Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/95

 "Yes."

"One is the chief of the electricians; the other the chief of the engineers. Their hearts would probably break, for their position is awfully responsible. Then my heart would break, I know, for I feel it swelling at the horrible suggestion; and your heart would break, Robin, I think, for you are a sympathetic donkey, and couldn't help yourself. Then you see that stout man on the bridge—that 's Captain Anderson—well, his heart would—no—perhaps it wouldn't, for he 's a sailor, and you know a sailor's heart is too tough to break, but it would get a pretty stiff wrench. And you see that gentleman looking at the paying-out gear so earnestly?"

"What—Cyrus Field?" said Robin.

"Yes; well, his heart and the Atlantic Cable are united, so as a matter of course the two would snap together."

Now, while Smith and his young assistant were conversing thus facetio-scientifically, the electricians on duty in the testing-room were watching with silent intensity the indications on their instruments. Suddenly, at 3.15, when exactly eighty-four miles of cable had been laid out, he who observed the galvanometer saw the speck of light glide to the end of the scale, and vanish!

If a speck of fire had been seen to glide through the keyhole of the powder magazine it could