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The Battery and the Boiler: Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables

by R. M. Ballantyne · English · Gutenberg #21716 · 520,144 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Battery and the Boiler: Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables

Author: R. M. Ballantyne


        
Release date: June 7, 2007 [eBook #21716]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21716

Credits: Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BATTERY AND THE BOILER: ADVENTURES IN LAYING OF SUBMARINE ELECTRIC CABLES ***




Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




THE BATTERY AND THE BOILER, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.



CHAPTER ONE.

IN WHICH THE HERO MAKES HIS FIRST FLASH AND EXPLOSION.

Somewhere about the middle of this nineteenth century, a baby boy was
born on the raging sea in the midst of a howling tempest.  That boy was
the hero of this tale.

He was cradled in squalls, and nourished in squalor--a week of dirty
weather having converted the fore-cabin of the emigrant ship into
something like a pig-sty.  Appreciating the situation, no doubt, the
baby boy began his career with a squall that harmonised with the
weather, and, as the steward remarked to the ship's cook, "continued for
to squall straight on end all that day and night without so much as ever
takin' breath!"  It is but right to add that the steward was prone to
exaggeration.

"Stooard," said the ship's cook in reply, as he raised his eyes from the
contemplation of his bubbling coppers, "take my word for it, that there
babby what has just bin launched ain't agoin' to shovel off his mortal
coil--as the play-actor said--without makin' his mark some'ow an'
somew'eres."

"What makes you think so, Johnson?" asked the steward.

"What makes me think so, stooard?" replied the cook, who was a huge
good-natured young man.  "Well, I'll tell 'ee.  I was standin' close to
the fore hatch at the time, a-talkin' to Jim Brag, an' the father o' the
babby, poor feller, he was standin' by the foretops'l halyards holdin'
on to a belayin'-pin, an' lookin' as white as a sheet--for I got a
glance at 'im two or three times doorin' the flashes o' lightnin'.
Well, stooard, there was lightnin' playin' round the mizzen truck, an'
the main truck, an' the fore truck, an' at the end o' the flyin'
jib-boom, an' the spanker boom; then there came a flash that seemed to
set afire the entire univarse; then a burst o' thunder like fifty great
guns gone off all at once in a hurry.  At that identical moment,
stooard, there came up from the fore-cabin a yell that beat--well, I
can't rightly say what it beat, but it minded me o' that unfortnit pig
as got his tail jammed in the capstan off Cape Horn.  The father gave a
gasp.  `It's born,' says he.  `More like's if it's basted,' growled Jim
Brag.  `You're a unfeelin' monster, Brag,' says I; `an' though you _are_
the ship's carpenter, I _will_ say it, you 'aven't got no more sympathy
than the fluke of an anchor!'  Hows'ever the poor father didn't hear the
remark, for he went down below all of a heap--head, legs, and arms--
anyhow.  Then there came another yell, an' another, an' half a dozen
more, which was followed by another flash o' lightnin' an' drownded in
another roar o' thunder; but the yells from below kep' on, an' came out
strong between times, makin' no account whatever o' the whistlin' wind
an' rattlin' ropes, which they riz above--easy.--Now, stooard, do you
mean for to tell me that all that signifies nothink?  Do you suppose
that that babby could go through life like an or'nary babby?  No, it
couldn't--not even if it was to try--w'ich it _won't_!"

Having uttered this prophecy the cook resumed the contemplation of his
bubbling coppers.

"Well, I suppose you're right, John Johnson," said the steward.

"Yes, I'm right, Tom Thomson," returned the cook, with the nod and air
of a man who is never wrong.

And the cook _was_ right, as the reader who continues to read shall find
out in course of time.

The gale in which little Robin Wright was thus launched upon the sea of
Time blew the sails of that emigrant ship--the Seahorse--to ribbons.  It
also blew the masts out of her, leaving her a helpless wreck on the
breast of the palpitating sea.  Then it blew a friendly sail in sight,
by which passengers and crew were rescued and carried safe back to Old
England.  There they separated--some to re-embark in other emigrant
ships; some to renew the battle of life at home--thenceforward and for
ever after to vilify the sea in all its aspects, except when viewed at a
safe distance from the solid land!

Little Robin's parents were among the latter.  His father, a poor
gentleman, procured a situation as accountant in a mercantile house.
His mother busied herself--and she was a very busy little creature--with
the economics of home.  She clothed Robin's body and stored his mind.
Among other things, she early taught him to read from the Bible.

As Robin grew he waxed strong and bold and lively, becoming a source of
much anxiety, mingled with delight, to his mother, and of considerable
alarm, mixed with admiration and surprise, to his father.  He possessed
an inquisitive mind.  He inquired into everything--including the antique
barometer and the household clock, both of which were heirlooms, and
were not improved by his inquiries.  Strange to say, Robin's chief
delight in those early days was a thunderstorm.  The rolling of heaven's
artillery seemed to afford inexpressible satisfaction to his little
heart, but it was the lightning that affected him most.  It filled him
with a species of awful joy.  No matter how it came--whether in the
forked flashes of the storm, or the lambent gleamings of the summer
sky--he would sit and gaze at it in solemn wonder.  Even in his earliest
years he began to make inquiries into that remarkable and mysterious
agent.

"Musser," he said one day, during a thunderstorm, raising his large eyes
to his mother's face with intense gravity,--"Musser, what is
lightenin'?"

Mrs Wright, who was a soft little unscientific lady with gorgeous eyes,
sat before her son, perplexed.

"Well, child, it is--it--really, I don't know what it is!"

"Don't know?" echoed Robin, with surprise, "I sought you know'd
everysing."

"No, not everything, dear," replied Mrs Wright, with a deprecatory
smile; "but here comes your father, who will tell you."

"Does _he_ know everysing?" asked the child.

"N-no, not exactly; but he knows many things--oh, _ever_ so many
things," answered the cautious wife and mother.

The accountant had barely crossed his humble threshold and sat
down, when Robin clambered on his knee and put the puzzling
question.--"Fasser, what is lightenin'?"

"Lightning, my boy?--why, it's--it's--let me see--it's fire, of course,
of some sort, that comes out o' the clouds and goes slap into the
earth--there, don't you see it?"

Robin did see it, and was so awestruck by the crash which followed the
blinding flash that he forgot at the moment to push his inquiries
further, much to his father's satisfaction, who internally resolved to
hunt up the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ that very evening--letter L--and
study it.

In process of time Robin increased in size.  As he expanded in body he
developed in mind and in heart, for his little mother, although
profoundly ignorant of electricity and its effects, was deeply learned
in the Scriptures.  But Robin did not hunger in vain after scientific
knowledge.  By good fortune he had a cousin--cousin Sam Shipton--who was
fourteen years older than himself, and a clerk at a neighbouring railway
station, where there was a telegraphic instrument.

Now, Sam, being himself possessed of strongly scientific tendencies,
took a great fancy to little Robin, and sought to enlighten his young
mind on many subjects where "musser's" knowledge failed.  Of course he
could not explain all that he himself knew about electricity--the child
was too young for that,--but he did what he could, and introduced him
one day to the interior of the station, where he filled his youthful
mind with amazement and admiration by his rapid, and apparently
meaningless, manipulation of the telegraph instrument.

Cousin Sam, however, did a good deal more for him than that in the
course of time; but before proceeding further, we must turn aside for a
few minutes to comment on that wonderful subject which is essentially
connected with the development of this tale.



CHAPTER TWO.

REFERS TO A NOTABLE CHARACTER.

Sparks, as a rule, are looked upon as a race of useless and disreputable
fellows.  Their course is usually erratic.  They fly upward, downward,
forward, and backward--here, there, and everywhere.  You never know when
you have them, or what will be their next flight.  They often create a
good deal of alarm, sometimes much surprise; they seldom do any good,
and frequently cause irreparable damage.  Only when caught and
restrained, or directed, do sparks become harmless and helpful.

But there is one Spark in this world--a grand, glowing, gushing fellow--
who has not his equal anywhere.  He is old as the hills--perhaps older--
and wide as the world--perchance wider.  Similar to ordinary sparks in
some respects, he differs from them in several important particulars.
Like many, he is "fast," but immeasurably faster than all other sparks
put together.  Unlike them, however, he submits to be led by master
minds.  Stronger than Hercules, he can rend the mountains.  Fleeter than
Mercury, he can outstrip the light.  Gentler than Zephyr, he can assume
the condition of a current, and enter our very marrow without causing
pain.  His name is Electricity.  No one knows what he is.  Some
philosophers have said that he is a fluid, because he flows.  As well
might they call him a wild horse because he bolts, or a thief because he
lurks!  We prefer to call him a Spark, because in that form only is he
visible--at least when handled by man.

Talking of that, it was not until the last century that master minds
found out how to catch and handle our Spark.  In all the previous
centuries he had been roaming gaily about the world in perfect freedom;
sometimes gliding silently to and fro like an angel of light; sometimes
leaping forth with frightful energy in the midst of raging tempest, like
a destructive demon--ripping, rending, shattering all that attempted to
arrest his course.  Men have feared and shunned him since the beginning
of time, and with good reason, for he has killed many of the human race.

But although uncaught and untamed by them, our Spark was not altogether
unknown to the ancients.  So far back as the year 600 before the
Christian era, Thales, one of the Greek sages, discovered that he hid
himself in amber, a substance which in Greek is named _electron_--hence
his name Electricity; but the ancients knew little about his character,
though Thales found that he could draw him from his hiding-place by
rubbing him with silk and some other substances.  When thus rubbed he
became attractive, and drew light creatures towards him--not unlike
human sparks!  He also showed himself to be fickle, for, after holding
these light creatures tight for a brief space, he let them go and
repelled them.

It was not till the days of good Queen Bess, towards the end of the
sixteenth century, that a Dr Gilbert discovered that the wild fellow
lay lurking in other substances besides amber--such as sulphur, wax,
glass, etcetera.  It is now known that Electricity permeates all
substances more or less, and only waits to be roused in order to exhibit
his amazing powers.  He is fond of shocking people's feelings, and has
surprised his pursuers rather frequently in that way.  Some of them,
indeed, he has actually shocked to death!

It would take a huge volume to give a detailed account of all the
qualities, powers, and peculiarities of this wild Spark.  We will just
touch on a few facts which are necessary to the elucidation of our tale.

A great event in the world's history happened in the year 1745.  It was
nothing less than the capture and imprisonment of wild, daring, dashing
Electricity.  To the Dutch philosophers belongs the honour of catching
him.  They caught him--they even bottled him, like ordinary spirits, and
called his prison a _Leyden Jar_.

From that date our Spark became the useful and obedient slave of man.
Yet is he ever ready, when the smallest conceivable door, hole, or chink
is left open, to dash out of the prison-house man has made for him, and
escape into his native earth.

He has no hope now, however, of escaping altogether, for he cannot
resist the allurement of rubbing, by which, as well as by chemical
action and other means, we can summon him, like the genii of Aladdin's
lamp, at any moment, from the "vasty deep," and compel him to do our
work.

And what sort of work, it may be asked, can this volatile fellow
perform?  We cannot tell all--the list is too long.  Let us consider a
few of them.  If we fabricate tea-pots, sugar-basins, spoons, or
anything else of base metal, he can and will, at our bidding, cover the
same with silver or yellow gold.  If we grow dissatisfied with our
candles and gas, he will, on being summoned, and properly directed by
the master minds to whom he owns allegiance, kindle our lamps and fill
our streets and mansions with a blaze of noonday splendour.  If we grow
weary of steam, and give him orders, he will drive our tram-cars and
locomotives with railway speed, _minus_ railway smoke and fuss.  He is a
very giant in the chemist's laboratory, and, above all, a swift
messenger to carry the world's news.  Even when out and raging to and
fro in a wild state, more than half-disposed to rend our mansions, and
split our steeples, and wreck our ships, we have only to provide him
with a tiny metal stair-case, down which he will instantly glide from
the upper regions to the earth without noise or damage.  Shakespeare
never imagined, and Mercury never accomplished, the speed at which he
travels; and he will not only carry our news, or express our sentiments
and wishes far and wide over the land, but he will rush with them, over
rock, sand, mud, and ooze, along the bottom of the deep deep sea!

And this brings us to a point.  Some of the master minds before
mentioned, having conceived the idea that telegraphic communication
might be carried on under water, set about experimenting.  Between the
years 1839 and 1851 enterprising men in the Old World and the New
suggested, pondered, planned, and placed wires under water, along which
our Spark ran more or less successfully.

One of the difficulties of these experiments consisted in this, that,
while the Spark runs readily along one class of substances, he cannot,
or will not, run along others.  Substances of the first class,
comprising the metals, are called conductors; those of the second class,
embracing, among other things, all resinous substances, are styled
non-conductors.  Now, water is a good conductor.  So that although the
Spark will stick to his wires when insulated on telegraph-posts on land,
he will bolt from them at once and take to flight the moment he gets
under water.  This difficulty was overcome by coating the wires with
gutta-percha, which, being a non-conductor, imprisoned the Spark, and
kept him, as it were, on the line.

A copper wire covered in this manner was successfully laid between
England and France in 1850.  When tested, this cable did not work well.
Minute imperfections, in the form of air-holes in the gutta-percha,
afforded our Spark an opportunity to bolt; and he did bolt, as a matter
of course--for electricity has no sense of honour, and cannot be trusted
near the smallest loop-hole.  The imperfections were remedied; the door
was effectually locked, after which the first submarine cable of
importance was actually laid down, and worked well.  French and English
believers turned up hands and eyes in delighted amazement, as they held
converse across the sea, while unbelievers were silenced and confounded.

This happy state of things, however, lasted for only a few hours.
Suddenly the intercourse ceased.  The telegraphists at both ends
energised with their handles and needles, but without any result.  The
cable was dumb.  Our Spark had evidently escaped!

There is no effect without a cause.  The cause of that interruption was
soon discovered.

Early that morning a French fisherman had sauntered down to the port of
Boulogne and embarked in his boat.  A British seaman, having nothing to
do but smoke and meditate, was seated on a coil of rope at the time,
enjoying himself and the smells with which that port is not unfamiliar.
He chanced to be a friend of that French fisherman.

"You're early afloat, Mounseer," he said.

"Oui, monsieur.  Vill you com'?  I go for feesh."

"Well, _wee_; I go for fun."

They went accordingly and bore away to the northward along the coast
before a light breeze,--past the ruined towers which France had built to
guard her port in days gone by; past the steep cliffs beyond Boulogne;
past the lovely beach of Wimereux, with its cottages nestled among the
sand-hills, and its silted-up harbour, whence Napoleon the First had
intended to issue forth and descend on perfidious Albion--but didn't;
past cliffs, and bays, and villages further on, until they brought up
off Cape Grisnez.  Here the Frenchman let down his trawl, and fished up,
among other curiosities of the deep, the submarine cable!

"Behold! fat is dis?" he exclaimed, with glaring eyes, uplifted brows,
shoulders shrugged, hands spread out, and fingers expanded.

"The sea-sarpint grow'd thin," suggested the Englishman.

"Non; c'est seaveed--veed de most 'strordinair in de vorld.  Oui,
donnez-moi de hache, de hax, mon ami."

His friend handed him the axe, wherewith lie cut off a small portion of
the cable and let the end go.  Little did that fisherman know that he
had also let our Spark go free, and cruelly dashed, for a time at least,
the budding hopes of two nations--but so it was.  He bore his prize in
triumph to Boulogne, where he exhibited it as a specimen of rare seaweed
with its centre filled with gold, while the telegraph clerks at both
ends sat gazing in dismay at their useless instruments.

Thus was the first submarine electric cable destroyed.  And with the
details of its destruction little Robin was intimately acquainted, for
cousin Sam had been a member of the staff that had worked that
telegraph--at least he had been a boy in the office,--and in after years
he so filled his cousin's mind with the importance of that cable, and
the grandeur and difficulty of the enterprise, that Robin became
powerfully sympathetic--so much so that when Sam, in telling the story,
came to the point where the Frenchman accomplished its destruction,
Robin used to grieve over it as though he had lost a brother, or a
kitten, or his latest toy!

We need scarcely add that submarine cable telegraphy had not received
its death-blow on that occasion.  Its possibility had been demonstrated.
The very next year (1851) Mr T.R. Crampton, with Messrs. Wollaston,
Kuper, and others, made and laid an improved cable between Dover and
Calais, and ere long many other parts of the world were connected by
means of snaky submarine electric cables.



CHAPTER THREE.

EARLY ASPIRATIONS.

One pleasant summer afternoon, Mr Wright, coming in from the office,
seated himself beside his composed little wife, who was patching a pair
of miniature pantaloons.

"Nan," said the husband, with a perplexed look, "what _are_ we to do
with our Robin when he grows up?"

"George," answered the composed wife, "don't you think it is rather soon
to trouble ourselves with that question?  Robin is a mere child yet.  We
must first give him a good education."

"Of course, I know that," returned the perplexed husband, "still, I
can't help thinking about what is to be done after he has had the good
education.  You know I have no relation in the world except brother
Richard, who is as poor as myself.  We have no influential friends to
help him into the Army or the Navy or the Indian Civil Service; and the
Church, you know, is not suitable for an imp.  Just look at him _now_!"

Mrs Wright looked through the window, over one of those sunny
landscapes which are usually described as "smiling," across a winding
rivulet, and at last fixed her gorgeous eyes on a tall post, up which a
small black object was seen to be struggling.

"What can he be up to?" said the father.

"He seems to be up the telegraph-post," said the mother, "investigating
the wires, no doubt.  I heard him talking about telegraphy to Madge this
morning--retailing what cousin Sam tries to teach him,--and I shouldn't
wonder if he were now endeavouring to make sure that what he told her
was correct, for you know he is a thorough investigator."

"Yes, I know it," murmured the father, with a grim pursing of his lips;
"he investigated the inside of my watch last week, to find out, as he
said, what made the noise in its `stummick,' and it has had intermittent
fever ever since.  Two days ago he investigated my razor,--it is now
equal to a cross-cut saw; and as to my drawers and papers, excepting
those which I lock up, there is but one word which fully describes the
result of his investigations, and that is--chaos."

There was, in truth, some ground for that father's emotions, for Master
Robin displayed investigative, not to say destructive, capacities far in
advance of his years.

"Never mind, George," said Mrs Wright soothingly, "we must put up with
his little ways as best we may, consoling ourselves with the reflection
that Robin has genius and perseverance, with which qualities he is sure
to make his way in the world."

"He has at all events made his way up the telegraph-post," said Mr
Wright, his smile expanding and the grimness of it departing; "see! the
rascal is actually stretching out his hand to grasp one of the wires.
Ha! hallo!"

The composed wife became suddenly discomposed, and gave vent to a
scream, for at that moment the small black object which they had been
watching with so much interest was seen to fall backward, make a wild
grasp at nothing with both hands, and fall promptly to the ground.

His father threw up the window, leaped out, dashed across the
four-feet-wide lawn, cleared the winding rivulet, and cut, like a hunted
hare, over the smiling landscape towards the telegraph-post, at the foot
of which he picked up his unconscious though not much injured son.

"What made you climb the post, Robin?" asked his cousin Madge that
evening as she nursed the adventurous boy on her knee--and Madge was a
very motherly nurse, although a full year younger than Robin.

"I kimed it to see if I could hear the 'trissity," replied the injured
one.

"The lek-trissity," said Madge, correcting.  "You must learn to
p'onounce your words popperly, dear.  You'll never be a great man if you
are so careless."

"I don't want to be a g'eat man," retorted Robin.  "I on'y want
t'understand things whats puzzlesum."

"Well, does the telegraph puzzle you?"

"Oh! mos' awfully," returned Robin, with a solemn gaze of his earnest
eyes, one of which was rendered fantastic by a yellow-green ring round
it and a swelling underneath.  "I's kite sure I's stood for hours beside
dat post listin' to it hummin' an hummin' like our olianarp--"

"Now, Robin, _do_ be careful.  You know mamma calls it an olian _harp_."

"Yes, well, like our olian _h_arp, only a deal louder, an' far nicer.
An' I's often said to myself, Is that the 'trissity--?"

"Lek, Robin, lek!"

"Well, yes, _lek_-trissity.  So I thought I'd kime up an' see, for, you
know, papa says the 'trissity--lek, I mean--runs along the wires--"

"But papa also says," interrupted Madge, "that the sounds you want to
know about are made by the vi--the vi--"

"Bratin'," suggested the invalid.

"Yes, vibratin' of the wires."

"I wonder what vi-bratin' means," murmured Robin, turning his lustrous
though damaged eyes meditatively on the landscape.

"Don'no for sure," said Madge, "but I think it means tremblin'."

It will be seen from the above conversation that Robert Wright and his
precocious cousin Marjory were of a decidedly philosophical turn of
mind.



CHAPTER FOUR.

EXTRAORDINARY RESULT OF AN ATTEMPT AT AMATEUR CABLE-LAYING.

Time continued to roll additional years off his reel, and rolled out
Robin and Madge in length and breadth, though we cannot say much for
thickness.  Time also developed their minds, and Robin gradually began
to understand a little more of the nature of that subtle fluid--if we
may venture so to call it--under the influence of which he had been
born.

"Come, Madge," he said one day, throwing on his cap, "let us go and play
at cables."

Madge, ever ready to play at anything, put on her sun-bonnet and
followed her ambitious leader.

"Is it to be land-telegraphs to-day, or submarine cables?" inquired
Madge, with as much gravity and earnestness as if the world's welfare
depended on the decision.

