a vertical and also a horizontal joint in the plating, meeting just here—it is the only junction of the kind in this passage-way, so you cannot possibly mistake it. Now, kindly take notice of these vertical and horizontal rows of rivet-heads, and especially of this particular rivet that is common to both rows. There is nothing whatever to distinguish it from the others, is there? No. But if you will place your finger upon it, thus, and push firmly to the left, thus, you will see what happens.”
And, as the professor spoke, a section of the polished silver-like plating of the ship’s bottom folded gently out until its outer edge rested upon the ground, forming a kind of sloping gangway, by means of which it was easy to enter the yawning aperture that now appeared in the ship’s bottom.
“Supposing, however,” continued the professor, “that you are leaving the ship, and wish to close the trap-door behind you, all that you have to do is to push the rivet back into its original position, and the mechanism operating the door at once responds, closing the flap, thus, and leaving no indication whatever of its existence. Now, Lady Olivia, let me see whether you can open the flap.”
Thus invited, Lady Elphinstone laid her finger upon the rivet-head and gave it a vigorous push to the left, upon which the flap folded out as before, and von Schalckenberg, taking her ladyship’s hand, led her with old-fashioned gallantry up the gangway, the others following.
As well as the party could discern in the obscurity, they now found themselves standing in an apartment some ten feet square by seven feet in height, with no other perceptible means of egress from it than the trap-door by which they had entered; but upon the professor stretching forth his arm and groping for a moment about the wall, the room became suddenly illumined by the radiance of an electric light set in a very thick and strong glass globe let into the ceiling, and it now became apparent that there was a door in the bulkhead opposite them as they entered.
“This small room,” said the professor, “is known as the chamber of egress, because, as is quite obvious, it is from here that one leaves the ship for the outer world. But it has also another purpose besides the mere furnishing of access to the trap-door, as I will endeavour to explain to your ladyship. You are, of course, aware that one of the objects with which the Flying Fish was constructed was to enable her crew to explore the ocean depths, and to examine and, if necessary, operate upon the ocean’s bed. Now, in order to leave the ship and walk out upon the sea floor, an aperture of some kind in the hull is clearly necessary, through which we may pass; and that aperture you see before you in the shape of the trap-door. But you will readily understand that, with the ship sunk to the bottom, the water will pour violently through that trap, if it is opened without the observance of proper precautions; and unless some special means are adopted to prevent such a catastrophe, the water will quickly invade and fill the entire hull. Hence this room. Its use, in actual practice, is this: having donned our diving-suits in the diving-room, we pass into this small chamber by means of the door of communication, which you see in that partition, close the door carefully behind us, and turn on this tap, which admits a small stream of water into the room from outside. The pressure of water being considerable, the room quickly fills; but the partition, with its water-tight door, effectually prevents the water from penetrating any farther into the hull of the ship—and we then throw open the trap-door, and walk forth on to the sea floor. Upon our return we close the trap-door behind us, thus, turn on this air tap, and immediately a stream of densely compressed air rushes into the chamber, expelling the water through this valve in the floor. And when the water is all out, we turn off the stream of compressed air, and open this valve, which allows the compressed air to pass into the habitable portion of the ship, quickly reducing the air-pressure in this room to what it is in the other habitable portion of the ship; then we open this door, and pass into the diving-room.”
The professor then threw open the door and, with a profound bow, stood aside to allow Lady Elphinstone to pass through.
The room in which the party presently found themselves was an apartment about twenty feet square, one side of which was wholly occupied by four cupboards labelled respectively “Sir Reginald Elphinstone,” “Colonel Lethbridge,” “Captain Mildmay,” and “Von Schalckenberg.”
“This,” explained the professor, “is the room wherein we shall equip ourselves for our submarine rambles; and,” throwing open the door of one of the cupboards and disclosing certain articles neatly arranged upon hooks fastened to the walls, “here is a suit of the clothing and armour that we shall wear upon such occasions.”
“Oh yes,” responded Lady Olivia, “I remember having heard Sir Reginald speak of his ‘diving-armour’; what a very handsome suit it is,”—as she touched and thoughtfully opened the folds of a surcoat of scale armour that looked as though made of silver; “but it seems a queer idea to don armour for the purpose of walking about at the bottom of the sea. Yet, what a man of foresight you must be, Professor! My husband has often told Ida the story of your terrible fight with the conger eels, the first time that the party ever sallied forth from the Flying Fish. You appear to have foreseen and provided against every possible danger.”
“No, no!” exclaimed von Schalckenberg, laughingly disclaiming any such prescience; “I am not nearly as clever as that. For instance: the armour was not provided as a protection against the attacks of savage animals or fish, but for quite a different purpose.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed her ladyship; “for what purpose, then, was it provided?”
“For the purpose of protecting the wearer against the enormous pressure of the water to which he would be subjected when moving about on the bed of the ocean at a great depth below the surface,” answered the professor. “You must understand,” he continued, “that water exerts a pressure upon everything immersed in it; and the deeper the water, the greater is the pressure upon the immersed body. So rapidly does this pressure increase, that divers attired in an ordinary diving-dress are only able to descend to a depth of about fifteen fathoms, or ninety feet; there are a few cases where this depth has been exceeded, but they are few and far between. Now I have always held the opinion that to descend into the sea to merely such a trifling depth as this, for the purpose of scientific investigation, is scarcely worth the trouble; so when Sir Reginald was good enough to furnish me with the means to materialise, as it were, in this ship, the fancies and longings that had haunted me, day and night, for years, I determined that it should not be my fault if we did not, all of us, completely eclipse all previous achievements in diving. The great difficulty that I had to contend with was the enormous water-pressure of which I had spoken. Could I but contrive to encase our bodies in some garment that would receive and successfully resist this terrible pressure, and yet be flexible enough to permit of free movement to the wearer, the problem would be solved. And these diving-suits are the outcome of my efforts; they sustain and resist to perfection, without permitting them to be transmitted to the body, the most severe pressures to which we have ever exposed them, while at the same time they afford complete protection in other respects to the wearers—as when, for example, we were attacked by the conger eels.”
