Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/121

 By this the chief meant to say that insulation had been completely destroyed, and that the whole current of electricity was escaping into the sea.

About 716 miles had been payed out at the time, and as signals had till then been regularly received from the shore, it was naturally concluded that the fault lay near to the ship.

"Now then, get along," said an engineer to one of the cable-men; "you 'll have to cut, and splice, and test, while we are getting ready the tackle to pick up."

"I don't like that cuttin' o' the cable, Bill," said one of the sailors, as he went forward, "it seems dangerous, it do."

"No more do I, Dick," replied his mate; "I feel as if it never could be rightly spliced again."

"Why, bless you, boys," said a cable-man near them, "cables is used to that now, like eels to bein' skinned; and so are we, for that matter. We think nothin' of it."

Clearly the cable -man was right, for, while the picking-up apparatus was being got ready, the cable was cut in no fewer than three places, in order to test the coils that lay in the tanks. These being found all right, the picking-up was begun with anxious care. The moment of greatest danger was when the big ship was swinging round. For a few but apparently endless moments the cable had to