"Did Pons tell you anything about that French submarine, matey?" inquired Dick.
"A little, but not as much as I would have liked to learn. The Pom, I infer, is smaller than the Grampus, and is propelled by electricity when submerged and by gasoline on the surface. She's only able to stay under water an hour. Captain Nemo, Jr., could teach those French builders a trick or two with his patent submerged exhausts."
"How's her diving? Can't she remain submerged longer than an hour with her ballast tanks full and her electric motor quiet?"
"No. Her rudders keep her below the surface, and the diving rudders won't work unless her motor's going."
"She don'd amoundt to mooch, oof dot's der case," commented Carl. "Der Grampus has got der Pom shkinned bot' vays for Suntay. I bed you somet'ing for nodding der Pom couldn't have come aroundt der bottom end oof Sout' America like vat ve dit. Pom! She vas vat der French fellers call a pomme de terre, by vich, ven I so expression meinseluf, I mean a botato. Whoosh!" and the Dutch boy gave a grunt of disgust.
The night fell clear and bright. It was Matt's intention to continue running during the night, but submerged so that only the periscope ball was awash.
When the time came to fill the ballast tanks, however, an unexpected difficulty presented itself—a difficulty which had almost brought overwhelming disaster once before, when the Grampus had just emerged from Magellan Strait: the Kingston valves by mean of which the tanks were operated failed to work.
This was no particular fault of the valves, but of some damage that had been done to them, and which caused them to go wrong occasionally—and usually at the most inopportune times.
Matt had made up his mind that new valves would have to be put in, but that was a job which would necessarily have to wait until the submarine reached the end of her long journey.
Repairing the valves would take several hours, and Matt decided to stay on the surface and put in a little bay on Quiriquina Island.