A minute light twinkled out like a star, and then another and another, until the boat was bright again, and we knew that among the other wonders of this most astonishing of inventions there was storage electricity which would keep the boat illuminated for hours, without so much as a single turn of the dynamo. With the stopping of the engine, the air supply from above had ceased; but Mr. Lake laid his hand on the steel wall above us, where he said there was enough air compressed to last us all for two days, should anything happen. The possibility of "something happening" had been lurking in our minds ever since we started. "What if your engine should break down, so that you couldn't pump the water out of the water compartments?" I asked. "Here we have hand-pumps," said Mr. Lake promptly; "and if those failed, a single touch of this lever would release our iron keel, which weighs 4000 pounds, and up we would go like a rocket."
I questioned further, only to find that every imaginable contingency, and some that were not at all imaginable to the uninitiated, had been absolutely provided against by the genius of the inventor. And everything from the gasoline engine to the hand-pump was as compact and ingenious as the mechanism of a watch. Moreover, the boat was not crowded; we had plenty of room to move around and to sleep, if we wished, to say nothing of eating. As for eating, John had brought out the kerosene stove and was making coffee, while Jim cut the pumpkin pie. "This isn't Delmonico's," said Jim, "but we're serving a lunch that Delmonico's couldn't serve--a submarine lunch."
By this time the novelty was wearing off and we sat there, at the bottom of the sea, drinking our coffee with as much unconcern as though we were in an up-town restaurant. For the first time since we started, Mr. Lake sat down, and we had an opportunity of talking with him at leisure. He is a stout-shouldered, powerfully built man, in the prime of life--a man of cool common sense, a practical man, who is also an inventor. And he talks frankly and convincingly, and yet modestly, of his accomplishment.
Having finished our lunch, Mr. Lake prepared to show us something about the practical operations of the Argonaut. It has been a good deal of a mystery to us how workmen penned up in a submarine boat could expect to recover gold from wrecks in the water outside, or to place torpedoes, or to pick up cables. "We simply open the door, and the diver steps out on the bottom of the sea," Mr. Lake said, quite as if he was conveying the most ordinary information.
At first it seemed incredible, but Mr. Lake showed us the heavy, riveted door in the bottom of the diver's compartment. Then he invited us inside with Wilson, who, besides being an engineer, is also an expert diver. The massive steel doors of the little room were closed and barred, and then Mr. Lake turned a cock and the air rushed in under high pressure. At once our ears began to throb, and it seemed as if the drums would burst inward.
"Keep swallowing," said Wilson, the diver.
As soon as we applied this remedy, the pain was relieved, but the general sensation of increased air pressure, while exhilarating, was still most uncomfortable. The finger on the pressure dial kept creeping up and up, until it showed that the air pressure inside of the compartment was nearly equal to the water pressure without. Then Wilson opened a cock in the door. Instantly the water gushed in, and for a single instant we expected to be drowned there like rats in a trap. "This is really very simple," Mr. Lake was saying calmly. "When the pressure within is the same as that without, no water can enter."
With that, Wilson dropped the iron door, and there was the water and the muddy bottom of the sea within touch of a man's hand. It was all easy enough to understand, and yet it seemed impossible, even as we saw it with our own eyes. Mr. Lake stooped down, and picked up a wooden rod having a sharp hook at the end. This he pulled along the bottom....
We were now rising again to the surface, after being submerged for more than three hours. I climbed into the conning-tower and watched for the first glimpse of the sunlight. There was a sudden fluff of foam, the ragged edge of a wave, and then I saw, not more than a hundred feet away, a smack bound toward New York under full sail. Her rigging was full of men, gazing curiously in our direction, no doubt wondering what strange monster of the sea was coming forth for a breath of air.
THE MODERN SUBMARINE