"Cables, of course," answered Robin, "why, Madge, I have done with
land-telegraphs now.  There's nothing more to learn about them.  Cousin
Sam has put me up to everything, you know.  Besides, there's no mystery
about land-lines.  Why, you've only got to stick up a lot o' posts with
insulators screwed to 'em, fix wires to the insulators, clap on an
electric battery and a telegraph instrument, and fire away."

"Robin, what _are_ insulators?" asked Madge, with a puzzled look.

"Madge," replied Robin, with a self-satisfied expression on his pert
face, "this is the three-hundred-thousandth time I have explained that
to you."

"Explain it the three-hundred-thousand-and-first time, then, dear Robin,
and perhaps I'll take it in."

"Well," began Robin, with a hypocritical sigh of despair, "you must know
that everything in nature is more or less a conductor of electricity,
but some things conduct it so well--such as copper and iron--that they
are called _conductors_, and some things--such as glass and
earthenware--conduct it so _very_ badly that they scarcely conduct it at
all, and are called _non-conductors_.  D'ee see?"

"Oh yes, I see, Robin; so does a bat, but he doesn't see well.  However,
go on."

"Well, if I were to run my wire through the posts that support it, my
electricity would escape down these posts into the earth, especially if
the posts were wet with rain, for water is a good conductor, and Mister
Electricity has an irresistible desire to bolt into the earth, like a
mole."

"Naughty fellow!" murmured Madge.

"But," continued Robin impressively, "if I fix little lumps of glass
with a hole in them to the posts, and fix my wires to these, Electricity
cannot bolt, because the glass lumps are non-conductors, and won't let
him pass."

"How good of them!" said Madge.

"Yes, isn't it?  So, you see," continued Robin, "the glass lumps are
insulators, for they cut the electricity off from the earth as an island
is, or, at all events, appears to be, cut off from it by water; and
Mister Electricity _must_ go along the wires and do what I tell him.  Of
course, you know, I must make my electricity first in a battery, which,
as I have often and often told you, is a trough containing a mixture of
acid and water, with plates or slices of zinc and copper in it, placed
one after the other, but not touching each other.  Now, if I fix a piece
of wire to my first copper slice or plate, and the other end of it to my
last zinc slice or plate, immediately electricity will begin to be made,
and will fly from the copper to the zinc, and so round and round until
the plates are worn out or the wire broken.  D'ee see?"

"No, Robin, I don't see; I'm blinder than the blindest mole."

"Oh, Madge, what a wonderful mind you must have!" said Robin, laughing.
"It is _so_ simple."

"Of course," said Madge, "I understand what you mean by troughs and
plates and all that, but what I want to know is _why_ that arrangement
is necessary.  Why would it not do just as well to tempt electricity out
of its hiding-hole with plates or slices of cheese and bread, placed one
after the other in a trough filled with a mixture of glue and melted
butter?"

"What stuff you do talk, Madge!  As well might you ask why it would not
do to make a plum-pudding out of nutmegs and coal-tar.  There are some
things that no fellow can understand, and of course I don't know
_everything_!"

The astounding modesty of this latter remark seemed to have furnished
Madge with food for reflection, for she did not reply to it.  After a
few minutes' walk the amateur electricians reached the scene of their
intended game--a sequestered dell in a plantation, through which brawled
a rather turbulent stream.  At one part, where a willow overhung the
water, there was a deep broad pool.  The stream entered the pool with a
headlong plunge, and issued from it with a riotous upheaval of wavelets
and foam among jagged rocks, as if rejoicing in, and rather boastful
about, the previous leap.

The game was extremely simple.  The pool was to be the German Ocean, and
a piece of stout cord was to serve as a submarine cable.

The boy and girl were well-matched playmates, for Madge was ignorant and
receptive--in reference to science,--Robin learned and communicative,
while both were intensely earnest.

"Now, this is the battery," said Robin, when he had dug a deep hole
close to the pool with a spade brought for the purpose.

"Yes, and the muddy water in it will do for the mixture of acid and
water," said Madge.

As she spoke, Robin's toe caught on a root, and he went headlong into
the battery, out of which he emerged scarcely recognisable.  It was a
severe, though not an electric, shock, and at first Robin seemed
inclined to whimper, but his manhood triumphed, and he burst into a
compound laugh and yell, to the intense relief of Madge, who thought at
first that he had been seriously injured.

"Never mind, Madge," said Robin, as he cleansed his muddy head; "cousin
Sam has often told me that nothing great was ever done except in the
face of difficulties and dangers.  I wonder whether this should be
counted a difficulty or a danger?"

"At first I thought it a danger," said Madge, with a laugh, "but the
trouble you now have with the mud in your hair looks like a difficulty,
doesn't it?"

"Why, then, it's both," cried Robin.  "Come, that's a good beginning.
Now, Madge, you get away round to the opposite side of the pool, and
mind you don't slip in, it's rather steep there."

"This is England," cried Robin, preparing to throw the line over to his
assistant, who stood eager to aid on the other side, "and you are
standing on--on--what's on the other side of the German Ocean?"

"I'm not sure, Robin.  Holland, I think, or Denmark."

"Well, we'll say Denmark.  Look-out now, and be ready to catch.  I'm
going to connect England and Denmark with a submarine cable."

"Stay!" cried Madge, "is that the way submarine cables are laid, by
throwing them over the sea?"

"N-no, not exactly.  They had a steamboat, you know, to carry over the
telegraph from England to France; but we haven't got a steamer--not even
a plank to make-believe one.  Cousin Sam says that a good workman can do
his work with almost any tools that come to hand.  As we have no tools
at all, we will improve on that and go to work without them.  Now,
catch!"

Robin made a splendid heave--so splendid indeed that it caused him to
stagger backward, and again he stumbled into his own _battery_!  This
time, however, only one leg was immersed.

"Another danger!" shouted Madge in great glee, "but I've caught the
cable."

"All right.  Now make fast the shore-end to a bush, and we'll commence
telegraphing.  The first must be a message from the Queen to the King of
Denmark--Or is it the President?"

"King, I think, Robin, but I'm not sure."

"Well, it won't matter.  But--I say--"

"What's wrong now?"

"Why, the cable won't sink.  It is floating about on the top of the
pool, and it can't be a submarine cable, you know, unless it sinks."

"Another difficulty, Robin."

"We will face and overcome it, Madge.  Cast off the shore-end and I'll
soon settle that."

Having fastened a number of small stones to the cable, this persevering
electrician would certainly have overcome the difficulty if the line had
not, when thrown, unfortunately caught on a branch of the willow, where
it hung suspended just out of Madge's reach.

"How provoking!" she said, stretching out her hand to the utmost.

"Take care--you'll--ha!"

The warning came too late.  The edge of the bank gave way, and Madge
went headlong into the pool with a wild shriek and a fearful plunge.

Robin stood rooted to the spot--heart, breath, blood, brain, paralysed
for the moment--gazing at the spot where his playmate had disappeared.

Another moment and her head and hands appeared.  She struggled bravely
for life, while the circling current carried her quickly to the lower
end of the pool.

Robin's energies returned, as he afterwards said, like an electric
shock, but accompanied with a terrible sinking of the heart, for he knew
that he could not swim!  His education in this important particular had
been neglected.  He sprang round to the lower end of the pool just in
time to hold out his hand to the drowning girl.  He almost touched her
outstretched hand as she swept towards the turbulent waters below, but
failed to grasp it.

For the first time in his life our little hero was called on to face
death voluntarily.  Another moment and Madge would have been caught in
the boiling stream that rushed towards the fall below.  He was equal to
the occasion.  He sprang right upon Madge and caught her in his arms.
There was no need to hold on to her.  In the agony of fear the poor
child clasped the boy in a deadly embrace.  They were whirled violently
round and hurled against a rock.  Robin caught it with one hand, but it
was instantly torn from his grasp.  The waters overwhelmed them, and
again sent them violently towards the bank.  This time Robin caught a
rock with both hands and held on.  Slowly, while almost choked with the
water that splashed up into his face, he worked his right knee into a
crevice, then made a wild grasp with the left hand at a higher
projection of the rock.  At the same moment his left foot struck the
bottom.  Another effort and he was out of danger, but it was several
minutes ere he succeeded in dragging Madge from the hissing water of the
shallows to the green sward above, and after this was accomplished he
found it almost impossible to tear himself from the grasp of the now
unconscious girl.

At first poor Robin thought that his companion was dead, but by degrees
consciousness returned, and at last she was able to rise and walk.

Drenched, dishevelled, and depressed, these unfortunate electricians
returned home.

Of course they were received with mingled joy and reproof.  Of course,
also, they were forbidden to go near the pool again--though this
prohibition was afterwards removed, and our hero ultimately became a
first-rate swimmer and diver.

Thus was frustrated the laying of the first submarine cable between
England and Denmark!



CHAPTER FIVE.

PROSPECTS OF REAL CABLE-LAYING--ROBIN MEETS WITH HIS FIRST ELECTRICAL
ACQUAINTANCES.

Circumstances require that we should shift the scene and the date pretty
frequently in this tale.  We solicit the reader's attendance at an
office in London.

The office is dingy.  Many offices are so.  Two clerks are sitting in it
making faces at each other across their desk.  They are not lunatics.
They are not imbeciles or idlers.  On the contrary, they have frequent
spells of work that might throw the toils of an Arab ass into the shade.
They are fine strapping young fellows, with pent-up energies equal to
anything, but afflicted with occasional periods of having nothing
particular to do.  These two have been sitting all morning in busy
idleness.  Their muscular and nervous systems rebelling, have induced
much fidgeting and many wry faces.  Being original, they have turned
their sorrows into a game, and their little game at present is to see
which can make a face so hideous that the other shall be compelled to
laugh!  We have deep sympathy with clerks.  We have been a clerk, and
know what it is to have the fires of Vesuvius raging within, while under
the necessity of exhibiting the cool aspect of Spitzbergen without.

But these clerks were not utterly miserable.  On the contrary, they
were, to use one of their own familiar phrases, rather jolly than
otherwise.  Evening was before them in far-off but attainable
perspective.  Home, lawn-tennis, in connection with bright eyes and
pretty faces, would compensate for the labours of the day and let off
the steam.  They were deep in their game when a rap at the door brought
their faces suddenly to a state of nature.

"Come in," said the _first_ clerk.

"And wipe your feet," murmured the second, in a low tone.

A gentleman, with an earnest countenance, entered.

"Is Mr Lowstoft in his office?"

"He is, sir," said the first clerk, descending from his perch with an
air of good-will, and requesting the visitor's name and business.

The visitor handed his card, on which the name Cyrus Field was written,
and the clerk, observing it, admitted the owner at once to the inner
sanctum where Mr Lowstoft transacted business.

"There's _something_ up," murmured the clerk, with a mysterious look at
his comrade, on resuming his perch.

"Time's up, or nearly so," replied the comrade, with an anxious look at
the clock:

  "The witching hour which sets us free
  To saunter home and have our tea--

"approaches."

"D'you know that that is Cyrus Field?" said the first clerk.

"And who is Cyrus Field?" demanded the second clerk.

"O ignoramus!  Thy name is Bob, and thou art not worth a `bob'--
miserable snob!  Don't you know that Cyrus Field is the man who brought
about the laying of the great Atlantic Cable in 1858?"

"No, most learned Fred, I did not know that, but I am very glad to know
it now.  Moreover, I know nothing whatever about cables--Atlantic or
otherwise.  I am as blind as a bat, as ignorant as a bigot, as empty as
a soap-bubble, and as wise as Solomon, because I'm willing to be
taught."

"What a delicious subject to work upon!" said Fred.

"Well then, work away," returned Bob; "suppose you give _me_ a discourse
on Cables.  But, I say--be merciful.  Don't overdo it, Frederick.
Remember that my capacity is feeble."

"I'll be careful, Bob.--Well then, you must know that from the year 1840
submarine cables had been tried and laid, and worked with more or less
success, in various parts of the world.  Sir W. O'Shaughnessy, I
believe, began it.  Irishmen are frequently at the root of mischief!
Anyhow, he, being Superintendent of Electric Telegraphs in India in
1839, hauled an insulated wire across the Hooghly at Calcutta, and
produced what they call `electrical phenomena' at the other side of the
river.  In 1840 Mr Wheatstone brought before the House of Commons the
project of a cable from Dover to Calais.  In 1842 Professor Morse of
America laid a cable in New York harbour, and another across the canal
at Washington.  He also suggested the possibility of laying a cable
across the Atlantic Ocean.  In 1846 Colonel Colt, of revolver notoriety,
and Mr Robinson, laid a wire from New York to Brooklyn, and from Long
Island to Correy Island.  In 1849--"

"I say, Fred," interrupted Bob, with an anxious look, "you are a walking
dictionary of dates.  Haydn was nothing to you.  But--couldn't you give
it me without dates?  I've got no head for dates; never could stomach
them--except when fresh off the palm-tree.  Don't you think that a
lecture without dates would be pleasantly original as well as
instructive?"

"No, Bob, I don't, and I won't be guilty of any such gross innovation on
time-honoured custom.  You must swallow my dates whether you like them
or not.  In 1849, I say, a Mr Walker--"

"Any relation to Hookey?"

"No, sir, none whatever--he laid a wire from Folkestone to a steamer two
miles off the shore, and sent messages to it.  At last, in 1851.  Mr
Brett laid down and successfully wrought the cable between Dover and
Calais which had been suggested by Wheatstone eleven years before.  It
is true it did not work long, but this may be said to have been the
beginning of submarine telegraphy, which, you see, like your own
education, Bob, has been a thing of slow growth."

"Have you done with dates, now, my learned friend?" asked Bob,
attempting to balance a ruler on the point of his nose.

"Not quite, my ignorant chum, but nearly.  That same year--1851,
remember--a Mr Frederick N. Gisborne, an English electrician, made the
first attempt to connect Newfoundland with the American continent by
cable.  He also started a company to facilitate intercourse between
America and ireland by means of steamers and telegraph-cables.  Gisborne
was very energetic and successful, but got into pecuniary difficulties,
and went to New York to raise the wind.  There he met with Cyrus Field,
who took the matter up with tremendous enthusiasm.  He expanded
Gisborne's idea, and resolved to get up a company to connect
Newfoundland with Ireland by electric cable.  Field was rich and
influential, and ultimately successful--"

"Ah! would that you and I were rich, Fred," interrupted Bob, as he let
fall the ruler with a crash on the red-ink bottle, and overturned it;
"but go on, Fred, I'm getting interested; pardon the interruption, and
never mind the ink, I'll swab it up.--He was successful, was he?"

"Yes, he was; eminently so.  He first of all roused his friends in the
States, and got up, in 1856, the `New York, Newfoundland, and London
Telegraph Company,' which carried a line of telegraph through the
British Provinces, and across the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to Saint
John's, Newfoundland--more than 1000 miles--at a cost of about 500,000
pounds.  Then he came over to England and roused the British Lion, with
whose aid he started the `Atlantic Telegraph Company,' and fairly began
the work, backed by such men as Brett, Bidden, Stephenson, Brunel,
Glass, Eliot, Morse, Bright, Whitehouse, and a host of others.  But all
this was not done in a day.  Cyrus Field laboured for years among
preliminaries, and it was not until 1857 that a regular attempt was made
to lay an Atlantic cable.  It failed, because the cable broke and was
lost.  A second attempt was made in 1858, and was successful.  In that
year, my boy, Ireland and Newfoundland were married, and on the 5th of
August the first electric message passed between the Old World and the
New, through a small wire, over a distance of above 2000 miles.  But the
triumph of Field and his friends was short-lived, for, soon after,
something went wrong with the cable, and on the 6th September it ceased
to work."

"What a pity!" exclaimed Bob; "so it all went off in smoke."

"Not quite that, Bob.  Before the cable struck work about 400 messages
had been sent, which proved its value in a financial point of view, and
one of these messages--sent from London in the morning and reaching
Halifax the same day--directed that `the 62nd Regiment was not to return
to England,' and it is said that this timely warning saved the country
an expenditure of 50,000 pounds.  But the failure, instead of damping,
has evidently stimulated the energies of Mr Field, who has been going
about between America and England ever since, stirring people up far and
near, to raise the funds necessary for another attempt.  He gives
himself no rest; has embarked his own fortune in the affair, and now, at
this moment, in this year of grace 1865, is doing his best, I have no
doubt, to induce our governor, Mr Lowstoft, to embark in the same boat
with himself."

It would seem as if Fred had been suddenly endowed with the gift of
second-sight, for at that moment the door of his employer's room opened,
and Mr Lowstoft came out, saying to his visitor, in the most friendly
tones, that he had the deepest sympathy with his self-sacrificing
efforts, and with the noble work to which he had devoted himself.

Bob, in a burst of sudden enthusiasm, leaped off his stool, opened the
office-door, and muttered something as the distinguished visitor passed
him.

"I beg pardon," said Mr Field, checking himself, "what did you say?"

"I--I wish you good luck, sir, with--with the new cable," stammered the
clerk, blushing deeply.

"Thank you, lad--thank you," said Mr Field, with a pleasant smile and
nod, as he went away.

"Mr Sime," said Mr Lowstoft to Bob, turning at the door of his room,
"send young Wright to me."

"Yes, sir," replied the obedient Bob, going to a corner of the room and
applying his lips to a speaking-tube.

Now young Wright was none other than our hero Robin grown up to the
mature age of fifteen.

He was perched on the top of a three-legged stool, and, from the slow
and intensely earnest manner in which his head turned from side to side
as he wrote, it was quite evident that he dotted all his _i's_ and
stroked all his _t's_ with conscientious care.  As he sat there--a
sturdy little broad-shouldered fellow, so deeply engrossed with his work
that he was oblivious of all around--he seemed the very _beau-ideal_ of
a painstaking, hard-working clerk.  So deeply was he engrossed in his
subject--the copying of an invoice--that he failed to hear the voice of
his fellow-clerk, although the end of the speaking-tube was not far,
from where he sat.  After listening a few seconds at the other end of
the tube, Bob Sime repeated the summons with such vigour that Robin
leaped from his stool as though he had received one of his favourite
electric shocks.  A minute later he stood in the presence of the Head of
the House.

"Robert Wright," said the Head, pushing his spectacles up on his brow,
"I shall be sorry to lose your services, but--"

He paused and turned over the papers before him, as if searching for
something, and Robin's heart sank.  Was he going to be dismissed?  Had
he done anything wrong, or had he unwittingly neglected some duty?

"Ah! here it is," resumed Mr Lowstoft, "a letter from a friend who has
come by a slight injury to his right hand, and wants a smart amanuensis
and general assistant.  Now I think of sending _you_ to him, if you have
no objection."

As the Head again paused while glancing over the letter, Robin ventured
timidly to state that he had very strong objections; that he was very
much satisfied with his situation and work, and had no desire to change.

Mr Lowstoft did not appear to listen to his remarks, but said
suddenly--"You've studied the science of electricity, I believe?"

"Yes, sir--to some extent," answered the lad, with a look of surprise.

"I know you have.  Your father has told me about your tastes and
studies.  You've heard of Mr Cyrus Field, I presume?"

"Indeed I have," said Robin, brightening up, "it was through his efforts
that the Atlantic Cable was laid in 1858--which unfortunately went
wrong."

"Well, my boy, it is through his efforts that another cable is to be
laid in this year 1865, which we all hope sincerely won't go wrong, and
my friend, who wants an assistant, is one of the electricians connected
with the new expedition.  Would you like to go?"

Robin's eyes blazed, and he could scarcely find breath or words to
express his willingness--if his father did not object.

"Go home at once, then, and ask leave, for the Great Eastern is almost
ready for sea, and you have to hasten your preparations."

Robin stroked no more _t's_ and dotted no more _i's_ that day.  We fear,
indeed, that he even left the invoice on his desk unfinished, with the
last _i_ imperfect.

Bursting into his father's house, he found Madge--now become a pretty
little slip of feminine thread-paper--seated at the piano agonising over
a chord which her hand was too small to compass.

"Madge, Madge, cousin Madge!" he shouted, seizing both the extended
little hands and kissing the musical wrinkles from her brow, "why am I
like a magnet?  You'll never guess."

"Because you attract everybody to you," said Madge promptly.

"Pooh! not at all.  A magnet doesn't attract _every_ body.  It has two
poles, don't you know, and repels some bodies.  No, Madge, it's because
I have been electrified."

"Indeed? and what has electrified you, Robin?"

"The Atlantic Cable, Madge."

"Well, that ought to be able to do it powerfully," returned Madge, with
a laugh; "but tell me all about it, and don't make more bad conundrums.
I'm sure something has happened.  What is it?"

Mrs Wright, entering at the moment, her son calmed himself as well as
he could, and sat down to tell his tale and talk the matter over.

"Now, what think you, mother?  Will father consent?"

"I think he will, Robin, but before going into the matter further, I
will lay it before our Father in heaven.  He must show us the way, if we
are to go right."

According to invariable custom, Robin's mother retired to her own room
to consider the proposal.  Thereafter she had a long talk with her
husband, and the result was that on the following day our hero found
himself in a train with a small new portmanteau by his side, a new
billy-cock hat on his head, a very small new purse in his pocket, with a
remarkably small sum of money therein, and a light yet full heart in his
breast.  He was on his way to the Nore, where the Great Eastern lay,
like an antediluvian macaroni-eater, gorging itself with innumerable
miles of Atlantic Cable.

