He turned to what appeared to be a steel box affixed in the bow portion of the craft alongside the sighting tube. At one side of the box were levers, and a chute led down to it from above.
“The torpedoes are stored overhead,” explained the inventor; “when wanted this lever is pulled and one slides down and enters this box. From there it is launched by compressed air, which is piped here from the engine room. In my type of torpedo each missile carries its own miniature engine, also propelled by compressed air. When it leaves the side of the White Shark a catch within that ‘launching box’ engages a projection on the side of the torpedo which starts the miniature engine in the latter.”
“And the submarine gun?” asked Jack.
“Right here. Doesn’t look much like a gun, does it?”
He indicated a cylindrical object of blued, glistening steel. To be sure, its “breech” was like that of the accepted type of modern guns built to handle high explosives, but its barrel was almost square and apparently projected through the skin of the White Shark.
This impression was confirmed by Mr. Dancer.
“The barrel of my gun, at least that part of it which projects outside the submarine, is composed of flexible rungs of metal, much as a high-pressure hose is constructed; but, of course, it is many times stronger.”
He went on to explain that this gun was capable of propelling an explosive bullet half a mile under water, and that it could be aimed in any direction by means of a system of levers and guiding ropes controlled from the interior of the White Shark.
“But you cannot use gunpowder or dynamite in the gun,” objected Jack, who, as we know, under the tuition of Mr. Pythias Peregrine, had become an expert on modern gunnery.
“No; but I have substituted another force; what it is you will hardly guess. I flatter myself that the idea is entirely original.”