“I can understand that.”
“I wish you could have seen her.”
“So do I. But suppose you describe her to us, without reference to turtle-backs. Describe her just as you would if you had never seen a turtle-back.”
“All right. She was, I should say, seventy-five or eighty feet, over all, and from sixteen to twenty feet beam. I am guessing at it, of course.”
“Certainly.”
“She was long and narrow, and floated as if she was rather deep in the water. She carried two masts, but I saw no sign of a sail upon her. There was no funnel, and when she shot away from the bow of the yacht, her motive power, whatever it was, made no noise whatever, so I presume she was propelled by electricity.”
“Storage-battery power, eh?”
“Yes. Her deck was convex from end to end, and guarded, as I have already said, by a nickel rail which ran her entire length. Away forward there was a low turret, shaped like an old-fashioned poke bonnet, if the wearer of the bonnet were looking aft. This was, no doubt, the wheel-house. Amidships there was a second turret, shaped like an iron kettle, and about six or eight feet in diameter. Aft there was another one, exactly like it; and that is all.”
“Do you think she might have been a submarine?”