Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/104

 "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