Without a promise to bind him as to his future course, Matt was allowed to leave the steel room. Paying no attention to the don, who was standing in the periscope chamber, he rushed through another door, dropped down a narrow hatch and crawled aft to the motor room.
[CHAPTER VI.]
A LESSON IN "WHO'S WHO."
In order to reach the motor room Matt had to crawl through a low chamber closely packed with storage batteries. There were sixty cells with a power of one hundred and sixty volts, and with a capacity of what is known, in electrical parlance, as sixteen hundred ampere hours. This room was Speake's dominion, and he sat on a low stool, his head just clearing the deck above, watching furtively as Matt scrambled past him.
Tucked away in the stern, at the end of the floored space, was the motor room. It looked like the tunnel shaft of an ocean liner.
At one side there were switchboards for two dynamotors: one of ten horse power to compress air, and a second of two horse power to supply lights and assist the ventilation. The spiral resistance coils were close to the switchboards. The gasoline engine was in the centre of the compartment, and back of this stretched the shaft, finally passing out into the water through a stuffing box.
Matt glanced at a clock on the wall. From somewhere in the distance he could hear breakers churning soddenly against a reef.
Clackett, crouching low in the curve of the boat's side, looked anxiously at Matt. He paid no attention to Clackett, but gave the fly wheel a sharp turn.
Sputter, pop, pop!