"Look here, captain," said Felton, angrily. "That is the answer your double gave me when I asked him the same question last night. It means nothing. I am either a prisoner of war, or a guest entitled to consideration. Why do you treat me like a fool?"
"Because you are a fool. You believe in the invulnerability of the battleship. Well, there is one of the best. Look at her."
"I see. Destroyed, but not by you; by an enemy of yours. One who feared you."
"Yes, as mediocrity fears intelligence, as the child fears the dark, the savage the gun of the civilized soldier—humanity as a whole the unseen, the unexpected, the invisible. The airship is potential, but not final—she can be seen."
"And shot," said Felton, doggedly.
"Did that battleship hit your airship? You know that she could not. The airship's limitations are contained in her visibility. She cannot be hit by shot or shell, but she can be seen, and projected into space."
"Granted, but suppose she dropped a bomb on to your back before you saw her?"
"She could not, except in the dark; then she would have to strike a knife edge, and it would be an accident—one chance in millions. We are constructed like a razor-back hog, to deflect falling bombs."
"But you cannot deflect horizontal torpedoes," said Felton, looking up at the dome of the submarine. It looked curiously like the dome-shaped roof of the airship. "I know well," he went on, talking as was his wont among his fellow officers, "that if I could see your periscope tube with a telescope, I could hit you with one of my torpedoes."
"Your torpedoes?"