Lady Olivia thanked the professor for his explanation, and murmured an additional word or two of admiration for the wonderful armour; whereupon von Schalckenberg—perceiving perhaps that her ladyship’s interest in what was really one of his masterpieces of ingenuity was not, after all, particularly keen—opened a door opposite the one by which they had entered the diving-room, disclosing a small vestibule from which sprang a spiral staircase made of the same beautiful white metal that was everywhere to be met with on board this marvellous ship.
Leading the way round past the foot of the staircase, the professor halted before a door inscribed with the words “Engine-Room.” This door he threw open, and, as before, with a profound bow, motioned Lady Elphinstone to enter. The first emotion of those who entered this important compartment for the first time was invariably one of disappointment; for the room, although full of machinery, was small—disproportionately so, it appeared, compared with the bulk of the ship and the power required to drive it at the enormous speeds that had been indisputably attained by the Flying Fish. And this emotion was further increased by contemplation of the machinery by means of which these high speeds had been attained. The main engines, consisting of a set of three-cylinder compound engines, constructed throughout of polished aethereum, and consequently presenting an exceedingly handsome appearance, suggested rather the idea of an exquisite large-sized model in silver than anything else, the set occupying very little more space than those of one of the larger Thames river steamers. But the impression of diminutiveness and inadequacy of power merged into one of astonishment nearly approaching incredulity when the professor casually mentioned that the vapour by which the engines were driven entered the high-pressure cylinder at the astounding pressure of five thousand pounds to the square inch, and that, although the engines themselves made only fifty revolutions per minute, the main shaft, to which the propeller was attached, made, by means of speed-multiplying gear, no fewer than one thousand revolutions per minute in air of ordinary atmospheric pressure!
From the engine-room the professor led the way up the spiral staircase for a considerable distance, passing landings here and there, with doors in the bulkheads, giving access, as von Schalckenberg explained, to the several decks of the vessel. Arrived at length at the top of the spiral staircase, the party found themselves in a spacious vestibule extending the whole width of the ship, and lighted on each side by a large, circular port. The vestibule floor was covered—with the exception of a margin about three feet wide all round—with a magnificent carpet, the margin of floor beyond the edge of the carpet being occupied by a number of beautiful flowering plants and shrubs in spacious and ornamental pots and boxes. From the centre of the vestibule floor sprang the grand staircase—a magnificent example of sculptured aethereum—leading to the pilot-house and promenade deck above; and immediately opposite the foot of the staircase, forming, in fact, one side of the vestibule, was a bulkhead of aethereum decorated with a series of Corinthian pilasters surmounted by a noble cornice, from which sprang the coved ceiling of the apartment. The panels formed by the pilaster were enriched with elegant mouldings of scroll-work and painted in creamy white picked out with gold. Two of the panels were occupied by massive, handsomely mounted doors of frosted aethereum, the panels of which were decorated with fanciful scroll-work of the polished metal, imparting a very rich and handsome effect. These doors, the professor reminded Lady Olivia, gave admission to the dining and drawing-rooms.
Behind the grand staircase was another bulkhead, similar to the one already described, but having one door only—and that in its centre—instead of two, as in the case of the other bulkhead. This single door gave access to a long corridor, on either side of which were to be found the staterooms, or sleeping apartments, the bathrooms, and the domestic offices generally of the ship. Lady Elphinstone was tolerably familiar with this part of the ship already; and as she wished to peep into the room which she and her husband were to occupy, she now took the lead and, opening the door leading into the corridor, passed through it, while the men turned in the other direction and entered the dining-room.
Passing along the corridor, Lady Elphinstone presently reached the stateroom which she was desirous to inspect, and, turning the handle of the door, entered. The room in which she now found herself was an apartment about twenty feet square, lighted at one end by two very large circular ports, or scuttles, let into the side of the ship, affording ample illumination during the daytime, while the hours of darkness were provided for by half a dozen electric lights disposed about the cabin, mounted on handsome aethereum brackets, and furnished with opal shades, shaped and tinted to represent flowers. The bulkheads were of frosted aethereum, divided up into panels by fluted Corinthian pilasters of the same metal, supporting a massive cornice and a coved ceiling, the wall panels being enriched with graceful designs in polished aethereum surrounding choice paintings in water-colour, while the ceiling was painted to represent a cloud-dappled sky, with cupids flitting hither and thither among the clouds. Handsome wardrobes, chests of drawers, wash-stands, toilet tables, couches, and chairs of most exquisite workmanship in frosted aethereum, upholstered in richest silk and velvet, were conveniently grouped about the apartment; and in the centre, automatically balanced on gimbals, hung a spacious and beautifully carved and chiselled bedstead of aethereum, upon which the occupant would find luxurious repose. The deck, or floor, of the apartment was covered with a thick, rich Turkey carpet, the colouring of which matched the upholstery of the furniture; and the ports were draped with costly silk and lace curtains of the finest texture, to soften or exclude the light when desired.
Finding everything here to her liking, her ladyship joined the rest of the party in the dining-room, and intimated that her inspection of the ship was ended, whereupon the spiral staircase was descended, and in a few minutes the little group once more found themselves outside the ship and wending their way back to the house.