mmediately in front
of you, you will observe what appears to be the door of a small
cupboard. Open this, and you will see just inside a lever sloping
upward to the right. Grasp the handle, and push the lever as far as you
can over toward your _left_--it should move quite easily--and you will
have effectually shut Barker into the pilot-house, from which he cannot
then get out to interfere with you. Let me know when you have done
this, and I will then tell you what next to do."

"Right," came the answer. "I will do it, if it is to be done."

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

HOW THE ADVENTURE ENDED.

"Ha, ha," chuckled the professor; "if her Ladyship can only accomplish
what I have told her to do, her troubles, and ours, will soon be over!"
And carefully placing the telephone in the stern-sheets of the boat, he
vigorously resumed his work of relieving the boat he was in of her
burden of pearl-oysters.

"What is it, Professor; what is your plan?" demanded Sir Reginald, who
was similarly busy in his own boat.

"My plan," replied the professor, "refers to a little arrangement that I
made, when designing the ship, for just such a contingency as the
present. But the matter slipped my memory; and I believe I never showed
it to any of you. It was important that, in designing such a ship as
the _Flying Fish_, every possible mishap should be foreseen and provided
against; and while considering this matter it occurred to me that,
either by means of treachery, or otherwise, undesirable persons might
possibly succeed in gaining possession of the pilot-house, when the ship
and all in her would be practically at the mercy of those persons. I
therefore included in the design an arrangement, whereby the simple
movement of a lever would cause a plate to slide out from an interstice
in the wall of the pilot-house, and thus completely shut off that
structure from the rest of the ship, making prisoners of any who might
happen to be in it. This is what I have just dir--"

At this juncture the bell of the telephone again began to tinkle, and,
without stopping to finish his remarks, the professor seized the
instrument and, adjusting it for use, spoke into it the single
word--"Yes?"

"I have done as you directed me," came Lady Olivia's voice, "and, as you
said would be the case, the man is now shut up in the pilot-house. But
he heard the sound made by the closing of the slide, and at once
descended to see what it meant. He is raging h