Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/153



often it has been said, "Good for man that he does not know what lies before him." If he did, we fear he would face his duty with very different feelings from those which usually animate him. Certain it is that if Robin Wright and Sam Shipton had known what was before them—when they stood one breezy afternoon on the ship's deck, casting glances of admiration up at the mountain waves of the southern seas, or taking bird's-eye views of the valleys between them—their eyes would not have glistened with such flashes of delight, for the fair prospects they dreamed of were not destined to be realised.

What these prospects were was made plain by their conversation.

"Won't it be a splendid opportunity, Sam, to become acquainted with all the outs and ins of telegraphy, this laying of lines from island to island in the China Seas?"