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CARADOC TAKES COMMAND
267

watch case. Fore and aft were circular partitions of steel, like drumheads. These were penetrated with sliding shutters, which stood open. Through the after shutter, Madden saw a large Deisel oil engine, flanked by a compact heavy dynamo. Looking forward, he could see steel cylinders trimmed in shining brass, and a maze of levers, gauges, dials, valves.

The central compartment in which the two stood was dominated by a little spiral stairway leading up into a steel dome. On a shelf set in the bulkhead was a chart, a telephone receiver, speaking tubes, dials with red and black hands, an array of electrometers, pressure gauges.

Glancing up the stairway into the little dome, Madden saw a pilot wheel, more levers and speaking tubes and telephone receivers, and a square of ground glass, that was lined off with delicate cross-lines.

“Where are we?” asked Madden, amazed. “What do they do here? I never saw so much machinery before in so small a space.”

Caradoc was stooping over a heavy metal box down at the floor level at the side of the desk. It was one of a series of such boxes.