To say truth, Robin's breast--capacious though it was for his size--
could hardly contain his heart that day.  The dream of his childhood was
about to be realised!  He had thirsted for knowledge.  He had acquired
all that was possible in his father's limited circumstances.  He had,
moreover, with the valuable assistance of Sam Shipton, become deeply
learned in electrical science.  He had longed with all his heart to
become an electrician--quite ready, if need were, to commence as sweeper
of a telegraph-office, but he had come to regard his desires as too
ambitious, and, accepting his lot in life with the quiet contentment
taught him by his mother, had entered on a clerkship in a mercantile
house, and had perched himself, with a little sigh no doubt, yet
cheerfully, on the top of a three-legged stool.  To this stool he had
been so long attached--physically--that he had begun to regard it almost
as part and parcel of himself, and had made up his mind that he would
have to stick to it through life.  He even sometimes took a quaint view
of the matter, and tried to imagine that through long habit it would
stick to him at last, and oblige him to carry it about sticking straight
out behind him; perhaps even require him to take it to bed with him, in
which case he sometimes tried to imagine what would be the precise
effect on the bedclothes if he were to turn from one side to the other.
Thus had his life been projected in grey perspective to his mental eye.

But now--he actually was an electrician-elect on his way to join the
biggest ship in the world, to aid in laying the greatest telegraph cable
in the world, in company with some of the greatest men in the universe!
It was almost too much for him.  He thirsted for sympathy.  He wanted to
let off his feelings in a cheer, but life in a lunatic asylum presented
itself, and he refrained.  There was a rough-looking sailor lad about
his own age, but much bigger, on the seat opposite, (it was a third
class).  He thought of pouring out his feelings on him--but prudence
prevented.  There is no saying what might have been the result,
figuratively speaking, to his boiler if the sailor lad had not of his
own accord opened a safety-valve.

"You seems pretty bobbish this morning, young feller," he said, after
contemplating his _vis-a-vis_, for a long time in critical silence.
"Bin an' took too much, eh?"

"I beg your pardon," said Robin, somewhat puzzled.

"You're pritty considerable jolly, I say," returned the lad, who had an
honest, ugly face; and was somewhat blunt and gruff in manner.

"I am indeed very jolly," said Robin, with a bland smile, "for I'm going
to help to lay the great Atlantic Cable."

"Wot's that you say?" demanded the lad, with sudden animation.

Robin repeated his remark.

"Well, now, that _is_ a go!  Why, _I'm_ goin' to help lay the great
Atlantic Cable too.  I'm one the stooard's boys.  What may _you_ be,
young feller?"

"Me?  Oh!  I'm--I--why, I'm on the electrical staff--I'm--" he thought
of the word _secretary_, but a feeling of modesty induced him to
say--"assistant to one of the electricians."

"Which 'un?" demanded the lad curtly.

"Mr Smith."

"Mr Smith, eh?  Well--it ain't an unusual name--Smith ain't.  P'r'aps
you'll condescend on his first name, for there's no less than three
Smiths among the electricians."

"Ebenezer Smith, I believe," said Robin.

"Ebbysneezer Smith--eh? well, upon my word that's a Smith-mixtur that
I've never heerd on before.  I don't know 'im, but he's all right, I
dessay.  They're a rum lot altogether."

Whether this compliment was meant for the great Smith family in general,
or the electrical branch in particular, Robin could not guess, and did
not like to ask.  Having thus far opened his heart, however, he began to
pour out its contents, and found that the ugly sailor lad was a much
more sympathetic soul than he had been led to expect from his looks.
Having told his own name, he asked that of his companion in return.

"My name--oh! it's Slagg--Jim Slagg; James when you wants to be
respeckful--Slagg when familiar.  I'm the son o' Jim Slagg, senior.  Who
_he_ was the son of is best known to them as understands the science of
jinnylology.  But it don't much matter, for we all runs back to Adam an'
Eve somehow.  They called me after father, of course; but to make a
distinction they calls him Jimmy--bein' more respeckful-like,--and me
Jim.  It ain't a name much to boast of, but I wouldn't change it with
you, young feller, though Robert ain't a bad name neither.  It's pretty
well-known, you see, an' _that's_ somethin'.  Then, it's bin bore by
great men.  Let me think--wasn't there a Robert the Great once?"

"I fear not," said Robin; "he is yet in the womb of Time."

"Ah, well, no matter; but there should have bin a Robert the Great
before now.  Anyhow, there was Robert the Bruce--he was a king, warn't
he, an' a skull-cracker?  Then there was Robert Stephenson, the great
engineer--he's livin' yet; an' there was Robert the--the Devil, but I
raither fear he must have bin a bad 'un, _he_ must, so we won't count
him.  Of course, they gave you another name, for short; ah, Robin!  I
thought so.  Well, that ain't a bad name neither.  There was Robin Hood,
you know, what draw'd the long-bow a deal better than the worst
penny-a-liner as ever mended a quill.  An' there was a Robin Goodfellow,
though I don't rightly remember who he was exactly."

"One of Shakespeare's characters," interposed Robin.

"Jus' so--well, he couldn't have bin a bad fellow, you know.  Then, as
to your other name, Wright--that's all right, you know, and might have
bin writer if you'd taken to the quill or the law.  Anyhow, as long as
you're Wright, of course you can't be wrong--eh, young feller?"

Jim Slagg was so tickled with this sudden sally that he laughed, and in
so doing shut his little eyes, and opened an enormous mouth, fully
furnished with an unbroken set of splendid teeth.

Thus pleasantly did Robin while away the time with his future shipmate
until he arrived at the end of his journey, when he parted from Jim
Slagg and was met by Ebenezer Smith.

That energetic electrician, instead of at once taking him on board the
Great Eastern, took him to a small inn, where he gave him his tea and
put him through a rather severe electrical examination, out of which our
anxious hero emerged with credit.

"You'll do, Robin," said his examiner, who was a free-and-easy yet
kindly electrician, "but you want instruction in many things."

"Indeed I do, sir," said Robin, "for I have had no regular education in
the science, but I hope, if you direct me what to study, that I shall
improve."

"No doubt you will, my boy.  Meanwhile, as the big ship won't be ready
to start for some time, I want you to go to the works of the Telegraph
Construction and Maintenance Company, see the making of the cable, learn
all you can, and write me a careful account of all that you see, and all
that you think about it."

Robin could not repress a smile.

"Why, boy, what are you laughing at?" demanded Mr Smith, somewhat
sternly.

Robin blushed deep scarlet as he replied--

"Pardon me, sir, but you said I am to write down all that I _think_
about it."

"Well, what then?"

"I--I'm afraid, sir," stammered Robin, "that if I write down all I
_think_ about the Atlantic Cable, as well as all that I see, I shall
require a very long time indeed, and a pretty large volume."

Mr Smith gazed at our hero for some time with uplifted brows, then he
shook his head slowly and frowned, then he nodded it slightly and
smiled.  After that he laughed, or rather chuckled, and said--

"Well, you may go now, and do what I have told you--only omitting most
of what you think.  A small portion of that will suffice!  Don't hurry
back.  Go home and make a fair copy of your observations and thoughts.
I'll write when I require you.  Stay--your address?  Ah!  I have it in
my note-book.  What's your first name, Mister Wright?"

Robin grew two inches taller, or more, on the spot; he had never been
called Mister before, except in jest!

"Robert, sir," he replied.

"Robert--ha! h'm!  I'll call you Bob.  I never could stand ceremony, so
you'll accustom yourself to the new name as quickly as you can--but
perhaps it's not new to you?"

"Please, sir, I've been used to Robin; if you have no objection, I
should--"

"No objection--of course not," interrupted Mr Smith; "Robin will do
quite as well, though a little longer; but that's no matter.  Good-bye,
Robin, and--and--don't think too hard.  It sometimes hurts digestion;
good-bye."

"Well, what d'ee think of Ebbysneezer Smith, my electrical toolip?"
asked Jim Slagg, whom Robin encountered again at the station.  "He's a
wiry subject, I s'pose, like the rest of 'em?"

"He's a very pleasant gentleman," answered Robin warmly.

"Oh, of coorse he is.  All the Smiths are so--more or less.  They're a
glorious family.  I knows at least half a dozen of 'em in what superfine
people call the `slums' of London."

"And I know _more_ than half a dozen of 'em," retorted Robin, somewhat
sharply, "in what unrefined people call the _h_aristocracy of London."

"Whew!" whistled Mister Slagg, gazing at Robin in silent surprise.

What the whistle implied was not explained at that time, because the
locomotive whistle took up the tune with intense violence, causing a
rush to the train, in which the two lads--like many other friends--were
abruptly parted for a season.



CHAPTER SIX.

TELLS OF OUR HERO'S VISIT TO THE GREAT CABLE.

Robin Wright returned home with a bounding heart.  Since his electrical
appointment he had become, figuratively speaking, an indiarubber ball--a
sort of human "squash."  His heart bounded; his feet bounded; if his
head had fallen off, it also would have bounded, no doubt.

On arriving he found his father's elder brother--a retired sea-captain
of the merchant service--on a visit to the family.

There was not a more favourite uncle in the kingdom than uncle Rik--thus
had his name of Richard been abbreviated by the Wright family.  Uncle
Rik was an old bachelor and as bald as a baby--more so than many babies.
He was good-humoured and liberal-hearted, but a settled unbeliever in
the world's progress.  He idolised the "good old times," and quite
pleasantly scorned the present.

"So, so, Robin," he said, grasping our hero by both hands (and uncle
Rik's grasp was no joke), "you're goin' in for batteries--galvanic
batteries an' wires, are you?  Well, lad, I always thought you more or
less of a fool, but I never thought you such a born idiot as that comes
to."

"Yes, uncle," said Robin, with a pleasant laugh, for he was used to the
old captain's plain language, "I'm going to be an electrician."

"Bah! pooh!--an electrician!" exclaimed uncle Rik with vehemence, "as
well set up for a magician at once."

"Indeed he won't be far short of that," said Mrs Wright, who was seated
at the tea-table with her husband and Madge--"at least," she added, "if
all be true that we hear of this wonderful science."

"If only half of it be true," interjected Mr Wright.

"But it _ain't_ true," said Captain Rik firmly.  "They talk a deal of
stuff about it, more than nine-tenths of which is lies--pure fable.  I
don't believe in electricity; more than that, I don't believe in steam.
Batteries and boilers are both bosh!"

"But, uncle, you can't deny that they exist," said Robin.

"Of course not," replied the captain.  "I know as well as you do--maybe
better--that there's a heap o' telegraph-wires rove about the world like
great spiders' webs, and that there are steamboats hummin' an' buzzin'--
ay, an' bu'stin' too--all over the ocean, like huge wasps, an' a pretty
mess they make of it too among them!  Why, there was a poor old lady the
other day that was indooced by a young nephy to send a telegraphic
message to her husband in Manchester--she bein' in London.  She was very
unwillin' to do it, bein' half inclined to regard the telegraph as a
plant from the lower regions.  The message sent was, `Your lovin' wife
hopes you'll be home to-morrow.'  It reached the husband, `Your lowerin'
wife hopes you'll be hung to-morrow.'  Bad writin' and a useless
flourish at the _e_ turned _home_ into _hung_.  The puzzled husband
telegraphs in reply, `Mistake somewhere--all right--shall be back three
o'clock--to-morrow--kind love.'  And how d'ye think this reached the old
lady?--`Mistake somewhere--all night--stabbed in back--through cloak--
two more rows--killed, love.'  Now, d'you call _that_ successful
telegraphing?"

"Not very," admitted Robin, with a laugh, "but of the thousands of
messages that pass to and fro daily there cannot be many like these, I
should think."

"But what did the poor wife do?" asked Madge anxiously.

"Do?" repeated Rik indignantly, as though the misfortune were his own--
for he was a very sympathetic captain--"do?  Why, she gave a yell that
nigh knocked the young nephy out of his reason, and fell flat on the
floor.  When she came to, she bounced up, bore away for the railway
station under full sail, an' shipped for Manchester, where she found her
husband, alive and hearty, pitchin' into a huge beefsteak, which he very
properly said, after recovering from his first surprise, was big enough
for two."

"But what objection have you to steamers, uncle Rik?" asked Mrs Wright;
"I'm sure they are very comfortable and fast-going."

"Comfortable and fast-goin'!" repeated the old sailor, with a look of
supreme contempt, "yes, they're comfortable enough when your berth ain't
near the paddles or the boilers; an' they're fast-goin', no doubt,
specially when they bu'st.  But ain't the nasty things made of iron--
like kitchen kettles? and won't that rust? an' if you knock a hole in
'em won't they go down at once? an' if you clap too much on the
safety-valves won't they go up at once?  Bah! pooh!--there's nothin'
like the wooden walls of old England.  You may take the word of an old
salt for it,--them wooden walls will float and plough the ocean when all
these new-fangled iron pots are sunk or blowed to atoms.  Why, look at
the Great Eastern herself, the biggest kettle of 'em all, what a
precious mess _she_ made of herself!  At first she wouldn't move at all,
when they tried to launch her; then they had to shove her off sidewise
like a crab; then she lost her rudder in a gale, an' smashed all her
cabin furniture like a bad boy with his toys.  Bah!  I only hope I may
be there when she bu'sts, for it'll be a grand explosion."

"I'm sorry you have so bad an opinion of her, uncle, for I am appointed
to serve in the Great Eastern while layin' the Atlantic Cable."

"Sorry to hear it, lad; very sorry to hear it.  Of course I hope for
your sake that she won't blow up on _this_ voyage, though it's nothin'
more or less than an absurd ship goin' on a wild-goose chase."

"But, uncle, submarine cables have now passed the period of experiment,"
said Robin, coming warmly to the defence of his favourite subject.
"Just consider, from the time the first one was laid, in 1851, between
Dover and Calais, till now, about fifteen years, many thousands of miles
of conducting-wire have been laid along the bottom of the sea to many
parts of the world, and they are in full and successful operation at
this moment.  Why, even in 1858, when the first Atlantic Cable was laid,
the Gutta-percha Company had made forty-four submarine cables."

"I know it, lad, but it won't last.  It's all sure to bu'st up in course
of time."

"Then, though the attempt to lay the last Atlantic Cable proved a
failure," continued Robin, "the first one, the 1858 one, _was_ a success
at the beginning, no one can deny that."

"Ay, but how long did it last?" demanded the skipper, hitting the table
with his fist.

"Oh, please, have pity on the tea-cups, uncle Rik," cried the hostess.

"Beg pardon, sister, but I can't help getting riled when I hear younkers
talkin' stuff.  Why, do you really suppose," said the captain, turning
again to Robin, "that because they managed in '58 to lay a cable across
the Atlantic, and exchange a few messages, which refused to travel after
a few days, that they'll succeed in layin' down a permanent speakin'
trumpet between old England and Noof'nland--2000 miles, more or less--in
spite o' gales an' currents, an' ships' anchors, an' insects, an'
icebergs an' whales, to say nothing o' great sea-sarpints an' such
like?"

"Uncle Rik, I do," said Robin, with intensely earnest eyes and glowing
cheeks.

"Bravo!  Robin, you'll do it, I do believe, if it is to be done at all;
give us your hand, lad."

The old sailor's red countenance beamed with a huge smile of kindness as
he shook his enthusiastic nephew's hand.

"There," he added, "I'll not say another word against iron kettles or
Atlantic cables.  If you succeed I'll give batteries and boilers full
credit, but if you fail I'll not forget to remind you that I _said_ it
would all bu'st up in course of time."

With note-book and pencil in hand Robin went down the very next day to
the works of the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, where
the great cable was being made.

Presenting his letter of introduction from Mr Smith, Robin was
conducted over the premises by a clerk, who, under the impression that
he was a very youthful and therefore unusually clever newspaper
correspondent, treated him with marked respect.  This was a severe trial
to Robin's modesty; nevertheless he bore up manfully, and pulling out
his note-book prepared for action.

The reader need not fear that we intend to inflict on him Robin's
treatise on what he styled the "Great Atlantic Cable," but it would be
wrong to leave the subject without recording a few of those points which
made a deep impression on him.

"The cable when completed, sir," said the clerk, as he conducted his
visitor to the factory, "will be 2300 nautical miles in length."

"Indeed," said Robin, recording the statement with solemn gravity and
great accuracy; "but I thought," he added, "that the exact distance from
Ireland to Newfoundland was only 1600 miles."

"You are right, sir, but we allow 700 miles of `slack' for the
inequalities of the bottom.  Its cost will be 700,000 pounds, and the
whole when finished will weigh 7000 tons."

Poor Robin's mind had, of course, been informed about ton-weights at
school, but he had not felt that he realised what they actually
signified until the thought suddenly occurred that a cart-load of coals
weighed one ton, whereupon 7000 carts of coals leaped suddenly into the
field of his bewildered fancy.  A slightly humorous tendency, inherited
from his mother, induced 7000 drivers, with 7000 whips and a like number
of smock-frocks, to mount the carts and drive in into the capacious hold
of the Great Eastern.  They turned, however, and drove instantly off his
brain when he came into the august presence of the cable itself.

The central core of the cable--that part by which the electric force or
fluid was to pass from the Old World to the New, and _vice versa_, was
made of copper.  It was not a solid, single wire, but a strand composed
of seven fine wires, each about the thickness of a small pin.  Six of
these wires were wound spirally round the seventh.  This was in order to
prevent what is termed a "breach of continuity," for it will be at once
perceived that while a single wire of the core might easily break in the
process of laying the cable, and thereby prevent the flow of
electricity, the probability of the seven small wires all breaking at
the same spot was so remote as to be almost impossible, and if even one
wire out of the seven held, the continuity would remain.  Nay, even all
the seven might break, but, so long as they did not all break at the
same place, continuity would not be lost, because copper would still
continue to touch copper all throughout the cable's length.

In the process of construction, the central wire of the copper core was
first covered with a semi-liquid coating of gutta-percha, mixed with
tar--known as "Chatterton's Compound."  This was laid on so thick that
when the other wires were wound round it all air was excluded.  Then a
coating of the same compound was laid over the finished conductor, and
thus the core was solidified.  Next, the core was surrounded with a
coating of the purest gutta-percha--a splendid non-conductor, impervious
to water--which, when pressed to it, while in a plastic state, formed
the first insulator or tube to the core.  Over this tube was laid a thin
coat of Chatterton's Compound for the purpose of closing up any small
flaws or minute holes that might have escaped detection.  Then came a
second coating of gutta-percha, followed by another coating of compound,
and so on alternately until four coats of compound and four of
gutta-percha had been laid on.

This core, when completed, was wound in lengths on large reels, and was
then submerged in water and subjected to a variety of severe electrical
tests, so as to bring it as near as possible to a state of perfection,
after which every inch of it was examined by hand while being unwound
from the reels and re-wound on the large drums, on which it was to be
forwarded to the covering works at East Greenwich, there to receive its
external protecting sheath.

All this, and much more besides, did Robin Wright carefully note down,
and that same evening went home and delivered a long and luminous
lecture, over which his mother wondered, Madge rejoiced, his father
gloried, and uncle Rik fell asleep.

Next day he hastened to the covering works, and, presenting his
credentials, was admitted.

Here he saw the important and delicate core again carefully tested as to
its electrical condition, after which it received a new jacket of tanned
jute yarn to protect it from the iron top coat yet to come.  Its jute
jacket on, it was then coiled away in tanks full of water, where it was
constantly kept submerged and continuously tested for insulation.  Last
of all the top coat was put on.  This consisted of ten wires of
peculiarly fine and strong iron.  Each of these ten wires had put on it
a special coat of its own, made of tarred Manilla yarn, to protect it
from rust as well as to lighten its specific gravity.  The core being
brought from its tank, and passed round several sheaves, which carried
it below the factory floor, was drawn up through a hole in the centre of
a circular table, around the circumference of which were ten drums of
the Manilla-covered wire.  A stout iron rod, fastened to the
circumference of the table, rose from between each drum to the ceiling,
converging in a cone which passed through to the floor above.  Our core
rose in the middle of all, and went through the hollow of the cone.
When all was put in noisy and bewildering motion, the core which rose
from the turning-table and whirling drums as a thin jute-clad line, came
out in the floor above a stout iron-clad cable, with a Manilla
top-dressing, possessing strength sufficient to bear eleven miles of its
own length perpendicularly suspended in water--or a margin of strength
more than four and a half times that required,--and with a breaking
strain of seven tons fifteen hundredweight.

When thoroughly charged and primed, Robin went off home to write his
treatise.

Then he received the expected summons to repair on board the Great
Eastern, and bade adieu to his early home.

It was of no use that Robin tried to say good-bye in a facetious way,
and told Madge and his mother not to cry, saying that he was only going
across the Atlantic, a mere fish-pond, and that he would be home again
in a month or two.  Ah! these little efforts at deception never avail.
Himself broke down while urging Madge to behave herself, and when his
mother gave him a small Bible, and said she required no promise, for she
_knew_ he would treasure and read it, he was obliged hastily to give her
a last fervent hug, and rush from the house without saying good-bye at
all.



CHAPTER SEVEN.

THE BIG SHIP--FIRST NIGHT ABOARD.

When our hero at last reached the Great Eastern, he soon found himself
in what may be termed a lost condition.  At first he was disappointed,
for he saw her at a distance, and it is well-known that distance lends
deception as well as "enchantment to the view."  Arrived alongside,
however, he felt as if he had suddenly come under the walls of a great
fortress or city.

Presently he stood on the deck of the Big Ship, as its familiars called
it, and, from that moment, for several days, was, as we have said, in a
lost condition.  He was lost in wonder, to begin with, as he gazed at
the interminable length and breadth of planking styled the deck, and the
forest of funnels, masts, and rigging, and the amazing perspective,
which caused men at the further end from where he stood to look like
dolls.

