CHAPTER XIII Diving De Luxe

"ALL right, boys; now for the Nautilus."

It was the voice of Captain Austin, hailing the Brighton boys and their chum Larry Seymour. The three youths, with Fismes at their backs, had been sitting on a forward promenade as the Jules Verne worked her way through the shipping that lined the Bridgeford harbor entrance. By now the new diving ship had escaped the confines of the harbor and was out part way between the dimly distant shores of Long Island and the state of Connecticut. Occasionally a train on the New Haven flitted along the far shore line. A passenger steamship from New York to Boston via the Sound had but passed.

"Here's where you get your first peep at the Nautilus," said Captain Austin, as the boys climbed down the companionway to the main deck. Superintendent Brown nodded to the three youths and then in turn introduced them to a party of gentlemen composed of officials of the Bridgeford Company and others who had been interested in the formation of a syndicate to back the new diving ventures. Members of the party had heard of the boys' war record, and also of their work on the Dominion, and on the U-boat off Cape May. The lads found themselves the objects of much attention.

Captain Austin confided the information that this first trip of the Jules Verne was to acquaint all hands around with the operation of the apparatus. In other words, it was to be a demonstration that would point out the feasibilities and practical virtues of the new plan. He told them that his company still held the assignment for the recovery of the gold from the old Dominion, but reclaiming the gold bullion was a man-size job and they had decided to use the Jules Verne for it if the practical tests turned out satisfactorily.

"You boys come along now," sang out Captain Austin as he climbed into a huge hatch standing above deck and lowered away into the depths below. Without further ceremony the boys followed suit, Jay going first, followed by Dick and Larry. Fismes had to stay behind, but barked furiously to manifest his displeasure at being deserted.

Lowering away from handrail to handrail down the wide hatch, "Cap" Austin arrived finally at the bottom of the opening, closely pursued by the others.

"Low bridge now, fellows," he cautioned.

And low bridge it was as the party entered the access tube. Like an oblique ladder leading downward the tube stretched away into the sea. The steel piping was less than four feet in diameter, and the only way to negotiate it was to duck down almost on all fours and make your way along laboriously like a telephone repairman in a conduit. Electric lights were stationed at intervals along the way to light up the submarine tunnel.

"Keep your head down, Fritzie boy, or you'll get an awful bump on the cranium," cautioned the ship's captain.

"Now we are going into the air-lock chamber, boys," he told them. "We are down below the surface of the Sound something like eighty-five feet. When we get on the deck of the Nautilus we will be down an even hundred feet. Follow me right through."

In response to the captain's tapping on a huge port immediately to his right it had swung open like the fire door of a huge locomotive. There, in the encircling frame, was the face of Superintendent Brown.

"Welcome, boys. 'Will you step into my parlor?' said the spider to the fly."

The yard official was all smiles as he greeted the boys.

Captain Austin set his foot through the aperture and crawled through into the adjoining chamber alongside the superintendent. The boys followed suit as rapidly as they could.

They found themselves now in a narrow little prison not more than four feet high, six or seven feet long, and about two feet wide. With difficulty the five men distributed themselves in the place. Crouched closely together, shoulders touching each other, they filled the whole compartment like so many sardines in a can.

"This is the air-lock chamber, boys," announced Superintendent Brown. "From your submarine experience to date you can easily understand the function of this chamber. We have just stepped in here from the access tube where there maintains the air pressure of the surface. We want to go from here into the Nautilus, where we can roll back the open hatch from the bottom of the craft and gaze upon the very sea itself held in abeyance. How would you go about it, Mr. Monaghan?" asked the superintendent, knowing of Dick's predilection for mechanical problems and his desire to pursue his education through college.

Just for an instant Dick hesitated, and then answered: "I should say you would have to equalize the air pressure, sir."

"And you are right," answered the Bridgeford official. "That is exactly what we have to do here. It is out of the question to go directly from the pressure of the surface to a pressure of one hundred feet below the surface. We simply come into this air chamber, shut ourselves off completely from the world above us, and then step ourselves up to the required air pressure for one hundred feet."

So saying, the superintendent slammed shut the door of the port through which the party had entered the air-lock from the access tube, and made it doubly secure with a stout pin that slid into place behind a reinforcing bar.

"Now to let some more air into the chamber."

Immediately an air-cock was opened and with a hissing sound a great volume of compressed air came into the little chamber so tightly filled with humanity. Wsh-h-h-h-h! it resounded through the narrow space like the blow-off of a mighty steam exhaust. Just for a few seconds, and then it was turned off. Even though he had experienced divers aboard who were accustomed to working in high pressures below water, Superintendent Brown was taking no chances. It was always best to go slow, because with every foot of submergence there is an increase of air pressure upon every square inch of the body's surface of no less than .43 of a pound.

