“Why don’t we go on down?” the professor asked, hurrying to the tower.
“There has been an explosion—an accident!” exclaimed Mark. “I guess we can’t go down!”
“But we must!” Mr. Henderson insisted, seizing the lever which should have produced a downward motion. The handle swung to and fro. It was disconnected from the apparatus it operated.
The ship was now stationary in the air, moving neither forward nor backward, neither rising nor falling. Washington had stopped the air pumps as soon as he learned something was wrong.
When Mr. Henderson saw the useless lever, which had controlled the outlet of gas from the holder, he ran out on deck. One glance told him what had happened. One of the electric wires had become short-circuited,—that is, the insulation had worn off and allowed the current to escape. This had produced a spark, which had exploded the gas which was in the pipe leading from the generator up into the aluminum holder. Fortunately there was an automatic cut-off for the supply of vapor, or the whole tank would have gone up.
As it was, only a small quantity had blown up, but this was enough to break the machinery at the point where the lever in the conning tower joined the pipe. If it had not been for the automatic cut-off all the gas in the holder would have poured out in a great volume, and the ship would have fallen like a shot.
“Can we do nothing to save those on the burning vessel?” asked Mark, pointing to where a cloud of smoke hung over the ocean.
“I fear not, now,” answered the professor. “We are in a bad plight ourselves.”
“Are we in any danger?” asked Jack.
“Not specially,” Mr. Henderson replied. “But we must find a means of lowering ourselves gradually.”