"So it would, Master Jack, for it sails against currents, up rivers,
and the crew care no more about the wind than I do about the color of
the clouds when I am lighting my pipe."
"You don't happen to mean that the _Flying Dutchman_ has appeared on
the Scotch coast, do you, Willis?"
"Not a bit of it, I mean just exactly what I say. It is a real ship,
with a real stern and a real figure-head, but manned by blacksmiths
instead of mariners."
"Well, but how does it move? Does somebody go behind and push it, or
is it dragged in front by sea-horses and water-kelpies?"
"No, it moves by steam."
"But how?"
"Aye, there lies the mystery. The affair has often been discussed by
us sailors on board ship; some have suggested one way and some
another."
"Neither of which throws much light on the subject," observed Jack;
"at least, in so far as we are concerned."
"All I can tell you," said Willis, "is, that the steam is obtained by
boiling water in a large cauldron, and that the power so obtained is
very powerful."
"That it certainly is, if it could be controlled, for steam occupies
seventeen or eighteen hundred times the space of the water in its
liquid state; but then, if the vessel that contains the boiling water
has no outlet, the steam will burst it."
"It appears that it can be prevented doing that, though," replied
Willis, "even though additional heat be applied to the vapor itself.
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