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قراءة كتاب With Airship and Submarine: A Tale of Adventure
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With Airship and Submarine: A Tale of Adventure
warning to Mildmay to get out of the way; after which I slowly ejected the water from the water chambers, and rose very gently to the surface. Then, throwing open the door of the pilot-house—and so letting some fresh air into the hull—I went out on deck to look for Mildmay, and immediately fell heavily to the deck, which I found completely covered with a thick growth of slippery sea-grass. Ach, my friends, I reproach myself that I did not think of and guard against that when we sank the Flying Fish to the bottom for her long rest, six years ago! But I am only human, you see, after all; I have not yet acquired the gift of thinking of everything. It is a trifle, however, and I will soon put it right to-morrow. Well, I found the trap-door in the deck, despite the sea-grass, opened it with some little difficulty, raised the davits into position, and dropped the tackles into the boat which Mildmay had by this time brought alongside, and in a few minutes we had that boat hoisted up and stowed away. By this time there was vapour enough in the generator to move the engines, so we created a partial vacuum, rising in the air to a height of about a thousand feet, after which we wended our way hither, finding the spot without difficulty, thanks to the light displayed in the tower of your house. And—here we are.”
The next three days were devoted to the shipping and storing away of the enormous quantity of stores of all kinds which Sir Reginald had ordered for the voyage. This brought the time up to Saturday evening, it being about 6:30 p.m., when George, and the chef who was to have charge of the kitchen on board, reported that the last case had been conveyed on board the Flying Fish, and stowed away. There was, of course, no reason why a start should not now have been immediately effected; but, as the completion of the arrangements had brought them so very close to Sunday, Lady Olivia expressed a wish that the departure of the expedition should be deferred until the following Monday, in order that she might have an opportunity to attend one more service at the quiet little parish church close at hand. The wish, of course, had but to be expressed to meet the ready acquiescence of the other members of the party, and, accordingly, they all with one consent appeared at the church on Sunday morning; the afternoon being devoted to a final visit to, and inspection of, the Flying Fish, with the twofold object of making assurance doubly sure that nothing in the least likely to be wanted during the forthcoming expedition had been forgotten, and to afford Lady Elphinstone the opportunity to satisfy herself, before starting, that every arrangement for her comfort and convenience was complete.
The Flying Fish was still lying concealed in the spot where she had alighted four nights before; and it happened that, Lady Olivia having been too fully occupied to visit the ship until now, this was the first time that she had beheld the wonderful craft for fully six years. It was also only the second time—save on one memorable and never-to-be-forgotten occasion—that she had ever obtained an exterior view of the vessel, and, upon the first occasion referred to, the conditions had been such as to impress the appearance of the ship upon her ladyship’s memory only very vaguely. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that upon emerging from the forest path into the open glade, and catching for the first time a full view of the vast proportions of the structure, her ladyship should stop short with an exclamation of astonishment at what she beheld.
Chapter Three.
The Flying Fish.
Towering high in the air, and almost filling the glade from end to end with her enormous length, was an object measuring no fewer than six hundred feet long, of cylindrical shape, sixty feet in diameter at her so-called “midship” section, and tapering away fore and aft by a series of finely curved lines, to the pointed extremities of the bow and stern. The bow portion of the structure was considerably longer and more sharply pointed than the after extremity, to which was attached, by a very ingeniously devised universal joint, in such a manner as to render a rudder unnecessary, a huge propeller having four tremendously broad sickle-shaped blades, the palms of which were so cunningly shaped and hollowed as to gather in and concentrate the air—or water, as the case might be—about the boss and powerfully project it thence in a direct line with the longitudinal axis of the ship. To give this cigar-shaped curvilinear hull perfect stability when resting upon the ground, it was fitted with a pair of deep and broad bilge-keels, one on either side of the ship, extending fore and aft for just a third of her length. These bilge-keels contained four grip-anchors—one at either extremity of each keel—by means of which the ship could, when necessary, be firmly secured to the ground, as she now was, in fact; and they also formed chambers for the reception of water-ballast, when such was required. Immediately over the “midship” section of the hull, and extending one hundred and fifty feet in either direction fore and aft from this point, placed upon the “back,” so to speak, of the hull, was a superstructure shaped somewhat like the above-water portion of a double-ended Thames steamboat, with a deck, thirty feet in width at its broadest part, protected by an open railing in place of the usual bulwarks. And in the exact centre of this deck stood a two-storey pilot-house, the lower storey of which permitted ingress and egress between the promenade deck and the interior of the ship, while the upper 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