“I want you,” said von Schalckenberg, “to go to the place I have named, and stand between the staircase and the bulkhead, or wall, with your back turned to the stairs. Then, in the bulkhead, immediately in front of you, you will observe what appears to be the door of a small cupboard. Open this, and you will see just inside a lever sloping upward to the right. Grasp the handle, and push the lever as far as you can over toward your left—it should move quite easily—and you will have effectually shut Barker into the pilot-house, from which he cannot then get out to interfere with you. Let me know when you have done this, and I will then tell you what next to do.”
“Right,” came the answer. “I will do it, if it is to be done.”
Chapter Twenty Six.
How the Adventure ended.
“Ha, ha,” chuckled the professor; “if her Ladyship can only accomplish what I have told her to do, her troubles, and ours, will soon be over!” And carefully placing the telephone in the stern-sheets of the boat, he vigorously resumed his work of relieving the boat he was in of her burden of pearl-oysters.
“What is it, Professor; what is your plan?” demanded Sir Reginald, who was similarly busy in his own boat.
“My plan,” replied the professor, “refers to a little arrangement that I made, when designing the ship, for just such a contingency as the present. But the matter slipped my memory; and I believe I never showed it to any of you. It was important that, in designing such a ship as the Flying Fish, every possible mishap should be foreseen and provided against; and while considering this matter it occurred to me that, either by means of treachery, or otherwise, undesirable persons might possibly succeed in gaining possession of the pilot-house, when the ship and all in her would be practically at the mercy of those persons. I therefore included in the design an arrangement, whereby the simple movement of a lever would cause a plate to slide out from an interstice in the wall of the pilot-house, and thus completely shut off that structure from the rest of the ship, making prisoners of any who might happen to be in it. This is what I have just dir—”
At this juncture the bell of the telephone again began to tinkle, and, without stopping to finish his remarks, the professor seized the instrument and, adjusting it for use, spoke into it the single word—“Yes?”