Then he was lost in reality, when he went below and had to ask his way
as though he were wandering in the labyrinths of a great city.  He
felt--or thought he felt--like a mere mite in the mighty vessel.  Soon
he lost his old familiar powers of comparison and contrast, and ere long
he lost his understanding altogether, for he fell down one of the
hatchways into a dark abyss, where he would probably have ended his
career with electric speed if he had not happily fallen into the arms of
a human being, with whom he rolled and bumped affectionately, though
painfully, to the bottom of the stair.

The human being, growled intense disapprobation during the process, and
Robin fancied that the voice was familiar.

"Come, I say," said the being, remonstratively, "this is altogether too
loving, you know.  Don't squeeze quite so tight, young 'un, whoever you
be."

"Oh, I _beg_ your pardon," gasped Robin, relaxing his grasp when they
stopped rolling; "I'm _so_ sorry.  I hope I haven't hurt you."

"Hurt me!" laughed Jim Slagg, for it was he; "no, you small electrician,
you 'aven't got battery-power enough to do _me_ much damage; but what
d'ye mean by it?  Is this the way to meet an old friend?  Is it right
for a Wright to go wrong at the wery beginnin' of his career?  But come,
I forgive you.  Have you been introdooced to Capting Anderson yet?"

"No!  Who is he?"

"Who is he, you ignorant crokidile! why, he's the capting of the Great
Eastern, the commander o' the Big Ship, the Great Mogul o' the
quarter-deck, the king o' the expedition.  But, of course, you 'aven't
bin introdooced to him.  He don't associate much with small fry like
us--more's the pity, for it might do 'im good.  But come, I'll take you
under my wing for the present, because your partikler owner, Ebbysneezer
Smith, ain't come aboard yet--ashore dissipatin', I suppose,--an'
everybody's so busy gettin' ready to start that nobody will care to be
bothered with you, so come along."

There was same truth in this eccentric youths' remarks, for in the
bustle of preparation for an early start every one on board seemed to be
so thoroughly engrossed with his own duty that he had no time to attend
to anything else, and Robin had begun to experience, in the absence of
his "partikler owner," an uneasy sensation of being very much in
people's way.  As he felt strangely attracted by the off-hand
good-humoured impudence of his new friend, he consented to follow him,
and was led to a small apartment, somewhere in the depths of the mighty
ship, in which several youths, not unlike Slagg, were romping.  They
had, indeed, duties to perform like the rest, but the moment chanced to
be with them a brief period of relaxation, which they devoted to
skylarking.

"Hallo who have you got here?" demanded a large clumsy youth, knocking
off Slagg's cap as he asked the question.

"Come, Stumps, don't you be cheeky," said Slagg, quietly picking up his
cap and putting it on; "this is a friend o' mine--one o' the
electricians,--so you needn't try to shock _his_ feelin's, for he can
give better than he gets.  He's got no berth yet, so I brought 'im here
to show him hospitality."

"Oh, indeed," said Mr Stumps, bowing with mock respect; then, turning
to the comrade with whom he had been skylarking, "Here, Jeff, supply
this _gentleman_ with food."

Jeff, entering into Stumps' humour, immediately brought a plate of
broken ship-biscuit with a can of water, and set them on the table
before Robin.  Our hero, who had never been accustomed to much jesting,
took the gift in earnest, thanked Jeff heartily, and, being hungry, set
to work with a will upon the simple fare, while Stumps and Jeff looked
at each other and winked.

"Come, I can add something to improve that feast," said Slagg, drawing a
piece of cheese from his pocket, and setting it before his friend.

Robin thanked him, and was about to take the cheese when Stumps snatched
it up, and ran out of the room with it, laughing coarsely as he went.

"The big bully," growled Slagg; "it's quite obvious to me that feller
will have to be brought to his marrow-bones afore long."

"Never mind," said Jeff, who was of a more amiable spirit than Stumps,
"here's more o' the same sort."  He took another piece of cheese from a
shelf as he spoke, and gave it to Robin.

"Now, my young toolip," said Slagg, "havin' finished your feed, p'r'aps
you'd like to see over the big ship."

With great delight Robin said that he should like nothing better, and,
being led forth, was soon lost a second time in wonderment.

Of what use was it that Slagg told him the Great Eastern was 692 feet
long by 83 feet broad, and 70 feet deep?  If he had said yards instead
of feet it would have been equally instructive to Robin in his then
mentally lost condition.  Neither was it of the slightest use to be told
that the weight of the big ship's cargo, including cable, tanks, and
coals, was 21,000 tons.

But reason began to glimmer again when Slagg told him that the two
largest vessels afloat could not contain, in a convenient position for
passing out, the 2700 miles then coiled in the three tanks of the Great
Eastern.

"This is the main tank," said Slagg, leading his friend to a small
platform that hung over a black and apparently unfathomable gulf.

"I see nothing at all," said Robin, stretching his head cautiously
forward and gazing down into darkness profound, while he held on tight
to a rail.  "How curious!--when I look down everything in this wonderful
ship seems to have no bottom, and when I look up, nothing appears to
have any top, while, if I look backward or forward things seem to have
no end!  Ah!  I see something now.  Coming in from the light prevented
me at first.  Why, it's like a huge circus!"

"Yes, it on'y wants hosses an' clowns to make it all complete," said
Slagg.  "Now, that tank is 58 feet 6 inches in diameter, and 20 feet 6
inches deep, an' holds close upon 900 miles of cable.  There are two
other tanks not much smaller, all choke-full.  An' the queer thing is,
that they can telegraph through all its length _now_, at this moment as
it lies there,--an' they are doing so continually to make sure that
all's right."

"Oh!  I understand _that_," said Robin quickly; "I have read all about
the laying of the first cable in 1858.  It is the _appearance_ of things
in this great ship that confounds me."

"Come along then, and I'll confound you a little more," said Slagg.

He accordingly led his friend from one part of the ship to another,
explaining and commenting as he went, and certainly Robin's wonder did
not decrease.

From the grand saloon--which was like a palatial drawing-room, in size
as well as in gorgeous furniture--to the mighty cranks and boilers of
its engines, everything in and about the ship was calculated to amaze.
As Slagg justly remarked, "It was stunnin'."

When our hero was saturated with the "Big Ship" till he could hold no
more, his friend took him back to his berth, and left him there for a
time to his meditations.

Returning soon after, he sat down on a looker.

"I say, Robin Wright," he began, thrusting his hands into his
trousers-pockets, "it looks a'most as if I had smuggled you aboard of
this ship like a stowaway.  Nobody seems to know you are here, an'
what's more, nobody seems to care.  Your partikler owner ain't turned up
yet, an' it's my opinion he won't turn up to-night, so I've spoke to the
stooard--he's _my_ owner, you know--an' he says you'd better just turn
into my berth to-night, an' you'll get showed into your own to-morrow."

"But where will _you_ sleep?" asked Robin, with some hesitation.

"Never you mind that, my young electrician.  That's _my_ business.  What
you've got to do is to turn in."

Jeff and another lad, who were preparing to retire for the night at the
time, laughed at this, but Robin paid no attention, thanked his friend,
and said that as he was rather tired he would accept his kind offer.

Thereafter, pulling out the small Bible which he had kept in his pocket
since leaving home, he went into a corner, read a few verses, and then
knelt down to pray.

The surprise of the other lads was expressed in their eyes, but they
said nothing.

Just then the door opened, and the lad named Stumps entered.  Catching
sight of Robin on his knees he opened his eyes wide, pursed his mouth,
and gave a low whistle.  Then he went up to Robin and gave him a slight
kick.  Supposing that it was an accident, Robin did not move, but on
receiving another and much more decided kick, he rose and turned round.
At the same moment Stumps received a resounding and totally unexpected
slap on the cheek from Jim Slagg, who planted himself before him with
clenched fists and flashing eyes.

"What d'ye mean by interferin' wi' _my_, friend at his dewotions, you
monkey-faced polypus?" he demanded fiercely.

The monkey-faced polypus replied not a word, but delivered a
right-hander that might have felled a small horse.  Jim Slagg however
was prepared for that.  He turned his head neatly to one side so as to
let the blow pass, and at the same moment planted his knuckles on the
bridge of his opponent's nose and sent him headlong into Jeff's bunk,
which lay conveniently behind.  Jumping furiously out of that, and
skinning his shins in the act, Stumps rushed at Slagg, who, leaping
lightly aside, tripped him up and gave him a smack on the left ear as he
passed, by way of keeping him lively.

Unsubdued by this, Stumps gathered himself up and made a blind rush at
his adversary, but was abruptly stopped by what Jeff called a "dab on
the nose."  Repeating the rush, Stumps was staggered by a plunging blow
on the forehead, and he paused to breathe, gazing the while at his foe,
who, though a smaller youth than himself, was quite as strong.

"If you've had enough, monkey-face," said Slagg, with a bland smile,
"don't hesitate to say so, an' I'll shake hands; but if you'd prefer a
little more before goin' to bed, just let me know, and--"

Slagg here performed some neat and highly suggestive motions with his
fists by way of finishing the sentence.

Evidently Stumps wanted more, for, after a brief pause, he again rushed
at Slagg, who, stepping aside like a Spanish matador, allowed his foe to
expend his wrath on the bulkhead of the cabin.

"You'll go through it next time, Stumps, if you plunge like that," said
Jeff, who had watched the fight with lively interest, and had encouraged
the combatants with sundry marks of applause, besides giving them much
gratuitous advice.

Regardless alike of encouragement and advice, the angry youth turned
round once more and received a buffet that sent him sprawling on the
table, off which he fell and rolled under it.  There he lay and panted.

"Now, my sweet polypus," said the victor, going down on one knee and
patting the vanquished on his shoulder, "next time you feels tempted to
kick a gentleman--specially a electrician--at his dewotions, think of
Jim Slagg an' restrain yourself.  I bear you no ill-will however--so,
good-night."

Saying this, Robin's champion left the room and Stumps retired to his
berth growling.

Before passing from the subject, we may add that, the next night,
Robin--whose owner was still absent--was again hospitably invited to
share the cabin of his friend and protector.  When about to retire to
rest he considered whether it was advisable to risk the repetition of
the scene of the previous, night, and, although not quite easy in his
conscience about it, came to the conclusion that it would be well to say
his prayers in bed.  Accordingly, he crept quietly into his berth and
lay down, but Jim Slagg, who was present, no sooner saw what he was
about than he jumped up with a roar of indignation.

"What are you about?" he cried, "ain't you goin' to say your prayers,
you white-livered electrician?  Come, git up!  If _I'm_ to fight, _you_
must pray!  D'ye hear?  Turn out, I say."

With that he seized Robin, dragged him out of bed, thrust him on his
knees, and bade him "do his dooty."

At first Robin's spirit rose in rebellion, but a sense of shame at his
moral cowardice, and a perception of the justice of his friend's remark,
subdued him.  He did pray forthwith, though what the nature of his
prayer was we have never been able to ascertain, and do not care to
guess.  The lesson, however, was not lost.  From that date forward Robin
Wright was no longer ashamed or afraid to be seen in the attitude of
prayer.



CHAPTER EIGHT.

LAYING THE CABLE--"FAULTS" AND FAULT-FINDING--ANXIETIES, ACCIDENTS, AND
OTHER MATTERS.

Come with us now, good reader, to another and very different scene--out
upon the boundless sea.  The great Atlantic is asleep, but his breast
heaves gently and slowly like that of a profound sleeper.

The Great Eastern looks like an island on the water--steady as a rock,
obedient only to the rise and fall of the ocean swell, as she glides
along at the rate of six knots an hour.  All is going well.  The
complicated-looking paying-out machinery revolves smoothly; the
thread-like cable passes over the stern, and down into the deep with the
utmost regularity.

The shore-end of the cable--twenty-seven miles in length, and much
thicker than the deep-sea portion--had been laid at Valentia, on the
22nd of July, amid prayer and praise, speech-making, and much
enthusiasm, on the part of operators and spectators.  On the 23rd, the
end of the shore cable was spliced to that of the main cable, and the
voyage had begun.

The first night had passed quietly, and upwards of eighty miles of the
cable had gone out of the after-tank, over the big ship's stern, and
down to its ocean-bed, when Robin Wright--unable to sleep--quietly
slipped into his clothes, and went on deck.  It was drawing near to
dawn.  A knot of electricians and others were chatting in subdued tones
about the one subject that filled the minds of all in the ship.

"What! unable to sleep, like the rest of us?" said Ebenezer Smith,
accosting Robin as he reached the deck.

"Yes, sir," said Robin, with a sleepy smile, "I've been thinking of the
cable so much that I took to dreaming about it when I fell asleep, and
it suddenly turned into the great sea-serpent, and choked me to such an
extent that I awoke, and then thought it better to get up and have a
look at it."

"Ah! my boy, you are not the only one whom the cable won't let sleep.
It will be well looked after during the voyage, for there are two sets
of electricians aboard--all of them uncommonly wide awake--one set
representing the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, under
Monsieur de Sauty; the other set representing the Atlantic Telegraph
Company, under Mr Varley and Professor Thomson.  The former are to test
the electrical state of the cable, and to keep up signals with the shore
every hour, night and day, during the voyage, while the latter are to
watch and report as to whether the cable fulfils her conditions, as
specified in the contract.  So you see the smallest fault or hitch will
be observed at once."

"Do you mean, sir," asked Robin in surprise, "that telegraphing with the
shore is to be kept up continually _all_ the voyage!"

"Yes, my boy, I do," answered Smith.  "The lengths of the cable in the
three tanks are joined up into one length, and telegraphing--for the
purpose of testing it--has been kept up with the shore without
intermission from the moment we left Ireland, and began to pay out.  It
will be continued, if all goes well, until we land the other and in
Newfoundland.  The tests are threefold,--first, for insulation, which,
as you know, means the soundness and perfection of the gutta-percha
covering that prevents the electricity from escaping from the wires,
through the sea, into the earth; secondly, for continuity, or the
unbroken condition of the conductor or copper core throughout its whole
length; and, thirdly, to determine the resistance of the conductor, by
which is meant its objection to carry our messages without vigorous
application of the spur in the form of increased electrical power in our
batteries.  You see, Robin, every message sent to us from the shore, as
well as every message sent by us in reply, has to travel through the
entire length of the cable, namely about 2400 miles, and as every mile
of distance increases this unwillingness, or resistance, we have to
increase the electrical power in the batteries, in proportion to the
distance to which we want to send our message.  D'you understand?"

"I think I do, sir; but _how_ is the exact amount of resistance tested?"

Mr Smith smiled as he looked at the earnest face of his young
questioner.

"My boy," said he, "you would require a more fully educated mind to
understand the answer to that question.  The subtleties of electrical
science cannot be explained in a brief conversation.  You'll have to
study and apply to books for full light on that subject.  Nevertheless,
although I cannot carry you _into_ the subject just now, I can tell you
something _about_ it.  You remember the testing-room which I showed you
yesterday--the darkened room between the captain's state-room and the
entrance to the grand saloon?"

"Yes, sir, I remember it well," responded Robin,--"the room into which
the conducting-wires from the ends of the cable are led to the
testing-tables, on which are the curious-looking galvanometers and other
testing machines."

"Just so," returned Smith, pleased with his pupil's aptitude.  "Well, on
that table stands Professor Thomson's delicate and wonderful
galvanometer.  On that instrument a ray of light, reflected from a tiny
mirror suspended to a magnet, travels along a scale and indicates the
resistance to the passage of the current along the cable by the
deflection of the magnet, which is marked by the course of this speck of
light.  Now, d'you understand that, Robin?"

"I--I'm afraid not quite, sir."

"Well, no matter," rejoined Smith, with a laugh.

"At all events you can understand that if that speck of light keeps
within bounds--on its index--all is going well, but if it travels beyond
the index--bolts out of bounds--an escape of the electric current is
taking place somewhere in the cable, or what we call a _fault_ has
occurred."

"Ah, indeed," exclaimed Robin, casting a serious look at the cable as it
rose from the after-tank, ran smoothly over its line of conducting
wheels, dropped over the stern of the ship and glided into the sea like
an an endless snake of stealthy habits.  "And what," he added, with a
sudden look of awe, "if the cable should break?"

"Why, it would go to the bottom, of course," replied Smith, "and several
hearts would break along with it.  You see these two gentlemen
conversing near the companion-hatch?"

"Yes."

"One is the chief of the electricians; the other the chief of the
engineers.  Their hearts would probably break, for their position is
awfully responsible.  Then my heart would break, I know, for I feel it
swelling at the horrible suggestion; and your heart would break, Robin,
I think, for you are a sympathetic donkey, and couldn't help yourself.
Then you see that stout man on the bridge--that's Captain Anderson--
well, _his_ heart would--no--perhaps it wouldn't, for he's a sailor, and
you know a sailor's heart is too tough to break, but it would get a
pretty stiff wrench.  And you see that gentleman looking at the
paying-out gear so earnestly?"

"What--Cyrus Field?" said Robin.

"Yes; well, his heart and the Atlantic Cable are united, so as a matter
of course the two would snap together."

Now, while Smith and his young assistant were conversing thus
facetio-scientifically, the electricians on duty in the testing-room
were watching with silent intensity the indications on their
instruments.  Suddenly, at 3:15 a.m., when exactly eighty-four miles of
cable had been laid out, he who observed the galvanometer saw the speck
of light glide to the end of the scale, and vanish!

If a speck of fire had been seen to glide through the key-hole of the
powder-magazine it could scarcely have created greater consternation
than did the disappearance of that light!  The commotion in the
testing-room spread instantly to every part of the ship; the whole staff
of electricians was at once roused, and soon afterwards the engines of
the Great Eastern were slowed and stopped, while, with bated breath and
anxious looks, men whispered to each other that there was "a fault in
the cable."

A fault!  If the cable had committed a mortal sin they could scarcely
have looked more horrified.  Nevertheless there was ground for anxiety,
for this fault, as in moral faults, indicated something that _might_ end
in destruction.

After testing the cable for some time by signalling to the shore,
Monsieur de Sauty concluded that the fault was of a serious character,
and orders were at once given to prepare the picking-up apparatus at the
bow for the purpose of drawing the cable back into the ship until the
defective portion should be reached and cut out.

"O _what_ a pity!" sighed Robin, when he understood what was going to be
done, and the feeling, if not the words, was shared by every one on
board with more or less intelligence and intensity; but there were
veterans of submarine telegraphy who spoke encouragingly and treated the
incident as a comparatively small matter.

Two men-of-war, the Terrible and the Sphinx, had been appointed to
accompany and aid the Great Eastern on her important mission.  A gun was
fired, and signals were made, to acquaint these with what had occurred
while the fires were being got up in the boilers of the picking-up
machinery.

Electricians as well as doctors differ, it would seem, among themselves,
for despite their skill and experience there was great difference of
opinion in the minds of those on board the big ship as to the place
where the fault lay.  Some thought it was near the shore, and probably
at the splice of the shore-end with the main cable.  Others calculated,
from the indications given by the tests, that it was perhaps twenty or
forty or sixty miles astern.  One of the scientific gentlemen held that
it was not very far from the ship, while another gentleman, who was said
to be much experienced in "fault"-finding, asserted that it was not more
than nine or ten miles astern.

While the doctors were thus differing, the practical engineers were busy
making the needful preparations for picking-up--an operation involving
great risk of breaking the cable, and requiring the utmost delicacy of
treatment, as may be easily understood, for, while the cable is being
payed out the strain on it is comparatively small, whereas when it is
being picked up, there is not only the extra strain caused by stoppage,
and afterwards by hauling in, but there is the risk of sudden risings of
the ship's stern on the ocean swell, which might at any moment snap the
thin line like a piece of packthread.

The first difficulty and the great danger was to pass the cable from the
stern to the bow, and to turn the ship round, so as to enable them to
steam up to the cable while hauling it in.  Iron chains were lashed
firmly to the cable at the stern, and secured to a wire-rope carried
round the outside of the ship to the picking-up apparatus at the bows.
The cable was down in 400 fathoms of water when the paying-out ceased,
and nice management was required to keep the ship steady, as she had now
no steerage-way; and oh! with what intense interest and curiosity and
wonder did Robin Wright regard the varied and wonderful mechanical
appliances, with which the whole affair was accomplished!

Then the cable was cut, and, with its shackles and chains, allowed to go
plump into the sea.  Robin's heart and soul seemed to go along with it,
for, not expecting the event, he fancied it was lost for ever.

"Gone!" he exclaimed, with a look of horror.

"Not quite," said Jim Slagg, who stood at Robin's elbow regarding the
operations with a quiet look of intelligence.  "Don't you see, Robin,
that a wire-rope fit a'most to hold the big ship herself is holdin' on
to it."

"Of course; how stupid I am!" said Robin, with a great sigh of relief;
"I see it now, going round to the bows."

At first the rope was let run, to ease the strain while the ship swung
round; then it was brought in over the pulley at the bow, the paddles
moved, and the return towards Ireland was begun.  The strain, although
great, was far from the breaking-point, but the speed was very slow--not
more than a mile an hour being considered safe in the process of
picking-up.

"Patience, Robin," observed Mr Smith, as he passed on his way to the
cabin, "is a virtue much needed in the laying of cables.  We have now
commenced a voyage at the rate of one mile an hour, which will not
terminate till we get back to Owld Ireland, unless we find the fault."

