The Battery and the Boiler Part 44

"In a very curious manner Madge. It will amuse Letta, for I know she takes a deep interest in cables."

"Indeed it will," said Letta, who was the soul of earnest simplicity; "I delight in electric cables."

Robin looked at Letta, and wished that he were an electric cable!

"It happened to the Persian Gulf cable, quite recently," continued Sam, addressing himself to Letta. "The cable between Kurrachee and Gwadur, a distance of 300 miles, suddenly failed one evening. Now, you must know that electrical science has advanced with such rapid strides of late, that we have the power to discover pretty nearly the exact position of a fault in a cable. Of course I cannot expect a young lady to understand the technical details of the mode, in which this is done, but you will understand that by tests taken at either end the damage appeared to be about 118 miles from Kurrachee, and a telegraph steamer was sent with an electrical and engineering staff to repair it. The steamer reached the supposed locality early on the morning of the second day out, and proceeded at once to grapple for the cable, though a thick fog prevailed at the time, and a heavy sea was running.

"The soundings at the place were very irregular, implying a rugged bottom of submarine mountain-tops and valleys. On winding in the cable unusual resistance was experienced, as if it were foul of rocks, and when, after great difficulty, they drew it up they found that this was caused by the body of an immense whale, with two and a half turns of the cable round it immediately above the tail."

"Pooh! boh!" exclaimed uncle Rik, "I don't believe it."

"But I do, uncle," returned Sam, as he opened his sixth egg, "for I read the account of it in one of the engineering journals, in which dates and names were given. The steamer was the Amber Witch, commanded by Captain Bishop, and the staff of operators were under Mr Harry Mance. The body of the huge creature was found to be rapidly decomposing, the jaws falling away as it reached the surface, and sharks had evidently been devouring it. The tail, which measured twelve feet across, was covered with barnacles at the extremities."

"But how could it have entangled itself so?" asked Mrs Langley.

"They suppose that at the time the whale had found a part of the cable hanging in a deep loop over a submarine precipice, and, thinking the chance a good one no doubt for sc.r.a.ping off the barnacles and other parasites that annoy whales very much, had probably twisted the cable round him with a flip of his tail. Anyhow, the fact is unquestionable that it held him fast until he was fished up dead by the electricians and engineers."

"How strange!" murmured Letta.

"It is indeed," responded Robin, "the most extraordinary case I ever heard of, though cables are subject to many singular accidents. I remember one case of accident to the cable across the river Yar, in the Isle of Wight. A bullock fell from the deck of a vessel, and, in its struggles, caught the cable and broke it."

"I have read of several very singular cases," said Sam, "in which cables have been attacked and damaged by inhabitants of the sea. The Cuba and Florida cable was once damaged by the bite of some large fish, and a similar accident happened to the China cable. In the Malta-Alexandria cable, a piece of the core from which the sheathing had been worn was found to have been bitten by a shark, and pieces of the teeth were found sticking in the gutta-percha."

"I thought it was to the Singapore cable that that happened," said Robin.

"No, but something similar happened to it. That cable was laid in December. In the following March a stoppage occurred. The fault was spotted at 200 miles from Singapore. When hauled up, the cable was found to have been pierced, and bits of crushed bone were sticking in the hole. The piece was cut out and sent to Mr Frank Buckland, who, after long and careful examination, came to the conclusion that it had been the work of a saw-fish."

"Dear me, Mr s.h.i.+pton," said Mrs Langley, "you speak as if every part of the world were connected by electric cables."

"And such is the case," said Sam; "we have now direct communication by submarine cable and land telegraph with every part of Europe; with Canada and the United States; down South America, nearly to Cape Horn; with Africa from Algiers to the Cape of Good Hope; with India from Afghanistan to Ceylon; with China from Pekin to Hong-Kong; and down through the Malacca Archipelago, Australia, and Tasmania."

"I say, Sam, are you a member of the Royal Geographical Society, or a walking atlas?" asked uncle Rik.

"In short," continued Sam, not heeding the interruption, "there isn't a civilised quarter of the globe which is not tied to us by telegraph, and from which we might not hear any morning of the events of the preceding day."

"Always excepting Central Africa and the two poles," said the captain.

"I said civilised quarters," retorted Sam, "and, as far as I know, the poles are inhabited only by bears."

"True, I forgot, the poles are barely civilised," said uncle Rik.

"Now, Master Sammy," growled a deep voice from the adjoining galley, "you keep your hands out o' that copper."

