"Very much," answered Mont. "Play us something. It will enliven me a bit. I feel awfully low, and I'll give you a game at dominoes or checkers afterwards, if you like."
Captain Vindex smiled, and, sitting down, played Sousa's "Liberty Bell March" with great skill.
"Thank you," said Mont, when he had finished. "Very fine. Now will you tell me how you manage for air?"
"I will not trouble you with chemical details," answered the captain, "which you would not understand, but when I do not take in air at the surface, I have some compressed in the reservoir, which, by means of an apparatus, is wafted all over the ship."
"And about light and moving about?"
"That is the result of electricity, which I make myself. My motive power is electricity, and I can attain a speed of thirty miles an hour. The men of the world have not yet discovered half the value of electricity. My machinery is of the finest kind. If I want to sink to the bottom of the sea, I fill certain reservoirs I have with water; when I want to rise, I lighten the ship by letting out the water. In short, I have invented everything that is necessary for my safety and comfort."
"Wonderful!" ejaculated Mont.
"Your friend, the professor, would understand me, if I were to explain to him how everything were managed, but to you it all seems as strange as the first railway train did to the country people through whose districts it passed. Engineering science is yet in its infancy. The world has great discoveries to make. You are at present only on the threshold of the great unknown."
"You work your ship with a screw, I suppose?"
"Exactly. The helmsman sits in a cabin with a glass front, and the electric light illumines the sea for some distance, so that all is clear to him."