Patience, however, was not destined to be so severely tried.  All that
day and all night the slow process went on.  Meanwhile--as the cable was
not absolutely unworkable, despite the fault--the chief engineer, Mr
Canning, sent a message to Mr Glass in Ireland, asking him to send out
the Hawk steamer, in order that he might return in her to search for the
defect in the shore-end of the cable, for if that were found he purposed
sacrificing the eighty odd miles already laid down, making a new splice
with the shore-end, and starting afresh.  A reply was received from Mr
Glass, saying that the Hawk would be sent out immediately.

Accordingly, about daybreak of the 25th the Hawk appeared, but her
services were not required, for, about nine that morning, when the cable
was coming slowly in and being carefully examined foot by foot--nay,
inch by inch--the fault was discovered, and joy took the place of
anxiety.  Ten and a quarter miles of cable had been picked up when the
fault came inboard, and a strange unaccountable fault it turned out to
be--namely, a small piece of wire which had been forced through the
covering of the cable into the gutta-percha so as to injure, but not
quite to destroy, the insulation.  How such a piece of wire could have
got into the tank was a mystery, but the general impression was that it
had been carried there by accident and forced into the coil by the
pressure of the paying-out machinery as the cable flew through the
jockey-wheels.

Signals were at once made to the fleet that the enemy had been
discovered.  Congratulatory signals were returned.  The fault was cut
out and a new splice made.  The Hawk was sent home again.  The big
ship's bow was turned once more to the west, and the rattling of the
machinery, as the restored and revived cable passed over the stern, went
merrily as a marriage bell.

The detention had been only about twelve hours; the great work was going
on again as favourably as before the mishap occurred, and about half a
mile had been payed out, when--blackness of despair--the electric
current suddenly ceased, and communication with the shore was ended
altogether.



CHAPTER NINE.

IN WHICH JOYS, HOPES, ALARMS, GHOSTS, AND LEVIATHANS TAKE PART.

That man who can appreciate the feelings of one who has become suddenly
bankrupt may understand the mental condition of those on board the Great
Eastern when they were thus tossed from the pinnacle of joyous hope to
the depths of dark despair.  It was not, however, absolute despair.  The
cable was utterly useless indeed--insensate--but it was not broken.
There was still the blessed possibility of picking it up and bringing it
to life again.

That, however, was scarcely an appreciable comfort at the moment, and
little could be seen or heard on board the Great Eastern save elongated
faces and gloomy forebodings.

Ebenezer Smith and his _confreres_ worked in the testing-room like
Trojans.  They connected and disconnected; they put in stops and took
them out; they intensified currents to the extent of their anxieties
they reduced them to the measure of their despair--nothing would do.
The cable was apparently dead.  In these circumstances picking-up was
the only resource, and the apparatus for that purpose was again rigged
up in the bows.

In the meantime the splice which had been made to connect the tanks was
cut and examined, and the portions coiled in the fore and main tanks
were found to be perfect--alive and well--but the part between ship and
shore was speechless.

So was poor Robin Wright!  After Mr Field--whose life-hope seemed to be
doomed to disappointment--the blow was probably felt most severely by
Robin.  But Fortune seemed to be playfully testing the endurance of
these cable-layers at that time, for, when the despair was at its worst,
the tell-tale light reappeared on the index of the galvanometer, without
rhyme or reason, calling forth a shout of joyful surprise, and putting
an abrupt stoppage to the labours of the pickers-up!

They never found out what was the cause of that fault; but that was a
small matter, for, with restored sensation in the cable-nerve, renewed
communication with the shore, and resumed progress of the ship towards
her goal, they could afford to smile at former troubles.

Joy and sorrow, shower and sunshine, fair weather and foul, was at first
the alternating portion of the cable-layers.

"I can't believe my eyes!" said Robin to Jim Slagg, as they stood next
day, during a leisure hour, close to the whirling wheels and
never-ending cable, about 160 miles of which had been laid by that time.
"Just look at the Terrible and Sphinx; the sea is now so heavy that
they are thumping into the waves, burying their bows in foam, while we
are slipping along as steadily as a Thames steamer."

"That's true, sir," answered Slagg, whose admiration for our hero's
enthusiastic and simple character increased as their intimacy was
prolonged, and whose manner of address became proportionally more
respectful, "She's a steady little duck is the Great Eastern! she has
got the advantage of length, you see, over other ships, an' rides on two
waves at a time, instead of wobblin' in between 'em; but I raither think
she'd roll a bit if she was to go along in the trough of the seas.
Don't the cable go out beautiful, too--just like a long-drawn eel with
the consumption!  Did you hear how deep the captain said it was
hereabouts?"

"Yes, I heard him say it was a little short of two miles deep, so it has
got a long way to sink before it reaches its oozy bed."

"How d'ee know what sort o' bed it's got to lie on?" asked Slagg.

"Because," said Robin, "the whole Atlantic where the cable is to lie has
been carefully sounded long ago, and it is found that the ocean-bed
here, which looks so like mud, is composed of millions of beautiful
shells, so small that they cannot be distinguished by the naked eye.  Of
course, they have no creatures in them.  It would seem that these
shell-fish go about the ocean till they die, and then fall to the bottom
like rain."  See note one.

"You _don't_ say so!" returned Slagg, who, being utterly uneducated,
received suchlike information with charming surprise, and regarded Robin
as a very mine of knowledge.  "Well now, that beats cock-fighting.  But,
I say, how is it that the electricity works through the cable?  I heerd
one o' your electrical fellers explaining to a landlubber t'other
evenin' that electricity could only run along wires when the _circuit
was closed_, by which he meant to say that it would fly from a battery
and travel along a wire ever so far, if only that wire was to turn right
round and run back to the same battery again.  Now, if that's so, seems
to me that when you've got your cable to Newfoundland you'll have to run
another one back again to Ireland before it'll work."

"Ah, Slagg, that would indeed be the case," returned Robin, "were it not
that we have discovered the important fact that the earth--the round
globe on which we stand--itself acts the part of a grand conductor.  So
we have only to send down _earth-wires_ at the two ends--one into the
earth of Ireland, the other into the earth of Newfoundland, and
straightway the circuit is closed, and the electricity generated in our
batteries passes through the cable from earth to earth."

"Robin," said Slagg doubtingly, "d'you expect me for to believe _that_?"

"Indeed I do," said Robin simply.

"Then you're greener than I took you for.  No offence meant, but it's my
opinion some o' these 'cute electricians has bin tryin' the width of
your swallow."

"No, you are mistaken," returned Robin earnestly; "I have read the fact
in many books.  The books differ in their opinions as to the causes and
nature of the fact, but not as to the fact itself."

It was evident that Robin looked upon this as an unanswerable argument,
and his friend seemed perplexed.

"Well, I don' know how it is," he said, after a pause, "but I do believe
that this here wonderful electricity is fit for a'most anything, an'
that we'll have it revoloosionising everything afore long--I do indeed."

The intelligent reader who has noted the gigantic strides which we have
recently made in electric lighting of late will observe that Slagg,
unwittingly, had become almost prophetic at this time.

"We're going along splendidly now," said Mr Smith, coming up to Robin
that evening while he was conversing with Slagg, who immediately
retired.--"Who is that youth?  He seems very fond of you; I've observed
that he makes up to you whenever you chance to be on deck together."

"He is one of the steward's lads, sir; I met him accidentally in the
train; but I suspect the fondness is chiefly on my side.  He was very
kind to me when I first came on board, and I really think he is an
intelligent, good fellow--a strange mixture of self-confidence and
humility.  Sometimes, to hear him speak, you would think he knew
everything; but at the same time he is always willing--indeed anxious--
to listen and learn.  He is a capital fighter too."

Here Robin related the battle in the boys' berth, when Slagg thrashed
Stumps, whereat Mr Smith was much amused.

"So he seems a peculiar lad--modest, impudent, teachable, kindly, and
warlike!  Come below now, Robin, I have some work for you.  Did you make
the calculations I gave you yesterday?"

"Yes, sir, and they corresponded exactly with your own."

"Good.  Go fetch my little note-book: I left it in the grand saloon on
the furthest aft seat, port side."

Robin found the magnificent saloon of the big ship ringing with music
and conversation.  Joy over the recent restoration to health of the
ailing cable, the comfortable stability of the ship in rough weather,
and the satisfactory progress then being made, all contributed to raise
the spirits of every one connected with the great work, so that, while
some were amusing themselves at the piano, others were scattered about
in little groups, discussing the profounder mysteries of electric
science, or prophesying the speedy completion of the enterprise, while a
few were speculating on the probability of sport in Newfoundland, or
planning out journeys through the United States.

"There's lots of game, I'm told, in Newfoundland," said one of the
youthful electricians, whose ruling passion--next to the subtle fluid--
was the gun.

"So I've been told," replied an elder and graver comrade.  "Polar bears
are quite common in the woods, and it is said that walrus are fond of
roosting in the trees."

"Yes, I have heard so," returned the youthful sportsman, who, although
young, was not to be caught with chaff, "and the fishing, I hear, is
also splendid.  Salmon and cod are found swarming in the rivers by those
who care for mild occupation, while really exciting sport is to be had
in the great lakes of the interior, where there are plenty of
fresh-water whales that take the fly."

"The swan, you mean," said another comrade.  "The fly that is most
killing among Newfoundland whales is a swan fastened whole to a shark
hook--though a small boat's anchor will do if you haven't the right
tackle."

"Come, don't talk nonsense, but let's have a song!" said a brother
electrician to the sporting youth.

"I never sing," he replied, "except when hurt, and then I sing out.  But
see, our best musician has just seated himself at the instrument."

"I don't talk shop, Nimrod; call it the piano."

Most of those present drew towards the musical corner, where Ebenezer
Smith, having just entered the saloon in search of Robin, had been
prevailed on to sit down and enliven the company.  Robin, who had been
delayed by difficulty in finding the note-book, stopped to listen.

Smith had a fair average voice and a vigorous manner.

"You wouldn't object to hear the cook's last?" asked Smith, running his
fingers lightly over the keys.

"Of course not--go on," chorused several voices.

"I had no idea," lisped a simple youth, who was one of a small party of
young gentlemen interested in engineering and science, who had been
accommodated with a passage,--"I had no idea that our cook was a poet as
well as an admirable _chef de cuisine_."

"Oh, it's not _our_ cook he means," explained the sporting electrician;
"Mr Smith _refers_ to a certain sea-cook--or his son, I'm not sure
which--who is _chef des horse-marines_."

"Is there a chorus?" asked one.

"Of course there is," replied Smith; "a sea-song without a chorus is
like a kite without a tail--it is sure to fall flat, but the chorus is
an old and well-known one--it is only the song that is new.  Now then,
clear your throats, gentlemen."

  Song--The Loss of the Nancy Lee.

  I.

  'Twas on a Friday morning that I went off,
  An' shipped in the Nancy Lee,
  But that ship caught a cold and with one tremendous cough
  Went slap to the bottom of the sea, the sea, the sea,
  Went slap to the bottom of the sea.

  Chorus.--Then the raging sea may roar,
  An' the stormy winds may blow,
  While we jolly sailor boys rattle up aloft,
  And the landlubbers lie down below, below, below
  And the landlubbers lie down below.

  II.

  For wery nigh a century I lived with the crabs,
  An' danced wi' the Mermaids too,
  An' drove about the Ocean in mother o' pearl cabs,
  An' dwelt in a cavern so blue, so blue, so blue,
  An' dwelt in a cavern so blue.
  Chorus.--Then the raging sea, etcetera.

  III.

  I soon forgot the sorrows o' the world above
  In the pleasures o' the life below;
  Queer fish they made up to me the want o' human love,
  As through the world o' waters I did go, did go, did go;
  As through the world o' waters I did go.
  Chorus.--Then the raging sea, etcetera.

  IV.

  One day a horrid grampus caught me all by the nose,
  An' swung me up to the land,
  An' I never went to sea again, as everybody knows,
  And as everybody well may understand, 'derstand, 'derstand,
  And as everybody well may understand.
  Chorus.--Then the raging sea, etcetera.

The plaudits with which this song was received were, it need scarcely be
remarked, due more to the vigour of the chorus and the enthusiasm of the
audience than to intrinsic merit.  Even Robin Wright was carried off his
legs for the moment, and, modest though he was, broke in at the chorus
with such effect--his voice being shrill and clear--that, he
unintentionally outyelled all the rest, and would have fled in
consternation from the saloon if he had not been caught and forcibly
detained by the sporting electrician, who demanded what right he had to
raise his steam-whistle in that fashion.

"But I say, young Wright," he added in a lower tone, leading our hero
aside, "what's this rumour I hear about a ghost in the steward's cabin?"

"Oh! it is nothing to speak of," replied Robin, with a laugh.  "The lad
they call Stumps got a fright--that's all."

"But that's enough.  Let us hear about it."

"Well, I suppose you know," said Robin, "that there's a ghost in the
Great Eastern."

"No, I don't know it from personal experience, but I have heard a report
to that effect."

"Well, I was down in Jim Slagg's berth, having a chat with him about the
nature of electric currents--for he has a very inquiring mind,--and
somehow we diverged to ghosts, and began to talk of the ghost of the
Great Eastern.

"`I don't believe in the Great Eastern ghost--no, nor in ghosts of any
kind,' said Stumps, who was sitting near us eating a bit of cheese.

"`But I believe in 'em,' said the boy Jeff, who was seated on the other
side of the table, and looked at us so earnestly that we could scarce
help smiling--though we didn't feel in a smiling humour at the time, for
it was getting dark, and we had got to talking in low tones and looking
anxiously over our shoulders, you know--

"`Oh yes, I know,' replied the sportsman, with a laugh; `I have
shuddered and grue-oo-ed many a time over ghost-stories.  Well?'

"`_I_ don't believe in 'em, Jeff.  Why do _you_?' asked Stumps, in a
scoffing tone.

"`Because I hear one every night a'most when I go down into the dark
places below to fetch things.  There's one particular spot where the
ghost goes tap-tap-tapping continually.'

"`Fiddlededee,' said Stumps.

"`Come down, and you shall hear it for yourself,' said Jeff.

"Now, they say that Stumps is a coward, though he boasts a good deal--"

"You may say," interrupted the sportsman, "that Stumps is a coward
_because_ he boasts a good deal.  Boasting is often a sign of
cowardice--though not always."

"Well," continued Robin, "being ashamed to draw back, I suppose, he
agreed to accompany Jeff.

"`Won't you come too, Slagg?' said Stumps.

"`No; I don't care a button for ghosts.  Besides, I'm too busy, but
Wright will go.  There, don't bother me!' said Jim.

"I noticed, as I went last out of the room, that Slagg rose quickly and
pulled a sheet off one of the beds.  Afterwards, looking back, I saw him
slip out and run down the passage in the opposite direction.  I
suspected he was about some mischief, but said nothing.

"It was getting dark, as I have said, though not dark enough for
lighting the lamps, and in some corners below it was as dark as
midnight.  To one of these places Jeff led us.

"`Mind how you go now,' whispered Jeff; `it's here somewhere, and
there's a hole too--look-out--there it is!'

"`What! the ghost?' whispered Stumps, beginning to feel uneasy.  To say
truth, I began to feel uneasy myself without well knowing why.  At that
moment I fell over something, and came down with a crash that shook
Stumps's nerves completely out of order.

"`I say, let's go back,' he muttered in a tremulous voice.

"`No, no,' whispered Jeff seizing Stumps by the arm with a sudden grip
that made him give a short yelp, `we are at the place now.  It's in this
dark passage.  Listen!'

"We all held our breath and listened.  For a few seconds we heard
nothing, but presently a slight tapping was heard.

"`I've heard,' whispered Jeff in a low tone, `that when the big ship was
buildin', one o' the plate-riveters disappeared in some hole between the
two skins o' the ship hereabouts, and his comrades, not bein' able to
find him, were obliged at last to rivet him in, which they did so tight
that even his ghost could not get out, so it goes on tappin', as you
hear, an' is likely to go on tappin' for ever.'

"`Bosh!' whispered Stumps; thus politely intimating his disbelief, but I
felt him trembling all over notwithstanding.

"At that moment we saw a dim shadowy whitish object at the other end of
the dark passage.  `Wha'--wha'--what's that?' said I.

"Stumps gasped.  I heard his teeth chattering, and I think his knees
were knocking together.  Jeff made no sound, and it was too dark to see
his face.  Suddenly the object rushed at us.  There was no noise of
footsteps--only a muffled sound and a faint hissing.  I stood still,
unable to move.  So did Jeff.  I felt the hair of my head rising.
Stumps gasped again--then turned and fled.  The creature, whatever it
was, brushed past us with a hideous laugh.  I guessed at once that it
was Jim Slagg, but evidently Stumps didn't, for he uttered an awful yell
that would have roused the whole ship if she had been of an ordinary
size; at the same moment he tripped and fell on the thing that had upset
me, and the ghost, leaping over him, vanished from our sight.

"To my surprise, on returning to our cabin, we found Slagg as we had
left him, with both hands on his forehead poring over his book.  I was
almost as much surprised to see Jeff sit down and laugh heartily.--Now,
what _do_ you think it could have been?"

"It was Slagg, of course," answered the sporting electrician.

"Yes, but what causes the tapping?"

"Oh, that is no doubt some little trifle--a chip of wood, or bit of wire
left hanging loose, which shakes about when the ship heaves."

A sudden tramping of feet overhead brought this ghostly discussion to an
abrupt close, and caused every man in the saloon to rush on deck with a
terrible feeling in his heart that something had gone wrong.

"Not broken?" asked an electrician with a pale face on reaching the
deck.

"Oh no, sir," replied an engineer, with an anxious look, "not quite so
bad as that, but a whale has taken a fancy to inspect us, and he is
almost _too_ attentive."

So it was.  A large Greenland whale was playing about the big ship,
apparently under the impression that she was a giant of his own species,
and it had passed perilously close to the cable.

A second time it came up, rolling high above the waves.  It went close
past the stern--rose again and dived with a gentle flop of its great
tail, which, if it had touched the cable, would have cut it like a
thread.  At that trying moment, as they saw its huge back glittering in
the moonlight, the hearts of the helpless spectators appeared absolutely
to stand still.  When the monster dived its side even touched the cable,
but did not damage it.  Being apparently satisfied by that time that the
ship was not a friend, the whale finally disappeared in the depths of
its ocean home.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Those who visited the Crystal Palace at Sydenham during the recent
Electrical Exhibition had an opportunity of seeing the shells here
referred to under a powerful microscope.



CHAPTER TEN.

TELLS OF GREAT EFFORTS AND FAILURES AND GRAND SUCCESS.

Thus happily and smoothly all things went, with little bursts of anxiety
and little touches of alarm, just sufficient, as it were, to keep up the
spirits of all, till the morning of the 30th July.  But on that morning
an appearance of excitement in the testing-room told that something had
again gone wrong.  Soon the order was given to slow the engines, then to
stop them!

The bursting of a thunder-clap, the explosion of a powder-magazine,
could not have more effectually awakened the slumberers than this abrupt
stoppage of the ship's engines.  Instantly all the hatchways poured
forth anxious inquirers.

"Another fault," was the reply to such.

"O dear!" said some.

"Horrible!" said others.

"Not so bad as a break," sighed the hopeful spirits.

"It is bad enough," said the chief electrician, "for we have found dead
earth."

By this the chief meant to say that insulation had been completely
destroyed, and that the whole current of electricity was escaping into
the sea.

About 716 miles had been payed out at the time, and as signals had till
then been regularly received from the shore, it was naturally concluded
that the fault lay near to the ship.

"Now then, get along," said an engineer to one of the cable-men; "you'll
have to cut, and splice, and test, while we are getting ready the tackle
to pick up."

"I don't like that cuttin' o' the cable, Bill," said one of the sailors,
as he went forward, "it seems dangerous, it do."

"No more do I, Dick," replied his mate; "I feel as if it never could be
rightly spliced again."

"Why, bless you, boys," said a cable-man near them, "cables is used to
that now, like eels to bein' skinned; and so are we, for that matter.
We think nothin' of it."

Clearly the cable-man was right, for, while the picking-up apparatus was
being got ready, the cable was cut in no fewer than three places, in
order to test the coils that lay in the tanks.  These being found all
right, the picking-up was begun with anxious care.  The moment of
greatest danger was when the big ship was swinging round.  For a few,
but apparently endless, moments the cable had to bear the strain, and
became rigid like a bar of steel.  Then it was got in over the bows,
where all was bustle, and noise, and smoke, as the picking-up machinery
panted and rattled.

All day the work went on.  Night descended, but still the cable was
coming in slowly, unwillingly,--now jerkily, as if half inclined to
yield, anon painfully, as if changing its mind, until the strain was
equal to two and a half tons.  A row of lanterns lighted it, and the men
employed watched and handled it carefully to detect the "fault," while
the clattering wheels played harsh music.

"We'll never find it," growled an impatient young electrician.

As if to rebuke him for his want of faith, the "fault" came in then and
there--at 9:50 p.m., ship's time.

"Ah!" said Mr Field, whose chief characteristic was an unwavering faith
in ultimate success, "I knew we should find it are long.  I have often
known cables to stop working for two hours, no one knew why, and then
begin again."

"Well now, Mr Wright, it floors me altogether, does this here talkin'
by electricity."

The man who made this remark to our hero was one who could not have been
easily "floored" by any other means than electricity.  He was a huge
blacksmith--a stalwart fellow who had just been heaving the
sledge-hammer with the seeming powers of Vulcan himself, and who chanced
to be near Robin when he paused to rest and mop the streaming
perspiration from his brow, while a well-matched brother took his place
at the anvil.

