emor which comes from contact
with the unknown would be beside the truth. On the other hand,
calm and imperturbable, but keenly curious as to this novel form
of navigation, General Andre had already taken his place near
the commandant on a folding seat. There were no chairs in this
long tube in which we were imprisoned. Everything was arranged
for the crew alone, with an eye to serious action. Moreover, the
Minister of War was too tall to stand upright beneath the iron
ceiling, and in any case it would be impossible to walk about.

The only free space was a narrow passage, sixty centimetres
broad, less than two metres high, and thirty metres long, divided
into three equal sections. In the first, in the forefront of the
tube, reposed the torpedoes, with the machine for launching them,
which at a distance of from 500 to 600 metres were bound to sink,
with the present secret processes, the largest of ironclads. In
the second section were the electric accumulators which gave the
light and power. In the third, near the screw, was the electric
motor which transformed into movement the current of the
accumulators. Under all this, beneath the floor, from end to end,
were immense water ballasts, which were capable of being emptied
or filled in a few seconds by electric machines, in order to
carry the vessel up or down. Finally, in the centre of the tube,
dominating these three sections, which the electric light
inundated, and which no partition divided, the navigating
lieutenant stood on the lookout giving his orders.

There was but one thing which could destroy in a second all the
sources of authority, initiative, and responsibility in this
officer. That was the failure of the accumulators. Were the
electricity to fail everything would come to a stop. Darkness
would overtake the boat and imprison it for ever in the water. To
avoid any such disaster there have been arranged, it is true,
outside the tube and low down, a series of lead blades which were
capable of being removed from within to lighten the vessel. But
admitting that the plunger would return to the surface, the boat
would float hither and thither, and at all events lose all its
properties as a submarine vessel. To avoid any such disaster a
combination of motors have been in course of const