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 slownot 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. Meanwhileas the cable was not absolutely unworkable, despite the faultthe 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 footnay, inch by inchthe 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 benamely, 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 ships 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, whenblackness of despairthe 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 indeedinsensatebut 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 confrères 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 despairnothing 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 perfectalive and wellbut the part between ship and shore was speechless.
So was poor Robin Wright! After Mr Fieldwhose life-hope seemed to be doomed to disappointmentthe 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 cant 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.
Thats true, sir, answered Slagg, whose admiration for our heros enthusiastic and simple character increased as their intimacy was prolonged, and whose manner of address became proportionally more respectful, Shes 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 shed roll a bit if she was to go along in the trough of the seas. Dont the cable go out beautiful, toojust 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 dee know what sort o bed its 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 dont 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 tother 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 thats so, seems to me that when youve got your cable to Newfoundland youll have to run another one back again to Ireland before itll work.
Ah, Slagg, that would indeed be the case, returned Robin, were it not that we have discovered the important fact that the earththe round globe on which we standitself acts the part of a grand conductor. So we have only to send down earth-wires at the two endsone 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.