Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/30

 The telegraphists at both ends energised with their handles and needles, but without any result. The cable was dumb. Our Spark had evidently escaped!

There is no effect without a cause. The cause of that interruption was soon discovered.

Early that morning a French fisherman had sauntered down to the port of Boulogne and embarked in his boat. A British seaman, having nothing to do but smoke and meditate, was seated on a coil of rope at the time, enjoying himself and the smells with which that port is not unfamiliar. He chanced to be a friend of that French fisherman.

"You 're early afloat, Mounseer," he said.

"Oui, monsieur. Vill you com'? I go for feesh."

"Well, wee; I go for fun."

They went accordingly and bore away to the northward along the coast before a light breeze,—past the ruined towers which France had built to guard her port in days gone by; past the steep cliffs beyond Boulogne; past the lovely beach of Wimereux, with its cottages nestled among the sand-hills, and its silted-up harbour, whence Napoleon the First had intended to issue forth and descend on perfidious Albion—but didn't; past cliffs, and bays, and villages further on, until they brought up off Cape Grisnez. Here the Frenchman let down his trawl, and fished up, among other curiosities of the deep, the submarine cable!