Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/122

 bear the strain, and became rigid like a bar of steel. Then it was got in over the bows, where all was bustle, and noise, and smoke, as the picking-up machinery panted and rattled.

All day the work went on. Night descended, but still the cable was coming in slowly, unwillingly,—now jerkily, as if half inclined to yield, anon painfully, as if changing its mind, until the strain was equal to two and a half tons, A row of lanterns lighted it, and the men employed watched and handled it carefully to detect the "fault," while the clattering wheels played harsh music.

"We'll never find it," growled an impatient young electrician.

As if to rebuke him for his want of faith, the "fault" came in then and there—at 9.50, ship's time.

"Ah!" said Mr. Field, whose chief characteristic was an unwavering faith in ultimate success, "I knew we should find it ere long. I have often known cables to stop working for two hours, no one knew why, and then begin again."

"Well now, Mr. Wright, it floors me altogether does this here talkin' by electricity."

The man who made this remark to our hero was one who could not have been easily "floored" by any other means than electricity. He was a huge blacksmith—a stalwart fellow who had just been