He stooped down, seized hold of and turned a ring in the flap, and raised the trap-door, disclosing a dark pit-like recess of considerable dimensions. Letting the flap fold back flat on the deck, the professor then stooped down and grasped the handle of a horizontal lever which lay just below the level of the deck, and drew it up into a perpendicular position, and, as he did so, a pair of davits, the upper portions of which had been plainly visible, rose through the aperture close to the protecting railing, bringing with them a handsomely modelled boat hanging from the tackles. The professor deftly turned the davits outward, and there hung the boat at the quarter in the exact position she would have occupied in an ordinary ship.
“Bravo, professor; very clever indeed!” exclaimed Mildmay. “But what is the object of those four curved tubes projecting through the boat’s bottom?”
“Those tubes,” answered the professor, “are the boat’s means of propulsion. You see,” he explained, “being built of aethereum, the boat is extremely light, and draws so little water that a screw propeller would be quite useless to her. So I have substituted those tubes instead. One pair, you will observe, points toward the stern, and one pair toward the bow. The boat’s engine is a powerful three-cylinder pump, and it sucks the water strongly in through the tubes which point forward, discharging it as powerfully out through those which point astern; thus drawing and driving the boat along at a speed of about twelve knots per hour, which is as fast, I fancy, as we shall ever want her to go. If you want to go astern the movement of a single lever reverses the whole process. There is a similar boat on the other side.”
The boat having been returned to her hiding-place, the professor next led his friends to the structure which occupied the centre of the deck. It was a perfectly plain erection, with curved sides meeting in a kind of stem and stern-post at its forward and after ends, with a curved dome-like roof, several small circular windows all round its sides, and no apparent means of entry.
“Why, how is this, professor? You have actually built your pilot-house—for such I suppose it is—without a door,” exclaimed the baronet with returning good-humour as he perceived that, even in the event of the Flying Fish failing to fly, he would still have a very wonderful ship for his money.
“As you have rightly supposed, this is the pilot-house,” answered the professor, with one hand pressing lightly against the gleaming wall of the structure. “But as to its being without a door, you are mistaken, for there it is.”
And as he spoke a door, hitherto unnoticed in the side of the building, flew open.
“Why, you are a veritable magician, professor! How on earth did you manage that?” exclaimed the colonel.
“Easily enough,” answered the professor. “Just look here, all of you. This is a secret door which it is necessary you should all know how to open. Now, there are four of us, are there not? Very well; find the fourth rivet from the bottom in the fourth row from the after end of the building—here it is—push it to your left—not press it; pressing is no good—and open flies the door. Push the rivet to the right when the door is open, and you shut it—so,” suiting the action to the word. “Now, Sir Reginald, let me see if you can open that door.”
The baronet opened and closed the door without difficulty; and then the other two essayed the attempt with similarly successful results.