At a depth of 100 feet under the sea the total pressure would be approximately 45 additional pounds pressure against every square inch of the body. With the average human body representing a surface of about 2160 square inches, that meant that at a depth of 100 feet a dead weight of more than 97,000 pounds would be pressing against the body of each of them. Under such circumstances the blood is forced away from the surface of the body. The veins become thin, while the deep-lying arteries are overworked.

It was a matter of but a short time until, consulting the pressure gauge, the superintendent found that he had admitted a sufficient amount of compressed air to equalize the difference between the surface and the one-hundred-foot submarine level.

"Now into the Nautilus!" As he said this, "Montey" opened the huge port leading into the diving chamber and stepped through. He was closely followed by the remainder of the party in single file, and presently they had emerged in the compartment or working chamber. Two or three men could work in it comfortably; five filled it too completely. There was just room for the quintet to stand about easily without bumping each other.

Electric lights made the chamber as light as a Broadway office building in the evening. An electric fan buzzed in one corner to keep the air on the move. A telephone hung on the wall just to the left of Superintendent Brown's head. Just at that moment it tinkled merrily. The official took down the receiver.

"Hello, hello. Yes, this is Brown. Yes, we are all fine and dandy. Yep. We are ready. Go ahead now."

The superintendent turned from the telephone.

"They are going to move us ahead slowly in the water now. All hands stand by. Maybe we may run into something."

Just then a slight jarring motion indicated that the mother ship, the Jules Verne, had gotten under way, and was steering the tiny Nautilus ahead of her through the waters of the Sound.

"Now you get the advantage of this system, boys," the superintendent was saying. "Here you are much safer and much more comfortable than if you were out there on the bottom floundering around in diving armor. You can just stand here at ease, breathing normally, with plenty of fresh oxygen pouring down from above, and with no unfavorable symptoms of any kind."

To impress this point, the superintendent switched on an air-cock to emphasize the point that the Nautilus was completely in touch with the mother ship up at the other end of the hundred-foot access tube.

"Look here, boys!" Captain Austin, standing by one of the huge ports that dotted the face of the Nautilus on either side of the prow, beckoned them to look out. Through the misty green of the water their eyes could carry quite a distance with the aid of the bright sunlight above. Certainly it was light enough so that in the event of any lost ship being encountered it could be seen in plenty of time.

Through the floor of the Nautilus the green of the sea showed all around. The water raced along under the glass of the aquascope as the Nautilus was pushed steadily ahead. Virtually the whole floor of the diving bell was framed in a trap that could be raised and lowered at will; and, from their own knowledge of submarine affairs, the Brighton boys knew that with the air pressure within the Nautilus equal to that of the water itself at a depth of one hundred feet, this flooring could be rolled back, and still the water would not come into the Nautilus!

"I know just what you are thinking about," laughed the superintendent, as he caught a glimpse of Jay and Dick surveying the transparent flooring of the Nautilus. "You are thinking what a wonderful thing it is that we can open the bottom of a craft submerged one hundred feet down, and yet no water pour in upon us. And it truly is a wonderful thing. Just like the Lord opened the Red Sea and enabled the children of Israel to get across and outwit their pursuers."

Larry Seymour, to whom the experience was all new, was losing no part of the proceedings.

"But what if your air pump went on the bum about the time you opened up that flooring?" he questioned.

"If the air pump failed, it would not affect the water, but would cut off our breathing supply," answered the official.

"How long could we last down here?"

"Oh, two or three of us working alone could stand it for some hours without any relief."

"Suppose some one opened the breech caps leading out into the access tube while the aquascope was up?"

"Wow-wow! In would come Mr. Ocean, and I guess it would be all day for the chaps who would be caught down here."

"Here you are, boys; see the whole panorama of the sea bottom unfolded before you," remarked the superintendent as he directed attention downward through the aquascope. The lads looked in turn and saw the sea-bottom plainly revealed, with all its sandy bottom and its jagged contour of shells and marine life. The floor of the Nautilus was, in fact, so close to the bottom that it was almost touching. Brown at once gave the signal to the engine room of the mother ship that stopped the Nautilus. With another flip of the air pressure he raised the flooring of the chamber and there lay the limpid waters of the Sound, held in check completely even at this depth by the pressure of air within the chamber!

"By Jove! You just stopped in time," exclaimed Captain Austin as he turned from one of the forward ports.

"What do you mean, Captain?" asked Superintendent Brown.

"Look here," replied "Cap," indicating the port and motioning the fleet superintendent to look out into the green haze of water.