But what inventor would not dare death itself if there was the barest chance of saving his brain-child from harm? Shaking off the other’s detaining grip impatiently, Lockyer entered the shed, followed closely by Ned and his companions. Curiously enough, however, Gradbarr seemed inclined to follow, now that he had seen the inventor enter. His first panic appeared to have been dissipated. As old Tom’s form vanished within, he turned and followed.
“Got to see they don’t find out too much,” he muttered to himself.
Within the shed was intense gloom, lighted only here and there by scattered incandescent lights. The work being done was now all within the hull of the submarine itself, and consequently there was no necessity for bright illumination without. Cutting down light bills was one of a score of ways in which Lockyer was trying to eke out his dwindling fortune.
At first nothing very much seemed to be the matter. The gray and red painted outlines of the submarine bulked up through the gloom like the form of some fantastic and puffy fish. She was shaped like a short, very fat cigar, with a hump on the top where the conning tower, with its big round glass lenses—like goggle eyes—projected. A ladder was at her side, and up this Lockyer nimbly skipped, the boys after him.
As they gained the sloping deck, round which a low iron rail ran, a peculiar odor was noticeable. It was a sickening, pungent sort of smell, and the boys caught themselves swallowing chokingly as they inhaled it.
“Jeruso-hos-ophat, there’s bin some adult eggs busted around here!” gasped old Tom, holding to a hand rail on the conning tower.
“Smells like it,” agreed Ned. “What is it, sir?” he inquired of Lockyer, who was hesitating in front of the manhole which led down inside the boat.
“It’s a peculiar kind of gas which I use in starting the engines,” explained the inventor. “How it has been liberated I cannot imagine, but it is very volatile and must have caused the explosion we heard.”
“Do you think the boat is damaged?” inquired Herc.
“Impossible to say,” rejoined Lockyer nervously; “the hull seems all right outside. Wait till I open these ventilators and liberate the fumes, and we’ll go inside and find out.”