"Why did you come to a standstill here?" asked the sub.
"To partially recharge our accumulators. Our motive power is electricity. My invention in that direction is a revolution in marine and submarine propulsion. We are now anchored."
"Anchored?" echoed Hythe. "How? I saw no anchors when I examined your vessel from the outside."
"Anchoring, as we understand the term, consists of allowing the ’Aphrodite’ to settle on the bottom of the sea. By lowering four steel plates, inclined at an angle of forty-five degrees--the acute angle facing aft--an almost irresistible brake, something after the principle of the spade recoil brake of the French quick-firing field guns, is formed. At this moment the ebb tide is swirling past at four knots. The force of the current is turning our propellers, which, acting for the time being on subsidiary shafting, drive the dynamos that in turn replenish our accumulators."
"Then that means that every day you must recharge? How do you manage when there is not sufficient tide to actuate the propellers?"
"My dear sir," replied Captain Restronguet, "I ought to have said that we were _partially_ replenishing our reserve of electricity. At this moment there is sufficient power on board to drive the ’Aphrodite’ at a speed of thirty-five knots on the surface or twenty when submerged, for a continuous period of at least one hundred and twenty hours. We merely take advantage of the opportunity to increase our reserve. But you are not eating. Is my meagre fare not sufficiently tempting?"
"I am too interested to think about eating," replied Hythe. "But now you mention it I feel quite peckish."
"We are obliged to do without fresh meat," said Captain Restronguet apologetically. "Nevertheless I think you will find this dish of pilchards excellent. Here is seakale sauce that by the skill of the ’Aphrodite’s’ cook can hardly be distinguished from asparagus. Roast dog-fish, if you care to try it, you will find hard to believe anything but beef-steak. By a certain process, simple to apply, all taste of fish is eliminated."
Captain Restronguet helped his guest to a slice of dog-fish--a fish that fishermen not so many years back generally threw back into the sea as useless.