"You see," he continued, "I can't make out nohow what the electricity
does when it gits through the cable from Ireland to Noofun'land.  Of
course it don't actooally speak, you know--no more does it whistle, I
suppose; an' even if it did I don't see as we'd be much the wiser.  What
_do_ it do, Mr Wright?  You seem to be well up in these matters, an'
not above explainin' of 'em to the likes o' us as ha'n't got much
edication."

Few things pleased Robin more than being asked to impart what knowledge
he possessed, or to make plain subjects that were slightly complex.  He
was not always successful in his attempts at elucidation, partly because
some subjects were too complex to simplify, and partly because some
intellects were obtuse, but he never failed to try.

"You must know," he replied, with that earnest look which was apt to
overspread his face when about to explain a difficulty, "that a piece of
common iron can be converted into a magnet by electrifying it, and it
can be unconverted just as fast by removing the electricity.  Well,
suppose I have a bit of iron in America, with an electric battery in
Ireland, or _vice versa_--"

"W'ot's wicey wersa, Mr Wright?"

"Oh, it means the terms being changed--turned the other way, you know--
back to the front, as it were--in short, I mean the battery being in
America and the bit of iron in Ireland."

"Well, well, who'd a thought there was so much in wicey wersa; but go
on, Mr Wright."

"Now, you must suppose," continued Robin, "that a needle, like the
mariner's compass needle, hangs beside my bit of iron, close to it, and
that a wire, or conductor of electricity, connects the iron with my
electric battery in Ireland.  Well, that makes a magnet of it, and the
suspended needle, being attracted, sticks to it.  Then I disconnect the
wire from my battery by touching a handle, the bit of iron ceases to be
a magnet, and the needle was free.  Again I connect the battery, and the
needle flies to the remagnetised bit of iron.  Thus, as fast as I
choose, I can make the needle wag, and by a simple arrangement we can
make it wag right or left, so many beats right or left, or alternately,
representing letters.  By varying the beats we vary the letters, and
thus spell out our messages.  Now, do you understand it?"

"I ain't quite sure that I does," replied Vulcan; "I've got a hazy
notion that by touchin' and removin' the touch from a conductor,
connecting and disconnecting wires and batteries, you can make
electricity flow just as you let on or stop water by turnin' a
stopcock--"

"Not exactly," interrupted Robin, "because, you see, electricity does
not really flow, not being a substance."

"Not a substance, sir! w'y, w'ot is it then?"

"Like light and sound, it is merely an effect, an influence, a result,"
answered Robin.  "We only use the word _flow_, and talk of electricity
as a fluid, for convenience' sake."

"Well, w'otever it is or isn't," continued the puzzled Vulcan, gazing at
vacancy for a few seconds, "when you've set it agoin'--or set agoin' the
things as sets it agoin'--you make a suspended needle wag, and when you
stop it you make the needle stop waggin', and by the way in which that
there needle wags you can spell out the letters o' the alphabit--so many
wags to the right bein' one letter, so many wags to the left bein'
another letter, an' so on,--so that, what between the number o' wags an'
the direction o' the waggin's, you--you come for to--there, I'm lost
again, an' I must go in for another spell wi' the sledge, so we'll have
to tackle the subject another time, Mr Wright."

Thus speaking, Vulcan seized the ponderous hammer in his powerful grasp
and proceeded to beat form into a mass of glowing metal with much
greater ease than he had been able to thump telegraphy into his own
brain.

In the discovery of the "fault" and the cutting out of the injured part
of the cable, twenty-six hours were lost.  During all the time Captain
Anderson was obliged to remain on deck, while the minds and bodies of
the engineers and electricians were subjected to a severe strain for the
same period.  They had scarcely begun to breathe freely again, and to
congratulate each other on being able to continue the voyage, when they
received another shock of alarm by the cable suddenly flying off the
drum, while it was being transferred from the picking-up machinery in
the bow to the paying-out arrangements in the stern.  Before the
machinery could be stopped, some fathoms of cable had become entangled
among the wheels and destroyed.  This part having been cut out, however,
and new splices made, the paying-out process was resumed.

"I'll turn in now and have a snooze, Robin," said Ebenezer Smith, "and
you had better do the same; you look tired."

This was indeed true, for not a man or boy in the ship took a more
anxious interest in the cable than did our little hero; he had begun to
regard it as a living creature, and to watch over it, and dream about
it, as if it were a dear friend in extreme danger.  The enthusiastic boy
was actually becoming careworn and thin, for he not only performed all
the duties required of him with zealous application, but spent his
leisure, and much of the time that should have been devoted to rest, in
the careful study of his idol--intensely watching it, and all that was
in the remotest way connected with it.

"You're a goose," said Stumps, in passing, when he heard Robin decline
to retire as Smith had advised him.

"It may be so, and if so, Stumps, I shall continue to cackle a little
longer on deck while they are examining the fault."

That examination, when finished, produced a considerable sensation.  The
process was conducted in private.  The condemned portion was cut in
junks and tested, until the faulty junk was discovered.  This was
untwisted until the core was laid bare, and when about a foot of it had
been so treated, the cause of evil was discovered, drawing from the
onlookers an exclamation of horror rather than surprise, as they stood
aghast, for _treachery_ seemed to have been at work!

"An enemy in the ship!" murmured one.

"What ship without an enemy?" thought another.

That mischief had been intended was obvious, for a piece of iron wire,
bright as if cut with nippers at one end and broken off short at the
other, had been driven right through the centre of the cable, so as to
touch the inner wires--thus forming a leak, or conductor, into the sea.
There could be no doubt that it had not got there by accident; neither
had it been driven there during the making or shipping of the cable, for
in that case the testings for continuity would have betrayed its
presence before the starting of the expedition.  The piece of wire, too,
was the same size as that which formed the protecting cover, and it was
of the exact diameter of the cable.  There was also the mark of a cut on
the Manilla hemp, where the wire had entered.  It could have been done
only by one of the men who were at work in the tank at the time the
portion went over, and, strange to say, this was the same gang which had
been at work there when the previous "fault" occurred.

"Call all the men aft," was the order that quickly followed this
discovery.

The piece of cable was handed to them, and they were allowed to examine
it in silence.  They did so in great surprise, mingled with indignation.

"It's bin done a'purpose, an' driven in by a skilful hand," said one.

"You're right, Joe," said another.

"I knows," whispered a third, "that _one_ of the men expressed
satisfaction when the last fault occurred, an' I've heard say that we've
got enemies to the makers o' the cable aboard."

The man thus darkly referred to, whoever he was, of course looked as
innocent and as indignant as the most virtuous among them; the guilt,
therefore, could not be brought home to him.  Woe betide him if it had
been, for there was a serious talk of lynching some one among the
wrathful men, each of whom was now subject to suspicion.

In these trying circumstances, the chief engineer accepted an offer made
by the gentlemen in the ship, to take turn about in superintending the
men at work in the tank paying-out the cable.

"It's not pleasant, of course," replied one of the men, speaking for the
rest, "but we feel it to be justifiable, as well as necessary, and are
very glad the plan has been adopted."

Once more the big ship went merrily on her way, and the great cable went
down to its ocean-bed so smoothly and regularly, that men began to talk
of speedy arrival at Heart's Content--their destination in
Newfoundland--which was now only about 600 miles distant; but their
greatest troubles still lay before them.  About eight o'clock in the
morning of 2nd August another bad fault was reported, and they had once
again to resort to the wearisome process of picking-up.

At first all seemed about to go well.  A gale was indeed blowing at the
time, but that did not much affect the colossal ship.  The cable was
cut, fastened to its iron rope, passed to the bow, and got in over the
pulleys.  Then, and very slowly, it was drawn on board.  When a mile or
so had been recovered, the gearing of one of the engines got a little
out of order, and the process had to be temporarily stopped; then
something went wrong with the boilers, but soon these difficulties were
removed.  Immediately after, the Great Eastern drifted, so that it was
impossible to prevent the cable from chafing against her bows.  Equally
impossible was it to go astern, lest the strain should be too great.
Then the wind suddenly shifted, making matters worse.  Suddenly the
chain shackle and wire-rope attached to the cable came in over the wheel
at the bows with considerable violence.  Another moment and the cable
parted, flew through the stoppers, and, with one bound, flashed into the
sea and disappeared!

Now, at last, the fatal climax so much dreaded had arrived.  The days
and nights of anxious labour had been spent in vain.  The cable was
lost, and with it went not only hundreds of thousands of pounds, but the
hopes of hundreds of thousands of people, whose sanguine expectations of
success were thus rudely dispelled.

Need it be said that something very like despair reigned for the moment
on board the Great Eastern?

Most of the gentlemen on board--never dreaming of catastrophe--were at
luncheon, when Mr Canning entered the saloon with a look that caused
every one to start.

"It is all over!--it is gone!" he said, and hastened to his cabin.

Mr Field, with the composure of faith and courage, though very pale,
entered the saloon immediately after, and confirmed the chief engineer's
statement.

"The cable has parted," he said, "and has gone overboard."

From the chiefs down even to Stumps and his fraternity all was blank
dismay!  As for our hero Robin Wright, he retired to his cabin, flung
himself on his bed, and sobbed as though his heart would break.

But such a state of things could not last.  Men's spirits may be stunned
and crushed, but they are seldom utterly overwhelmed so long as life
endures.

Recovering from the shock, Mr Canning set about the process of
grappling for the lost cable with persistent energy.  But fishing in
water two and a half miles deep is no easy matter.  Nevertheless, it was
done.  Again and again, and over again, were two monster hooks in the
shape of grapnels let down to the bottom of the sea, with an iron rope
for a line, and the Great Eastern for a float!

The plan, of course, was to go back a few miles on their course and then
drag across the known position of the lost treasure.

We say known, because good observations had fortunately been obtained by
Captain Anderson just before the accident.

Two hours did the grapnels descend before they reached the bottom of the
sea!  All night did the cable-layers fish, with the characteristic
patience of fishermen, but did not get a nibble.  Towards morning,
however, there was a decided bite, and the line became taut.

"Got him!" exclaimed an enthusiast eagerly.

"Don't be too sure," replied a philosopher cautiously.

"It may be a bit of wreck," suggested Ebenezer Smith, who was a natural
doubter.

"Or a whale, or the great sea-serpent," said the sporting electrician,
who was everything by turns and nothing long.

"We shall very soon know," remarked a matter-of-fact engineer.  "If it
is a loose object the strain will decrease as it nears the surface, but
if it be the cable the strain will certainly increase, because its
weight will be greater the more of it we lift off the bottom."

Earnestly did every one regard the dynamometer which told the exact
amount of strain on the iron fishing-line, and to their joy the strain
_increased_ until the object caught had been raised three-quarters of a
mile from the bottom.  Then a swivel gave way, and the cable went back
to its ocean-bed.

But those plucky engineers were not to be overcome by a first failure.
Having started with five miles of fishing-line, they proceed at once to
make a second attempt.

"Oh, I _do_ hope they will hook it again!" said Robin Wright.

"And so they will," said Ebenezer Smith.

And so they did.  Late in the afternoon of the Monday following, their
fish was again hooked and raised a full mile from the bottom, when
another swivel gave way, and down it went a second time!

The fishing-line was now getting short.  It behoved them to act with
more caution.  New bolts were put in each shackle and swivel, and the
capstan was increased in diameter, being belted with thick plates of
iron.  To effect these alterations the forges had to be erected on deck,
and at night these cast a lurid glare on the busy workers, bringing out
every near object in vivid relief against the ebony background of space
behind, while they made preparations for a third cast of the
fishing-line.  The cast was made successfully, it was thought, but one
of the grapnels had caught the line with one of its flukes, so that it
could not catch anything else, and the result was--nothing.

A fourth attempt was then made.  It was to be the last.  The
fishing-line seemed too weak, and its frequent breakings had reduced it
so much that other chains had to be attached to it.  With this thing of
shreds and patches the cable was once more hooked and brought up nearly
eight hundred fathoms, when the line gave way once more, and the cable
went down for the last time.

Nothing more could be done.  The Great Eastern turned her large bows to
the east and steered grandly though sadly, away for old England.

But don't imagine, good reader, that these cable-layers were beaten.
They were baffled, indeed, for that year (1865), but not conquered.
Cyrus Field had resolved that the thing should be done--and done it was
the following year; for the laying of the cable had been so nearly a
success, that great capitalists, such as Brassey, Gooch, Barclay,
Campbell, Pender, and others, at once came forward.  Among these were
the contractors, Glass and Elliot, who agreed not only to make and lay a
new cable, but to pick up and complete the old one.  Cyrus Field
himself, besides energising like Hercules to push the matter on, was one
of ten subscribers who each contributed 10,000 pounds.  Thus 230,500
pounds were privately subscribed before a prospectus was issued.

Our little hero was at the laying of that (1866) cable, when the same
great ship, with the same captain and most of the engineers and
electricians who had gone out on the previous voyage, landed the end of
the 1820-mile rope on the shores of Newfoundland, on Friday, 27th July.
He cheered with the rest in wild enthusiasm when the Great Eastern
dropped anchor in "Heart's Content."  He accompanied Captain Anderson
and the officers of the fleet when they went in a body to the little
church there, to thank God for the successful completion of the great
enterprise.  He was present when the big ship, having received from
other ships 8000 tons of coal, and some six hundred miles of the old
cable, went back to mid-ocean to grapple for the lost cable of 1865.  He
assisted and watched with the deepest interest the amazing efforts of
scientific and mechanical power put forth in the mere matter of dragging
for the cable from the bottom, and observed with reverence, amounting
almost to awe, the great moving spirit of the whole affair, the
indomitable Mr Field, as he went to the bow and sat on the rope to feel
the quiver which told him it was dragging the bottom of the sea two
miles below.  He was present, with blazing cheeks and eyes and bated
breath, when, on the 17th of August, the cable was caught, dragged to
the surface, and actually seen, and broke and sank again as deep as
ever--though not so deep as the hearts of those who saw it go!  He
shared in the weary delays that followed, and in the final triumph when
the cable was fairly caught and at last brought on board, and carried to
the testing-room, amid intense excitement, lest it should prove to have
been damaged by its rough treatment; and his voice helped to swell the
roar of enthusiastic cheering that greeted the announcement that the old
cable was still alive!

But all this we must leave, and carry the reader back to old England
faster than the Great Eastern could have rushed--ay, faster than the
message on the flashing cable itself could have sped, for mind is more
subtle than matter, and thought is swifter than even the Atlantic
Telegraph.



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

HOME!

"At last!" exclaimed Robin, bursting into his old home and seizing his
mother in his arms.

Robin had just returned home after the laying of the 1866 Atlantic
Cable, as briefly narrated in the last chapter.

It may be said with some truth that the old home became, during the next
few days, a private lunatic asylum, for its inmates went mildly mad with
joy.

Chief among the lunatics was uncle Rik, the retired sea-captain.  That
madman's case, however, was not temporary derangement, like the others'.
It was confirmed insanity, somewhat intensified just then by the
nephew's return.

"So, young man," he said, one evening at supper, when the family
traveller was dilating to open-eyed-and-mouthed listeners, "you actually
believe that these cables are goin' to work?"

"Of course I do, uncle.  They are working now, and have been working for
many years."

"Well, now, the gullibility o' some people is stupendous!" returned Rik.
"Don't you know, Robin, that everything a'most works for a time, and
then, sooner or later--usually sooner--the ridiculous thing bursts up?"

"But, uncle, you beg the question in classing submarine cables among
ridiculous things.  Besides, have not dozens of cables been working
satisfactorily for many years, without showing signs of bursting up as
yet?"

"Pooh! bah! boh!" replied uncle Rik, by which he meant to say that
though convinced against his will he was of the same opinion still.

At that moment cousin Sam Shipton entered with an eager, excited look.

"It's all settled," he said, taking Robin by the hand.

"What is settled?" asked Mrs Wright, somewhat anxiously.

"Mother, don't be angry," said Robin, laying his hand on his mother's
shoulder, and speaking tenderly, "I meant to have told you the moment I
came in to-day, but uncle Rik with his argumentative spirit drove it and
everything else except cables out of my head--"

"Well, but what is it?" interrupted Madge impatiently; "why do you keep
us in suspense?"

"I have some prospect, mother, of being appointed to go with a
telegraph-laying party to the East, but Sam is wrong when he says it is
all settled.  Whatever he may have to tell us, it is by no means settled
until I have your and father's opinion."

"Well, you horribly good but ungrateful boy," returned Sam, "it is at
least settled as far as I have do with it.  I have made application at
head-quarters, and they are willing to take you on my recommendation.
Moreover, I am myself going."

"You're joking, Sam!" exclaimed Robin, with a flush of joy; "I thought
you had neither intention nor desire to go far from home."

"You thought wrong, Robin.  I always had desire, and now have
intention--and I go as second in command.  So, Miss Mayland," he
continued, turning to Madge, "I shan't be able to continue those
electrical lectures which you were so fond of once, but have lately
seemed to grow tired of."

Madge was at that tender age of budding womanhood when sensitive girls
are apt to misunderstand a jest.  She blushed, stammered something, then
forced a laugh, and turned to speak to Robin; but Sam perceived that
tears rose to her eyes, and he instantly sank in his own estimation to
the condition of a loathsome reptile.

"Well, now, that is good news," cried Robin, applying himself to the
viands on the table with renewed zest.  "You cannot have the smallest
objection or anxiety, mother, I should think, when you know I shall be
under so able a guide."

"I have not yet thought it over, Robin."

"And you, father?"

"Go, my boy, and my blessing go with you," said Mr Wright, all but
choking the blessing with a huge oyster.

"Are any labourers to go with us?" asked Robin.

"One or two picked ones."

"Then you must allow me to pick one, Sam.  My friend Jim Slagg is at
present cast adrift with a considerable part of the Great Eastern's
crew.  He will be delighted to go, I know, and is a first-rate,
hard-working, willing, conscientious youth."

"He ought to be proud of having so warm a friend and advocate," said
Sam, "but I have no power to choose the men."

"O yes, you have, Sam.  If you could get me appointed, you can get him
appointed; and you must, for, if you don't, I won't go."

"You are hard on me, Robin, but I'll try."

"But you have not yet told us where it is that they are going to send
you," said Mrs Wright.

"Ah! that's not fixed," replied Sam; "they are laying down lines in
Turkey; and Egypt is talked of, and telegraph to India itself is even
hinted at.  All I know is that we shall be sent to the East somewhere."

"Bah! boo!  Why does nobody ask for _my_ opinion on the matter?" said
uncle Rik, as he gazed at the company over a goose drumstick, which was
obviously not tender.

"Your opinion, brother," said Mr Wright, "is so valuable, that no doubt
your nephew has been keeping it to the last as a sort of tit-bit--eh,
Robin?"

"Well, uncle; come, let us have it," said Robin.

"You don't deserve it," returned Rik, with a wrench at the drumstick,
"but you shall have it all the same, free, gratis.  Was this bird fed on
gutta-percha shavings, sister Nan?"

"Perhaps--or on violin strings, I'm not sure which," replied Mrs Wright
blandly.

"Well," continued the captain, "you youngsters will go off, I see, right
or wrong, and you'll get half-drowned in the sea, roasted in the East,
smothered in the desert, eaten alive by cannibals, used-up by the
plague, poisoned by serpents, and tee-totally ruined altogether.  Then
you'll come home with the skin of your teeth on--nothing more."

"I sincerely hope it will be summer at the time," said Sam, laughing;
"but we are grateful to you for prophesying that we shall return, even
though in such light clothing."

"That's what'll happen," continued the captain, regarding the other
drumstick with some hesitation; "you may take the word of an old salt
for it.  I've lived in the good old times, lads, and I know that all
these new-fangled notions are goin' to burst up--and _that's_ what'll
come of it."

Whether that was what came of it remains to be seen.



CHAPTER TWELVE.

A GREAT DYNAMO-ELECTRIC SEA-FIGHT.

A few weeks after the utterance of Captain Rik's famous prophecy, Robin,
Sam, Stumps, and Slagg found themselves on board of a large submarine
cable steam-ship, named the Triton, ploughing the billows of the
Southern Ocean.

A few weeks later and they were drawing near to that great concourse of
islands known as the Malay Archipelago, where nature is exceptionally
beautiful, but man is rather vile.  At all events, that region of the
ocean lying to the south of China has been long infamous for the number
and ferocity of its pirates, who, among the numerous islands, with their
various channels, creeks, and rivers, have found a suitable field for
their bloody and remorseless game.

"D'you know, I don't believe in pirates?" said Robin to Sam, as they
stood at the bow of the cable-ship, conversing about these sea-robbers.

"They believe in _you_ nevertheless, as you'd find out to your cost if
we came across one just now."

The voice that replied was not Sam's, but that of the captain, who had
come forward to get a clearer sweep of the horizon ahead with his glass.

"Do you think it likely, sir, that we may meet with any of the rascals?"
asked Sam.

"Not at all unlikely," replied the captain, fixing his glass and putting
it to his eye, "though I don't think it likely that we shall be
attacked, as we are large and don't look like a richly freighted
merchant-man.  However, there is no saying.  These scoundrels fear
nothing, and when hard up will attack anything but a man-of-war, I half
suspect that I am looking at one of them now."

This latter announcement, calmly uttered, threw all who heard it into
quite a flutter of excitement.

The captain was a big, dark-skinned, bearded man, with a quiet,
half-humorous, half-sarcastic expression of countenance.

