sunk by filling her with
air. And then the cool way in which you talk of our `sinking to the
bottom like a stone!' I undertook this enterprise because I wanted to
experience a new sensation; and it appears to me that there are a good
many of them in store for me. However, it is all right; go on with your
explanations, my dear sir."

"These," said the professor, indicating several levers marked with
distinguishing labels ranged all along one side of the pilot-house, "are
the levers opening and closing the valves of the air and water chambers,
and need no further description. This," he continued, pointing to a
small box with a little knob projecting out of the top of it, "is the
apparatus for firing our torpedo shells."

The baronet glanced mutely round at his companions, and shrugged his
shoulders expressively, as who should say, "What next?"

The colonel and the lieutenant nodded approvingly, however, and the
latter said:

"That is capital, professor; we ought to have the means of fighting the
ship, if necessary; but I was beginning to fear you had overlooked that
matter, having seen no provision for anything of the kind. But where is
your torpedo port? you omitted to point that out to us when we were
under the ship's bottom."

"There was nothing to show," replied the professor; "and I can explain
the matter just as well up here as I could have done when we were down
below. The conical point which forms the extreme forward end of the
ship is solid and movable. Under ordinary circumstances it remains
firmly fixed in position; but when it becomes necessary to fire a
torpedo-shell the solid point is made to slide in along a grooved tube
for a certain distance; the shell is then placed in the tube and fired,
when the solid point follows it out and becomes again securely fixed in
its former position. In addition to this arrangement, I have two large
guns which can be worked through ports in the dining-saloon, and six
wonderful magazine rifles invented by a Mr Maxim, a friend of mine.
They are perhaps the most wonderful pieces of mechanism in the ship, for
when the first shot has been fired they will go on firing themselves at
the marvellous rate of six hundred shots per minute so long as you keep
them supplied with cartridges. Then I have also provided an ample
supply of ordinary guns and rifles, swords, pikes, pistols, and in fact
everything we are likely to require for the purposes of sport or
defence. The