"The rest of the fleet!" exclaimed the Field Marshal. "It is impossible."
"We shall see, Feldherr!" laughed the Kaiser. "Meanwhile, suppose we come out of the danger zone."
The three greatest men in Germany, and perhaps on the Continent of Europe, lined up with their backs to the wall at the farther end of the room from the tank, and the Irishman sat down to his machine. The keys began to click rapidly, and they began to feel a tenseness in the air of the room. After a few seconds they would not have been surprised if they had seen a flash of lightning pass over their heads. The _Flying Fish_ had sunk to the bottom of the tank, and backed into one of the corners. The keys of the machine clicked louder and faster. Her nose tilted upwards to an angle of about sixty degrees. The six-bladed propeller at her stem whirled round in the water like the flurry of a whale's fluke in its death agony. Her side-fins inclined upwards, and, like a flash, she leapt from the water, and began to circle round the room.
The Kaiser shut his teeth hard and watched. The Chancellor opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, and shut it again. The Field Marshal stroked his moustache slowly, and followed the strange shape fluttering about the room. It circled twice round the tank, and then crossed it. A sharp click came from the machine, something fell from the body of the _Flying Fish_ into the tank. There was a dull sound of a smothered explosion. For a moment the very water itself seemed aflame, then it boiled up into a mass of seething foam. Every one of the models was overwhelmed and engulfed at the same moment. Castellan got up from the machine, caught the _Flying Fish_ in his hand, as it dropped towards the water, took it to the Kaiser, and said:
"Is your Majesty convinced? It is quite harmless now."
"God's thunder, yes!" said the War Lord of Germany, taking hold of the model. "It is almost superhuman."
"Yes," said the Chancellor, "it is damnable!"
"I," said the Field Marshal, drily, "think it's admirable, always supposing that Mr Castellan is prepared to place this mysterious invention at the disposal of his Majesty."
"Yes," said the Kaiser, leaning with his back against the door, "that is, of course, the first proposition to be considered. What are your terms, Mr Castellan?"