"Do you really think it is a pirate?" asked Robin, eagerly.

"I really do," replied the captain, "and I fear we may have to run out
of our course to avoid her.  You see, I am a man of peace, and abhor
bloodshed, therefore I won't fight if I can help it."

Saying this he gave orders to have the course of the steamer changed.

Just then there occurred one of those _contretemps_ which don't often
happen, but which, when they do, are often prolific of disaster; an
important part of the machinery broke down, and the engine, for the
moment, was rendered useless.  It was most unfortunate, for the
suspicious craft lay to windward, and a light breeze was blowing carried
it steadily towards them, although all the sail the steamer possessed
was crowded on her.

"Come aft here, Mr Shipton, and tell your chief to come with you.  I
want to hold a council of war," said the captain.

Summoning the first mate and chief engineer, as well as the
electricians, the captain went to the after part of the quarter-deck,
where, seated on the taffrail, he deliberated with the extemporised
council measures for repelling an expected attack.

What these deliberations tended to, those not of the council could not
tell, but from the energy of the members, and an occasional burst of
laughter from the group, it was obvious, as Jim Slagg remarked, that
"mischief o' some sort was in the wind."

Presently the council broke up, and the members went actively below, as
men do who have a purpose to carry out promptly.

Meanwhile the pirate vessel came within range and fired a shot which
missed them.  The fire was not repeated.  Evidently they meant to get
within easy range before trying another shot.

In a few minutes the electricians came on deck with several large coils
of copper wire, which they uncoiled and distributed mysteriously about
the sides of the vessel.  At the same time several lengths of leathern
pump hose were laid along the deck, and fire-branches or nozzles
attached to them.

"Run out our stern-guns now," said the captain, with a grim smile, "and
give it 'em hot.  It won't do to seem to give in too easy.  Run up the
Union Jack.  Don't take aim.  I want more noise and smoke than
mischief--d'ye understand?"

The officer to whom this was addressed, said, "Ay, ay, sir," in the
usual tone of ready obedience, adding, however, in an undertoned growl,
"but I _don't_ understand, for all that!"

He obeyed the orders literally, being well disciplined, and the result
was a sudden and most furious cannonade, for the pirate replied with
vigour, using all the guns he could bring to bear; but no damage was
done on either side for some time, until at last a ball from the enemy
went crash through the smoke funnel of the Triton with a most sonorous
bang!

"That'll do now," cried the captain, "cease firing and haul down the
colours."

If the captain had said, "Cut away the rudder and heave the boilers
overboard," he could scarcely have caused more surprise in his crew,
who, by his orders, had assembled on deck, every man being armed with
musket, cutlass, and revolver.  His orders were strictly and promptly
obeyed, however.

By this time the light breeze had fallen and a dead calm prevailed, so
that the sails of the pirate flapped idly against her masts, and her
crew were seen busily lowering her boats.

"We could have soon got out of her way if our engines had not broke
down," growled the captain, as he went toward the front of the
quarter-deck and looked down on the armed men in the waist.  "My lads,"
he said, "the blackguards are Malay pirates.  They are lowering their
boats, and will be alongside in less than half an hour.  I don't need to
tell you what you'll have to expect if they take us.  We must beat 'em
off or _die_; for it's better to die sword in hand than to be tortured
or strangled.  Those of you, however, who prefer the latter modes of
going under may show the white feather and enjoy yourselves in your own
way.  Now, lads, you know me.  I expect obedience to orders to the
letter.  I hate fighting and bloodshed--so don't kill unless you can't
help it.  Also, take care that you don't touch these copper wires on the
sides with either finger or foot.  If you do you'll repent it, for
electricians don't like their gear handled."

Turning abruptly round, for the oars of the approaching boats could now
be distinctly heard, the captain asked Sam if his batteries were well
charged.

"Chock-full, sir," replied Sam with a broad grin; "there's not a bit of
iron all round the ship that a man could lay hold of without receiving
his due!"

"Good," said the captain, turning to the chief engineer; "are the hose
attached and the boilers hot?"

"Bubblin' up fit to burst, sir.  I've weighted the safety-valves to give
it force?"

Without another word the captain stepped to the port gangway, and took
off his hat to the advancing pirates.  The pirate captain, not to be
outdone in civility, took off his fez and bowed as the boat ranged
alongside.  The captain carefully held out one of the man-ropes to his
enemy.  He grasped it and seized the other.

An instantaneous yell of the most appalling nature issued from his
mouth, and never before, since ship-building began, were a couple of
man-ropes thrown off with greater violence!  The pirate captain fell
back into his boat, and the captain of the steamer stepped promptly back
to avoid the storm of bullets that were let fly at his devoted head.  At
the starboard gangway the chief mate performed the same ceremony to
another boat with a like result.

The pirates were amazed and enraged, but not cowed.  With a wild cheer
they made a simultaneous dash at the ship's sides all round.  With a
wilder yell they fell back into their boats,--shocked beyond expression!
A few of them, however, chanced to lay hold of ropes or parts of the
vessel that were not electrified.  These gained the bulwarks.

"Shove in some more acid," said the chief electrician in suppressed
excitement to Sam Shipton, who stood beside the batteries below.

"Stir up the fires, lads," cried the chief engineer to his men at the
boilers beneath, as he stood holding a fire-nozzle ready.

Intensified yells all round told that chemical action had not been
applied in vain, while the pirates who had gained the bulwarks were met
with streams of boiling water in their faces.  Heroes may and do face
shot and shell coolly without flinching, but no hero ever faced boiling
water coolly.  The pirates turned simultaneously and received the
streams in rear.  Light cotton is but a poor defence in such
circumstances.  They sloped over the sides like eels, and sought refuge
in the sea.  Blazing with discomfiture and amazement, but not yet
dismayed, these ferocious creatures tried the assault a second time.
Their fury became greater, so did the numbers that gained a footing on
the bulwarks, but not one reached the deck!  The battery and the boiler
played a part that day which it had never before entered into the brain
of the wildest scientist to conceive.  The hissing of the hot shower and
the vigour of the cold shock were only equalled by the unearthly yelling
of the foe, whose miraculous bounds and plunges formed a scene that is
altogether indescribable.

The crew of the steamer stood spell-bound, unable to fight even if there
had been occasion for so doing.  The dark-skinned captain became
Indian-red in the face from suppressed laughter.

Suddenly a tremor ran through the steamer, as if she too were unable to
restrain her feelings.  During the fight--if we may so call it--the
engineers had been toiling might and main in the buried depths of their
engine-room; the broken parts of the engine had been repaired or
refitted, and a throb of life had returned to the machinery.  In its
first revolution the screw touched the stern of a pirate-boat and turned
it upside down.  Another boat at the bow was run over.  The crews of
both swam away like ducks, with their long knives between their teeth.
The other boats hauled off.

"Now, captain," cried Robin Wright, who, during the whole time, had
stood as if transfixed, with a cutlass in one hand, a pistol in the
other, and his mouth, not to mention his eyes, wide open; "Now, captain,
we shall get away without shedding a drop of blood!"

"Yes," replied the captain, "but not without inflicting punishment.
Port your helm--hard a port!"

"Port it is, sir--hard over," replied the man at the wheel, and away
went the steamer with a grand circular sweep which speedily brought her,
bow-on, close to the pirate vessel.

"Steady--so!" said the captain, at the same time signalling "full steam"
to the engine-room.

The space between the two vessels quickly decreased.  The part of the
pirate crew which had been left on board saw and understood.  With a
howl of consternation, every man sprang into the sea.  Next moment their
vessel was cut almost in two and sent fathoms down into the deep, whence
it rose a limp and miserable remnant, flattened out upon the waves.

"Now," observed the captain, with a pleasant nod, "we'll leave them to
get home the best way they can.  A boat voyage in such fine weather in
these latitudes will do them good."

Saying which, he resumed his course, and steamed away into the regions
of the far East.



CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

TELLS OF A SUDDEN AND UNLOOKED-FOR EVENT.

How often it has been said, "Good for man that he does not know what
lies before him."  If he did we fear he would face his duty with very
different feelings from those which usually animate him.  Certain it is
that if Robin Wright and Sam Shipton had known what was before them--
when they stood one breezy afternoon on the ship's deck, casting glances
of admiration up at the mountain waves of the southern seas, or taking
bird's-eye views of the valleys between them--their eyes would not have
glistened with such flashes of delight, for the fair prospects they
dreamed of were not destined to be realised.

What these prospects were was made plain by their conversation.

"Won't it be a splendid opportunity, Sam, to become acquainted with all
the outs and ins of telegraphy, this laying of lines from island to
island in the China Seas?"

"It will, indeed, Robin,--a sort of compound or alternating
land-and-submarine line.  At one time we shall be using palm-trees for
posts and carrying wires through the habitations of parrots and monkeys,
at another we shall be laying them down among the sharks and coral
groves."

"By the way," said Robin, "is it true that monkeys may prove to be more
troublesome to us in these regions than sparrows and crows are at home?"

"Of course it is, my boy.  Have you never heard that on some of our
Indian lines, baboons, vultures, and other heavy creatures have
sometimes almost broken down the telegraphs by taking exercise and
roosting on the wires?"

"Indeed, I hope it won't be so with us.  At all events, sharks won't be
much tempted, I should fancy, by submarine cables."

"There's no saying, Robin.  They are not particular when hungry.  By the
way, I saw you talking with unusual earnestness this morning to Jim
Slagg; what was the matter with him?"

"Poor fellow! you'd scarcely believe it, to look at him," replied Robin,
"but the lad is actually home-sick."

"Home-sick!  Why, how's that?  If we were only a few days out from port,
or even a week or two, I could understand it, but seeing that we are now
drawing near to the China Seas, I should have thought--"

"Oh, that's easily explained," interrupted Robin.  "This is his mother's
birthday, it seems, a day that has always been kept with much rejoicing,
he tells me, by his family, and it has brought back home and home-life
with unusual force to him.  With all his rough off-handedness, Slagg is
a tender-hearted, affectionate fellow.  Somehow he has taken it into his
head that this voyage will be disastrous, and that he will never see his
mother again.  I had great difficulty in showing him the
unreasonableness of such a belief."

"No doubt you had.  It is unreasonable beliefs that people usually hold
with greatest tenacity," replied Sam, with a touch of sarcasm.  "But
tell me, have he and Stumps never once quarrelled since leaving
England?"

"Never."

"I'm amazed--they are so unlike in every way."

"You would not be surprised if you knew them as I do," returned Robin.
"Ever since Slagg gave him that thrashing on board the Great Eastern in
1865, Stumps has been a changed man.  It saved him from himself, and he
has taken such a liking to Slagg that nothing will part them.  It was
that made me plead so hard for Stumps to be taken with us, because I
felt sure Slagg would not go without him, and although we might easily
have done without Stumps, we could not have got on so well without
Slagg."

"I'm not so sure of that, my boy.  Your opinion of him is too high,
though I admit him to be a first-rate youth.  Indeed, if it were not so,
he should not be here.--Was that a shark's fin alongside?"

"Yes, I think so.  Cook has been throwing scraps overboard, I suppose.--
See, there goes an empty meat-tin."

As he spoke the article named rose into the air, and fell with a splash
in the water.  At the same time Jim Slagg was seen to clamber on the
bulwarks and look over.

"Come here--look alive, Stumps!" he shouted.

Stumps, whose proper name, it is but fair to state, was John Shanks,
clambered clumsily to his friend's side just in time to see a shark open
its horrid jaws and swallow the meat-tin.

"Well now, I never!" exclaimed Slagg.  "He didn't even smell it to see
if it was to his taste."

"P'r'aps he's swallowed so many before," suggested Stumps, "that he
takes for granted it's all right."

"Well it's on'y flavour; and he has caught a Tartar this time," returned
the other, "unless, maybe, tin acts like pie-crust does on human
vitals."

The low deep voice of the captain was heard at this moment ordering a
reef to be taken in the top-sails, and then it began to strike Robin and
Sam that the breeze was freshening into something like a gale, and that
there were some ominous-looking clouds rising on the windward horizon.
Gazing at this cloud-bank for a few minutes, the captain turned and
ordered the top-sails to be close-reefed, and most of the other sails
either furled or reduced to their smallest size.

He was in good time, and the vessel was ready for the gale, when it
rushed down on them hissing like a storm-fiend.

The good ship bent before the blast like a willow, but rose again, and,
under the influence of able seamanship, went bravely on her course,
spurning the billows from her swelling bows.

"What a thing it is to know that there is a good hand at the helm in
times of danger!" remarked Sam as he and our hero stood under the
shelter of the starboard bulwarks, holding on with both hands to the
rigging, while the rushing waves tossed them on high or let them drop in
the troughs of the seas; "I should feel safe with our captain in any
circumstances."

"So should I," said Robin with enthusiasm, his eyes glistening with
delight as he gazed on the angry ocean.

There was no thought of danger in the mind of any one at that moment.  A
good ship, ably commanded, well manned, and with plenty of sea-room,--
what more could be desired?  Nevertheless, deadly peril was close at
hand.

That marvellous little creature--which, in the southern seas, builds its
little cell, works its little day and dies, leaving to succeeding
generations of its kind to build their little cells and die, each using
its predecessor's mansion as a foundation for its own, until pile on
pile forms a mass, and mass on mass makes a mountain--the coral insect,
had reared one of its submarine edifices just where the cable-ship
Triton had to pass that day.  For ages man had traversed that sea
without passing exactly over that mountain, and even if he had, it would
not have mattered, for the mountain had been always many fathoms below
the surface.  But now the decree had gone forth.  The conjunction of
events predestined had come about.  The distance between the mountain
summit and the ocean surface had been reduced to feet.  The Triton rose
on the top of a mighty billow as she reached the fated spot.  The coral
peak rose near the bottom of the water-hollow beyond, and down on it the
doomed ship went with an awful crash!

Her speed was checked only an instant, for the top of the rock was
knocked off by the force of the blow, and the ship passed swiftly on,
but there could be no mistaking the significance of that shock.  An
involuntary shout of alarm from some,--a gasp, halt of surprise, half of
horror, from others,--then a rush of active effort when the captain gave
orders to man the pumps.

There was urgent need for haste.  The mass of coral rock had stuck in
the hole it had made, else had they gone down in a few minutes.  As it
was, the water rushed in furiously, so much so that the captain detailed
a party of men to construct a raft, while the rest relieved each other
at the pumps.  No doubt he was partly urged to this course by the
consideration that a vessel weighted with telegraph-cables and other
heavy material connected therewith could not float long in a leaky
condition.

"Keep close to me, Robin; we must sink or swim together."

It was Sam who spoke.  He was very pale, but his firmly-compressed lips
showed no sign of unmanly fear.  Robin, on the contrary, taken by
surprise, and too inexperienced to correctly estimate sudden danger, was
flushed with the feeling that now was the time to do and dare whatever
should be required of him!  They went to the pumps together, where
Stumps and Slagg were already at work with many others.

It is surprising how fast and hard men will toil when life depends on
the result.  There was a cat-like activity about the carpenter and his
mates as they cut, sawed, lashed, and bolted together the various spars
and planks which formed the raft.  In a marvellously short space of time
it was ready and launched over the side, and towed astern by the
strongest cable on board, for the danger of parting from it in such
weather was very great.  Knowing this they had lashed some casks of pork
and other provisions to it before launching.

Still they laboured with unflagging resolution at the pumps, for many of
those on board were picked men, whose sense of honour urged them to
strive to the uttermost to save the ship, for it was no ordinary
merchant-man, freighted with an ordinary cargo, which could easily be
replaced as well as insured, but a vessel freighted with those magic
wires which couple continents and unite humanity, whose loss might
delay, though it could not ultimately arrest, the benign and rapid
intercourse of man with man in all parts of the globe.

"Keep your eye on Sam and me," whispered Robin to Jim Slagg, finding
himself alongside that worthy during a spell of rest.  "Let us keep
together, whatever happens."

Robin did not quite believe that anything serious was going to happen.
Some spirits find it as difficult to believe in impending disaster as
others find it to believe in continued safety.  It seemed so impossible
to Robin, in his inexperience, that the strong and still buoyant vessel
which had borne them so long and bravely should sink!  Nevertheless,
like the rest, he laboured with a will.

Slagg took the opportunity to give a similar caution to his friend
Stumps.

"She's sinking, sir," said the carpenter, who had been sounding the
well, to the captain, about an hour later.

"I know it; stand by to have the raft hauled alongside.  Knock off now,
lads, there's no use in pumping any more."

The men ceased, with a deep sigh, and by that act the death-warrant of
the cable-ship was signed.

During the next quarter of an hour the crew were busy slipping down the
cable that held the raft.  A few ran below to fetch small articles that
they valued, but by that time the vessel was so low in the water, that
there was little time to spare, and the captain began to urge haste.

"Now then, lads, over the side with you," he said, chancing to look at
Sam Shipton as he spoke!

That spirit of heroism which induces men to resolve to be the last to
quit a sinking ship, came over Sam just then, and he shrank back.  He
and his chief were in charge of the telegraph apparatus.  It would be
disgraceful to quit until all on board had left.  He laid his hand on
the strong cable that held the raft and said, "I'll stay to the last,
sir, and cast off the rope, if you'll allow me."

"We don't cast off ropes in such circumstances," replied the captain;
"we cut 'em."

Sam was silenced, but not the less resolved to hold to his point, if
possible.  He still held back, while the captain, being busy with the
others, some of whom were rather too eager to go, paid no further
attention to him.  Robin, Slagg, and Stumps, recognising Sam as their
leader, fell behind him and kept close.

At last all were on the raft except the captain and the four friends.

"Now, then, come along," said the former, somewhat impatiently.

"After you, sir," said Sam, with a polite bow.

"Overboard, sir!" shouted the captain, in a voice that would brook no
denial, and Sam at once stepped on the bulwark, for he was not naturally
rebellious.

Just as he spoke the rope broke, and the raft fell astern.

"Jump! jump! it's your only chance," cried the captain, at the same
moment springing into the sea.

Sam was on the point of following, when an exclamation from Slagg
checked him.  Looking quickly back, he saw that Robin was not there.

Our hero, while modestly standing behind his comrades, had suddenly
remembered that the small bible given him by his mother was lying on the
shelf at the side of his berth.  He would have lost anything rather than
that.  There was yet time to fetch it, so, without a word, he turned and
sprang below, supposing that he had ample time.

"Robin!  Robin!" shouted Sam and Slagg together, at the top of their
voices.

"Coming! coming!" reached them faintly from below, but Robin did not
come.  The hasty summons induced him to leap over a chest in returning.
He struck his head violently against a beam, and fell back stunned.

With another wild shout his friends rushed down the companion-hatch to
hasten his movements by force.  They found him almost insensible.
Lifting him quickly, they carried, him on deck, and bore him to the
stern of the vessel.

"Robin!  Robin!" cried Sam, in an agony of impatience--for the raft was
by that time far astern, besides which the shades of evening were
beginning to descend--"_do_ try to rally.  We must swim.  We're almost
too late.  Can you do it?"

"Yes, yes, I can swim like a duck," cried Robin, rising and staggering
towards the bulwarks.

"But _I_ can't swim at all!" cried Stumps in a voice of horror.

Sam stopped as if suddenly paralysed.  Then, laying hold of Robin, held
him back.  He felt, as he looked at the dark heaving sea and the now
distant raft, that it was not possible for him and Slagg to save both
their injured and their helpless comrade.

"Too late!" he said in a voice of despair, as he sat down and for a
moment covered his face with his hands.  Slagg looked at him with a
bewildered rather than a despairing expression.

"So, we'll have to sink together since we can't swim together," he said
at last, with a touch of reckless vexation, as he gazed at the naturally
stupid and by that time imbecile face of his friend Stumps.

"Come, only cowards give way to despair," cried Sam, starting up.  "We
have one chance yet, God be praised, but let's work with a will, boys,
for the time is short."



CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

THE RAFT.

Sam Shipton's one chance did not seem a bright one, but, with
characteristic energy, he proceeded to avail himself of it at once.

When the raft was launched over the side, as described, the carpenters
had embarked upon it with the rest of the ship's crew, dropping their
tools on the deck beside the mass of unused material of ropes, spars,
planks, etcetera, as they left.  Four of the spars were pretty equal in
length.  Sam selected them hastily and laid them on the deck in the form
of a square, or oblong frame.  Then he seized an axe.

"Unravel some of the ropes, Robin," he cried.  "You two select some
planks as near ten feet long as possible.  Quick--ask no questions, but
do what I tell you."

Sam Shipton was one of those who hold the opinion that every man born
into the world, whether gentle or simple, should learn a trade.  He had
acted on his belief and taught himself that of a carpenter, so that he
wielded the axe with skill, and gave his orders with the precision of
one who knows what he is about.  His comrades, although not trained to
any special trade, were active handy fellows, with the exception,
indeed, of John Shanks, whose fingers were usually described as
"thumbs," and whose general movements were clumsy; but Stumps had a
redeeming quality to set against defects--he was willing.

With a few powerful well-directed blows, Sam cut four deep notches into
the two longest of the selected spars, near their ends, at equal
distances from each other.  Into these he laid the ends of the two
shorter spars, thus forming a frame-work.

"Twelve feet by ten, not a bad raft," he muttered, as if to himself,
while he snatched a rope from the bundle of those disentangled by Robin.
"Take a rope of same size, you two, and lash the opposite corners as
you see me doing.  Stumps will go on selecting the planks."

