The Battery and the Boiler - Robert Michael Ballantyne (an ebook reader .txt) 📗

were found he purposed sacrificing the eighty odd miles already laid down, making a new splice with the shore-end, and starting afresh. A reply was received from Mr Glass, saying that the Hawk would be sent out immediately.

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

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

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


CHAPTER NINE.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Indeed I do," said Robin simply.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Most of those present drew towards the musical corner, where Ebenezer Smith, having just entered the saloon in search of Robin, had been prevailed on to sit down and enliven the company.