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 itain’ttrue,” 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 theeturnedhomeintohung. 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 callthatsuccessful 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 messshemade 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 onthisvoyage, 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,wasa 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 Isaidit 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, andvice 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 sheknewhe 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.
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 itain’ttrue,” 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 theeturnedhomeintohung. 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 callthatsuccessful 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 messshemade 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 onthisvoyage, 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,wasa 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 Isaidit 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, andvice 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 sheknewhe 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, Ibegyour pardon,” gasped Robin, relaxing his grasp when they stopped rolling; “I’msosorry. 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 domemuch 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 shockhisfeelin’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 thisgentlemanwith 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 lengthnow, at this moment as it lies there,—an’ they are doing so continually to make sure that all’s right.”“Oh! I understandthat,” said Robin quickly; “I have read all about the laying of the first cable in 1858. It is theappearanceof 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’smyowner, 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 willyousleep?” asked Robin, with some hesitation.“Never you mind that, my young electrician. That’smybusiness. 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! IfI’mto fight,youmust 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.
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, Ibegyour pardon,” gasped Robin, relaxing his grasp when they stopped rolling; “I’msosorry. 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 domemuch 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 shockhisfeelin’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 thisgentlemanwith 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 lengthnow, at this moment as it lies there,—an’ they are doing so continually to make sure that all’s right.”
“Oh! I understandthat,” said Robin quickly; “I have read all about the laying of the first cable in 1858. It is theappearanceof 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’smyowner, 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 willyousleep?” asked Robin, with some hesitation.
“Never you mind that, my young electrician. That’smybusiness. 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! IfI’mto fight,youmust 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 continuallyallthe 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; buthowis 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 youintothe subject just now, I can tell you somethingaboutit. 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 afaulthas 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,hisheart 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 thatmightend 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.“Owhata 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.
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 continuallyallthe 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; buthowis 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 youintothe subject just now, I can tell you somethingaboutit. 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 afaulthas 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,hisheart 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 thatmightend 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.
“Owhata 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 hisconfrèresworked 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.“Youdon’tsay 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 thecircuit 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 downearth-wiresat 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 believethat?”“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 admirablechef de cuisine.”“Oh, it’s notourcook he means,” explained the sporting electrician; “Mr Smithrefersto a certain sea-cook—or his son, I’m not sure which—who ischef 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 coughWent 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, belowAnd 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 aboveIn 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?’“‘Idon’t believe in ’em, Jeff. Why doyou?’ 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 cowardbecausehe 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, whatdoyou 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 almosttooattentive.”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.
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 hisconfrèresworked 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.
“Youdon’tsay 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 thecircuit 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 downearth-wiresat 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 believethat?”
“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 admirablechef de cuisine.”
“Oh, it’s notourcook he means,” explained the sporting electrician; “Mr Smithrefersto a certain sea-cook—or his son, I’m not sure which—who ischef 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 coughWent 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, belowAnd 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 aboveIn 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.
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 coughWent 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, belowAnd 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 aboveIn 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?’
“‘Idon’t believe in ’em, Jeff. Why doyou?’ 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 cowardbecausehe 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, whatdoyou 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 almosttooattentive.”
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.