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

Robin, who had been delayed by difficulty in finding the note-book, stopped to listen.

Smith had a fair average voice and a vigorous manner.

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

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

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

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

"Is there a chorus?" asked one.

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

Song--The Loss of the Nancy Lee.

I.

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

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

II.

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

III.

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

IV.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"`Fiddlededee,' said Stumps.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes, but what causes the tapping?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


CHAPTER TEN.


TELLS OF GREAT EFFORTS AND FAILURES AND GRAND SUCCESS.

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

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

"Another fault," was the reply to such.

"O dear!" said some.

"Horrible!" said others.

"Not so bad as