er storey--completely
surrounded by large circular scuttles, or windows, which afforded an
unobstructed view all round--constituted the navigating platform from
which the ship was worked.

The whole of this enormous fabric, with the exception of the planking of
the promenade deck, was built of the wonderful metal called aethereum,
discovered by Professor von Schalckenberg, which, being unpainted, shone
in the sunlight like burnished silver. There was only one exception to
the rule which appeared to have forbidden the use of paint on the
exterior of this wonderful ship, and that was in the case of the
superstructure supporting the promenade deck and the pilot-house. This
portion of the hull was painted a light, delicate, blue-grey tint, which
was relieved by an ornamental scroll-work of gold and colours at each
end of the ship enclosing the name _Flying Fish_ on each bow and
quarter, the whole connected by a massive gold cable moulding running
fore and aft along the sheer strake of that portion of the ship. The
painting and gilding had all been done when the ship was built, nearly
seven years ago, and it had then been coated with a transparent,
protective varnish of the professor's own concoction, which had proved
so absolutely water-tight and imperishable that, although the _Flying
Fish_ had lain submerged at the bottom of the Hurd Deep for more than
six years, the paint and gilding now looked as fresh and clean and
brilliant as though it had been newly applied. It may be as well to
mention here that all the interior decks, bulkheads, doors, staircases,
machinery, and furniture of every kind, even to the boats, and the guns,
firearms, and weapons of every description with which the ship was
liberally provided, were, like her hull, constructed of aethereum, the
most striking properties of which metal were its extraordinary
lightness, toughness, hardness, strength, and its stubborn resistance to
all tarnishing or oxidising influences.

There were two modes of ingress to the interior of the ship, one, as has
already been mentioned, from the deck, by way of the pilot-house, and
the other by way of a trap-door in the bottom of the ship, behind the
starboard bilge-keel. This latter was used when it was desired to enter
or leave the ship when she was resting upon the solid ground, either
above or under water, and it was the means of entrance which the party
used upon the present occasion. The professor, to whose genius