Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/160

 when life depends on the result. There was a catlike activity about the carpenter and his mates as they cut, sawed, lashed, and bolted together the various spars and planks which formed the raft. In a marvellously short space of time it was ready and launched over the side, and towed astern by the strongest cable on board, for the danger of parting from it in such weather was very great. Knowing this they had lashed some casks of pork and other provisions to it before launching.

Still they laboured with unflagging resolution at the pumps, for many of those on board were picked men, whose sense of honour urged them to strive to the uttermost to save the ship, for it was no ordinary merchantman, freighted with an ordinary cargo, which could easily be replaced as well as insured, but a vessel freighted with those magic wires which couple continents and unite humanity, whose loss might delay, though it could not ultimately arrest, the benign and rapid intercourse of man with man in all parts of the globe.

"Keep your eye on Sam and me," whispered Robin to Jim Slagg, finding himself alongside that worthy during a spell of rest. "Let us keep together, whatever happens."

Robin did not quite believe that anything serious was going to happen. Some spirits find it as difficult to believe in impending disaster as others