Sam jerked out his words with as much rapidity and force as he applied
to the labour of his hands.  There was something quite tremendous in his
energy, and little wonder--for, as he glanced now and then along the
deck he saw that the ship was rapidly settling down to her final dive,
and that the closing scene would be sudden.

Powerfully impressed by his example, the others worked in total silence
and with all their might, for Sam's conduct, far more than the
appearance of things, convinced them of their danger.

"The planks now, Stumps!  Drive in as many of these clamps as you can
find, Slagg--so," (he set the example)--"we've no time to bore holes for
bolts.  A plank now; that's it!  Hand some nails--no, the biggest nails
and the big hammer.  Mind your fingers!"

Down came the heavy hammer on a four-inch nail, which went half through
the thick plank.  Two more such blows and the iron head was buried in
the wood.  Six planks sufficed to cover the frame.  They were laid
lengthwise with nails just sufficient to hold them.  A piece of thick
rope passed four times round the entire fabric still further secured
them in position.

"Tie a lot of these nails in a bit of sail-cloth, Slagg, and fix 'em to
the raft--to one of the spars, not the planks.  Do the same with a saw,
hammer, axe, and cask of biscuit,--water, too; don't forget water.  Make
a belt of a bit of rope, Robin, and stick that small axe in it.  Have it
handy."

While he spoke Sam did not look up, but gave all his attention to the
tightening, with a hand-spike, of the knot on the thick rope that bound
the raft together; for we may as well inform those who don't know it,
that the tying of a knot on a cable is not managed in the same way or
with the same ease that a similar operation is performed on a piece of
twine.

"But how shall we lift it over the side?" asked Stumps, becoming
suddenly alive to a difficulty.

"Help me to haul on this rope and you shall see," said Sam.

He ran to the side, lifted a coil of rope off its belaying-pin, threw it
on the deck, cut the rope clear, and hauled it to the raft, to one end
of which he made it fast.

It was the strong rope, by means of which one of the mizzen yards was
braced, and was rove through a block attached to the outward end of the
yard.

"Hoist away now--with a will!"

"Hold on," cried Slagg, stuffing a mass of sail-cloth violently, by
means of a hand-spike, underneath the binding rope of the raft.

"There now--yo ho! heave ho-o!"

Up went the end of the little ark of safety, and when one end was raised
very little force was required to push it over.

"Hold on! hold on! hold o-o-on!" yelled Stumps, straining to prevent the
raft from leaving the ship.

"No, no.--Let go! let go! let go-o-o!" roared Sam.

Stumps did let go and almost fell from the combined effect of his
efforts and despair, as the raft swung off, splashed into the sea far
out of reach, and hung half suspended from the yard-arm.

"It's all up with us," gasped Stumps.

"Not yet, but it will be all up with us in two minutes," returned Sam,
unable to repress a smile even at that moment.

"What d'ye mean?" said Stumps in amazement.  "How can we ever git at it
_now_?"

"Why, stoopid," said Slagg, "don't you see that we've only to go up the
mast, out on the yard-arm, and slip down the rope."

While he was speaking, Robin, by Sam's orders, was performing the feat
referred to.

"Look sharp!" he cried, turning to the others.

A heavy lurch of the ship caused their breasts to leap almost as fast as
their bodies, for they were all more or less aware of the danger of the
ship sinking before they could get clear of her.  The darkness, too,
was, as we have said, increasing by that time, though it was still light
enough to enable them to see what they were about.

In a few minutes they all had gained the end of the yard-arm, slipped
down the rope, and got upon the raft, but it was difficult to hold on,
because at each heave of the ship, the fore-end of the raft was raised
quite out of the sea, and then let fall with considerable violence.  As
soon as Sam reached it, he bade Robin cut adrift with his axe, so great
was the heave; but at the moment the raft hung almost perpendicularly in
the air, and Robin could do nothing but cling to the rope that bound it.
Next instant it again fell flat on the sea.

"Now--cut!" cried Sam.

The rope was severed with one blow; almost at the same instant the stern
of the Triton flew up with a degree of violence that no wave could
account for.  It was her last fling.  Instantly after she went down head
foremost.  The masts, by good fortune, leaned away from the raft at the
time, else they would have been struck by the yards, or involved in the
rigging.  As it was they did not escape.  The vast whirlpool caused by
the sinking ship drew them in with irresistible power.  For one moment
the horrified youths saw a dark green vortex towards which they rushed.
Another moment, and they beheld a green funnel whirling round them as
they sank into midnight darkness, while an ocean of roaring water filled
their ears.

Who shall attempt to describe, the feelings or sensations of that
moment!  The one absorbing idea of self-preservation was of course
dominant, coupled with an intolerable feeling that the upper air could
never be regained.

It was reached, however, by all of them.  First by Sam Shipton, who shot
waist-high above the sea with a loud gasp, and struck out wildly.  Then,
recovering presence of mind, he swam more gently, and looked eagerly
round.  He was immediately followed by Robin and Slagg.  Last of all by
Stumps, who came up legs foremost, and, on turning other end up, saluted
them with a roar that would not have shamed a monster of the deep.  But
the roar was cut short by a gurgle, as, in his frantic struggles, he
sank himself again.

Observing this, and seeing that the others were comparatively
self-possessed, Sam made towards his drowning comrade.  The poor fellow,
catching sight of him as he came near, made a clutch at him, but Sam was
well aware of the danger of being grasped by a drowning man.  He swerved
aside, and Stumps sank with a gurgle of despair.  Twice again did he
rise and sink.  Once more he rose.  With a rapid stroke Sam swam behind
him and caught him under the armpits.  Violently did the poor fellow
strive to turn round and clasp his preserver, but Sam, treading water,
held him easily at arm's-length with his head just above the surface.
As long as he struggled nothing more could be done for him; Sam
therefore put his mouth as near to his ear as possible and shouted:--

"Stop struggling!--else I'll let you go!"

It was probably as much the tone of Sam's voice as the sense of these
words that calmed Stumps.  At all events he instantly lay, or rather
hung, perfectly limp and still.

"Now," continued Sam, "you are quite safe if you do what I tell you.  If
you don't you're a dead man!  D'you understand?"

"Yes," gasped Stumps.

"Let your hands and arms lie flat on the water!  Don't try to raise your
head farther than I let you!  Keep your feet _still_!  Let yourself hang
helpless while I hold you and look round for the raft."

It was obvious that Stumps had regained self-command, for as each of
these orders was shouted in his ear, in the tones of a sergeant-major,
he obeyed with eager, almost ludicrous, promptitude.

"The raft is here, close at hand," said a voice close to Sam's ear.

It was Robin who had discovered him at that moment.

"Is Slagg safe?" asked Sam.

"Here he is, all right," said the worthy referred to, puffing and
choking as he swam up.

"Keep off--don't get in front of him," said Sam, in a warning voice.
"He mayn't have recovered self-restraint enough yet to refrain from
grasping you.  Guide me to the raft, Robin, while I swim on my back, and
see that you don't let it hit me on the head when I come close.  You and
Slagg help each other on, and then help me with Stumps."

Nothing could have calmed Stumps more than the cool, firm way in which
these orders were given, so that he allowed himself to lie like a log
while his deliverer drew him gently backwards until the back of his head
rested on his bosom.  Sam then struck out gently with his legs; Robin
turned him with a push in the right direction, and thus, swimming on his
back, he reached the raft.  Slagg and Robin having already helped each
other upon it, grasped his hair.  At once he freed one hand and caught
the rope that bound the raft.  Stumps naturally slewed round, so that
his mouth and nose went for a moment under water.  Fancying that he was
forsaken, he caught Sam round the neck, drew himself up, and gave a
terrific yell.

"Ha! you may choke me now, if you can," muttered Sam, as he grasped the
rope with both hands, "only, the longer you hold on to me the longer you
will be of getting out of the water."

The terrified lad still retained sufficient sense to appreciate the
force of the remark.  Looking up as well as he could through his
dishevelled hair, he held out one hand to Slagg, who grasped it firmly.
Releasing Sam, with some hesitation he made a convulsive grasp at Robin
with the other hand.  Robin met him half-way.  A loud "heave ho!" and a
mighty pull brought him out of the sea, and sent him with a squash on
the boards of the raft, where he lay gripping the ropes with his hands
as with a vice.

Before his rescuers could turn to aid Sam, he stood panting beside them.

"Thank God," said Sam, "for this deliverance!"

"Amen!" was the earnest and prompt response from the others.

Yet it seemed but a temporary deliverance, for when these castaways
looked around them, they saw nothing but a heaving ocean and a darkening
sky, with the tiny raft as the only visible solid speck in all the
watery waste.  Compared, however, with the extremity of danger though
which they had just passed, the little platform on which they stood
seemed to them an ample refuge--so greatly do circumstances alter our
estimate of facts!

But they had not time to think much, as may be easily understood, for a
great deal still remained to be done.  Their little ark was by no means
secure.  We have said that only enough of nails had been driven into it
to hold the planks to the frame-work, but not to withstand rough
treatment.  Indeed, during the plunge two of the planks had been torn
off, but the binding rope held them to their places, as Sam had
foreseen.

Very little daylight now remained, so that not a moment was to be lost.

"No sign of the big raft," said Sam, stooping to unfasten the hammer and
packet of nails, after taking one quick, anxious glance round the
horizon.

"But it may be not far-off after all," said Slagg, kneeling down to aid
his comrade, while Stumps, by that time recovered, assisted Robin to
tighten the ropes that held the pork-barrel.  "With such poor light it
'ud be hard to make out a flat thing like that a-kickin' in the hollows
of the seas."

"But you forget," returned Sam, "that it must be a-kickin' on the top o'
the sea as well as in the hollows.  Another nail--thanks.  However, I
don't expect to see it again."

"Well, now, I expects to see it in the mornin' not far-off," said Slagg.
"Is the water-cask fast, Robin?"

"All right--and the pork too."

"And the sail.  Just give it an extra shove under the ropes, Robin.
We'd be badly off if we lost it."

"I don't see what good a sail can do us," said Stumps, who had now quite
recovered.

"Not _as_ a sail, Stumpy," replied Slagg, whose spirit soon recovered
elasticity, "though even in that way it may help us, but as a blanket we
shall appreciate it before long."

Slagg was right.  After the planking had been secured and the rope
refastened, those unfortunates found themselves in an unenviable
position.  The gale had indeed abated somewhat, though the heaving of
the great waves was little less tremendous, but the night had settled
down into a state of pitchy darkness, so that they could barely see each
other's faces, while the seas continually washed over them, obliging
them to hold on to the ropes for fear of being washed away.

In such circumstances sleep was out of the question, yet they stood
sorely in need of rest.

"Now we'll see what's to be done wi' the sail," said Slagg, after they
had been seated some time doing nothing.  "Sleep I want, an' sleep I'll
have, so lend a hand, boys."

He drew out the sail with some trouble, so well had it been stuffed in,
and bade the others hold and prevent it from flapping while he fastened
the corners down.  He did not arrange it like a tent, but spread it as
flat as possible, doubling the superfluous edges inward, so that it
presented little or no obstruction to the free passage of wind or water
over them.

This done, they all crept underneath, and found it to be a much snugger
den than they had expected, for the two casks prevented their heads from
being pressed down when a few tons of water rolled over them--as
occasionally happened.

Still they did not dare to sleep until each had fastened a rope round
his waist and bound himself to the flooring.  Having done so, each laid
himself alongside of a turn of the binding-cable, and, embracing that
affectionately with both arms, laid his head on the planks and shut his
eyes.

Many and varied are the conditions under which healthy members of the
human family seek and find repose, but we venture to think that few
conditions have ever been found which were more unfavourable to sleep
than that which has just been described.

Nevertheless, they were met promptly by slumber most profound, as they
lay wet and weary on the little raft that disastrous night, on the dark
and surging breast of the Southern Sea.



CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

LIFE ON THE RAFT.

To awake "all at sea"--in other words, ignorant of one's locality--is a
rather common experience, but to awaken both at and in the sea, in a
similar state of oblivion, is not so common.

It was the fortune of Robin Wright to do so on the first morning after
the day of the wreck.

At first, when he opened his eyes, he fancied, from the sound of water
in his ears, that it must have come on to rain very heavily, but, being
regardless of rain, he tried to fall asleep again.  Then he felt as if
there must be a leak in his berth somewhere, he was so wet; but, being
sleepy, he shut his eyes, and tried to shut his senses against moisture.
Not succeeding, he resolved to turn on his other side, but experienced
a strange resistance to that effort.  Waxing testy, he wrenched himself
round, and in so doing kicked out somewhat impatiently.  This, of
course, woke him up to the real state of the case.  It also awoke Slagg,
who received the kick on his shins.  He, delivering a cry of pain
straight into Sam Shipton's ear, caused that youth to fling out his
fist, which fell on Stumps's nose, and thus in rapid succession were the
sleepers roused effectually to a full sense of their condition.

"It's cold," remarked Stumps, with chattering teeth.

"You should be thankful that you're alive to feel the cold, you
ungrateful creetur," said Slagg.

"I _am_ thankful, Jim," returned the other humbly, as he sought to undo
the rope that held him fast; "but you know a feller can scarcely express
thanks or--or--otherwise half asleep, an' his teeth goin' like a pair o'
nut-crackers."

"The wind is evidently down," remarked Sam, who had already undone his
lashings.  "Here, Robin, help me to untie this corner of the sail.  I
had no idea that sleeping with one's side in a pool of water would make
one so cold and stiff."

"If it had bin a pool, Mr Shipton," said Slagg, "it wouldn't have made
you cold; 'cause why? you'd have made it warm.  But it was the sea
washin' out and in fresh that kep' the temperater low--d'ee see?"

"What a cargo o' rheumatiz we've been a-layin' in this night for old
age," said Stumps ruefully, as he rubbed his left shoulder.

Throwing off the sail, Sam stood up and looked round, while an
exclamation of surprise and pleasure broke from him.  The contrast
between the night and morning was more than usually striking.  Not only
had darkness vanished and the wind gone down, but there was a dead calm
which had changed the sea into a sheet of undulating glass, and the sun
had just risen, flooding the sky with rosy light, and tipping the summit
of each swell with gleaming gold.  The gentle, noiseless heaving of the
long swell, so far from breaking the rest of nature, rather deepened it
by suggesting the soft breathings of slumber.  There were a few gulls
floating each on its own image, as if asleep, and one great albatross
soared slowly in the bright sky, as if acting the part of sentinel over
the resting sea.

"How glorious!" exclaimed Robin, as, with flashing eyes, he gazed round
the scarce perceptible horizon.

"How hard to believe," said Sam, in a low voice, "that we may have been
brought here to die."

"But surely you do not think our case so desperate?" said Robin.

"I hope it is not, but it may be so."

"God forbid," responded Robin earnestly.

As he spoke his arm pressed the little bible which he had rescued from
the wreck.  Thrusting his hand into his bosom he drew it out.

"Darling mother!" he said, "when she gave me this she told me to consult
it daily, but especially in times of trouble or danger.  I'll look into
it now, Sam."

He opened the book, and, selecting the verse that first met his eye,
read: "In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his
presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and
he bare them and carried them all the days of old."

"That's a grand word for us, isn't it?--from Isaiah," said Robin.

"Well, what do you make of it?" asked Sam, whose religious education had
not been attended to as well as that of his friend.

"That our God is full of love, and pity, and sympathy, so that we have
nothing to fear," said Robin.

"But surely you can't regard that as a message to us when you know that
you turned to it by mere chance," said Sam.

"I do regard it as a special message to us," returned Robin with
decision.

"And what if you had turned up an entirely unsuitable or inapplicable
verse?" said Sam.

"Then I should have concluded that God had no _special_ message for us
just now, but left us to that general comfort and instruction contained
throughout the whole word.  When, however, special comfort is sought and
found, it seems to me ungrateful to refuse it."

"But I don't refuse it, Robin," returned Sam; "I merely doubt whether it
is sent to us or not."

"Why, Sam, _all_ the bible was sent to us for comfort and instruction."

"True--true.  I have not thought much on that subject, Robin, but I'll
try to believe at present that you are right, for we stand much in need
of strong hope at all events.  Here we are, none of us knows how far
from the nearest land, with little food and less water, on a thing that
the first stiff breeze may knock to pieces, without shelter and without
compass!"

"Without shelter and compass, Mr Shipton!" said Jim Slagg, who had
hitherto listened in silence to the conversation; "why, what d'ye call
this?"  (taking hold of the sail).  "Ain't that shelter enough, and
won't the sun guide us by day and the stars by night.  It seems to me
that you are too despondin', Mr Shipton."

"Don't `mister' me any more, Slagg.  It was all very well aboard ship
where we had our relative positions, but now we are comrades in
distress, and must be on an equal footing."

"Very good," replied Slagg, looking round in his comrades' faces, and
raising his voice as if making a speech.  "Bein' equal, as you say, I
takes the liberty o' callin' a general meetin' o' this free and--if I
may be allowed the expression--easy Republic.  Moreover, I move myself
into the chair and second the motion, which, nobody objectin', is
carried unanimously.  Gentlemen, the business of this here meetin' is to
appoint a commander to this here ship, an' what could be more in
accordance with the rule o' three--not to mention the rules o' four and
common sense--than a Shipton takin' command.  Who's goin' to make the
first reslootion?"

Entering into the spirit of the thing, Robin moved that Samuel Shipton
be appointed to command the ship and the party, with the title of
captain.

"And without pay," suggested Slagg.

"And _I_ move," said Stumps, who was just beginning to understand the
joke, though a little puzzled by the fact that it was done in earnest,
"I move that Robin Wright be first leftenant."

"Brayvo, Stumps!" cried Slagg, "your intellec' _is_ growin'.  It on'y
remains to appoint you ship's monkey and maid-of-all-work--specially
dirty work--and, then, with a hearty vote o' thanks to myself for my
conduct in the chair, to vacate the same an' dissolve the meetin'."

These matters having been satisfactorily settled, the castaways
proceeded to prepare breakfast, and while this was being done the
recently appointed captain looked once more anxiously round in the hope
of seeing the large raft with their late shipmates on it, but it was not
to be seen.  Neither raft, ship, nor any other sign of man wos visible
on all the glittering sea.

Breakfast was not a tempting meal.  The biscuits were, indeed, as good
as ship's biscuits ever are, and when moistened with sea water formed a
comparatively pleasant as well as strengthening food; but the barrel of
pork was raw; they had no means of cooking it, and had not yet
experienced those pangs of hunger which induce men to luxuriate in
anything that will allay the craving.  They therefore breakfasted
chiefly on biscuit, merely making an attempt, with wry faces, to swallow
a little pork.

Observing this, Sam said, in a half-jocular manner:--

"Now, my lads, it is quite clear to me that in taking command of this
ship, my first duty is to point out the evils that will flow from
unrestrained appetite for biscuit;--also to insist on the cultivation of
a love for raw pork.  You have no notion how good it is when fairly
believed in.  Anyhow you'll have to try, for it won't do to eat up all
the biscuit, and have to feed at last on pure pork."

"I calls it impure pork," said Slagg; "hows'-ever, capting, you've on'y
to give the word and we obey.  P'r'aps the best way'll be to put us on
allowance."

This suggestion was at once acted on, and a considerable part of that
bright day was spent by Sam and Robin in calculating how much pork
should go to a biscuit, so that they should diminish in an equal ratio,
and how much of both it would be safe to allow to each man per diem,
seeing that they might be many days, perhaps even weeks, at sea.  While
the "officers" were thus engaged, Slagg and his friend Stumps busied
themselves in making a mast and yard out of one of the planks--split in
two for the purpose--and fitting part of their sail to the same.

Evening found them with the work done, a small sail hoisted on the rude
mast, the remaining part of the canvas fitted more securely as a
covering, and the apportioned meal before them.  But the sail hung idly
from its yard and flapped gently to and fro as the little ark rose and
sank on the swell, for the calm still prevailed and the gorgeous sunset,
with its golden clouds and bright blue sky, was so faithfully reflected
in the sea, that they seemed to be floating in the centre of a crystal
ball which had been dipped in the rainbow.

When night descended, the scene was, if possible, still more impressive,
for although the bright colours had vanished, the castaways still
floated in the centre of a dark crystal universe, whose unutterable
depths were radiant with stars of varied size and hue.

Long they sat and gazed in solemn admiration at the scene, talking in
subdued tones of past, present, and future, until their eyes refused to
do their office and the heavy lids began to droop.  Then, reluctantly,
they crept beneath the sail-cloth covering and lay down to rest.

The planks were hard, no doubt, but our castaways were hardy; besides, a
few folds of the superfluous portions of the large sail helped to soften
the planks here and there.

"Now, boys," said Slagg, as he settled himself with a long-drawn sigh,
"the on'y thing we wants to make us perfectly happy is a submarine
telegraph cable 'tween this an' England, to let us say good-night to our
friend, ashore, an' hope they won't be long in sending out to search for
us."

It is sad to be obliged to record that, Slagg's companions being already
asleep, this tremendous and original piece of pleasantry was literally
cast upon the waters, where it probably made no impression whatever on
the inhabitants of the slumbering sea.



CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

IN WHICH WILL BE FOUND MORE SURPRISES THAN ONE.

Events of the most singular description are often prefaced by incidents
of the most commonplace character.  Who is so inexperienced in the
vicissitudes of life as not to know this!

Early in the morning that succeeded their second night on the raft,
Robin Wright awoke with a very commonplace, indeed a vulgar, snore; we
might almost call it a snort.  Such as it was, however, it proved to be
a most important link in t

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