"Fa.s.ser," shouted a silvery voice from the same region, "'Tumps is naughty. I wants to wa.s.s my hands in de soup, an' he won't let me."

"Quite right. Keep him in order, Stumps," said the unfeeling Sam, senior.

"Dere--pa says I's kite right, an' to keep you in order, 'Tumps," said the silvery voice. (Then, after a few minutes), "Grunkle Rik, is you finish bekfist?"

"Ay, ay, Sunbeam, quite finished."

"Den come on deck an' p'ay vid me."

Uncle Rik rose with a laugh, and obediently went on deck to play. But the play did not last long, for that day ominous clouds rose in the west, and, overspreading the sky, soon drenched the little yacht with rain. Towards evening the rain ceased, but the wind increased to a gale, and the weather showed signs of becoming what is known among seamen, we believe, as dirty. Ere long the low mutterings of thunder increased to mighty peals, and the occasional gleams of lightning to frequent and vivid flashes, that lit up the scene with the brilliancy of full moonlight.

"I wish we were nearer sh.o.r.e," said Letta, timidly, to Robin, as they stood looking over the bulwarks; "what is the land we see far away on our left?"

"The Island of Mull," returned Robin.

"Better if it was further away," growled Captain Rik, who overheard the remark. "We want plenty of sea-room on a night like this."

"We've got sea-room enough," observed "Captain" Slagg, with the confidence of a man who knows well what he is about, as he stood by the tiller, balancing himself with his legs well apart.

"You've got a lightning conductor on the mast, of course?" observed Captain Rik to Sam.

"No," replied Sam.

"Sam!" exclaimed the captain in a tone of intense surprise, "you, of all men, without such a safeguard."

"Well, uncle Rik," replied Sam with a laugh, "yachts are not always fitted with conductors. But I'm not so bad as you think me. I had ordered a special conductor with some trifling novelties of construction for the yacht, but it was not ready when we started, so we had to sail without it. However, it is not once in a thousand times that a vessel is struck by lightning."

While Sam was yet speaking, a flash of lightning almost blinded them, and the little schooner received a shock which told of disaster. Next moment the roar of reverberating thunder drowned the crash of timber as the topmast went overboard, carrying the bowsprit and its gear along with it.

Fortunately no one was hurt, but the schooner became unmanageable, owing to the ma.s.s of wreckage which hung to her.

Jim Slagg, seizing an axe, sprang to the side to cut this away, ably seconded by all the men on board, but before it could be accomplished the Gleam had drifted dangerously near to the rocks on the coast of Mull. To add to the confusion, the darkness became intense.

Captain Rik, forgetting or ignoring his years, had thrown off his coat and was working like a hero with the rest. The ladies, unable to remain below, were clinging to the stern rails, Madge holding her little boy tightly in her arms, and the spray das.h.i.+ng wildly over all.

Another moment and the Gleam struck on the rocks with tremendous violence. Only by the lightning could they see the wild rocky sh.o.r.e, on which they had drifted.

Instinctively each member of the little crew drew towards those nearest and dearest.

"Get out the boat!" shouted Captain Slagg; but the men could not obey, for a heavy sea had antic.i.p.ated them, and the little dinghy was already careering sh.o.r.eward, bottom up.

The next wave lifted the Gleam like a cork, and let her down on the rocks like fifty-six tons of lead. A flash of lightning revealed for a moment a range of frowning cliffs, as if to add horror to a scene that was already sufficiently appalling. Then all was again dark as Erebus.

In a frenzy of resolution Captain Rik seized an axe with the view of extemporising a raft, when the Gleam parted amids.h.i.+ps, and we might almost say went out, leaving her crew struggling in the waves.

Sam had seized his wife with his strong left arm--he happened to be left-handed--and buffeted the waves with his right. Madge held on to Sammy with the power of maternal love. Sam was aware of that, and felt comparatively at ease in regard to his first-born.

Robin's arm had been round Letta's waist--unknown to himself or her!-- when the Gleam struck. It did not relax when he felt that they were afloat. Frank Hedley gallantly offered to take charge of Mrs Langley.

Ebenezer Smith, being unable to swim, confessed the fact, with something of a gasp, to Captain Rik, who considerately told him never to mind.

"I can swim for both," he said, tying a piece of rope-yarn tight round his waist, for he had long before cast off coat, vest, and braces; "but you ought to be ashamed of yourself, a man come to your time o' life, an' not able to swim!"

"I never lived near the sea, and had no one to teach me," pleaded Ebenezer in a tremblingly apologetic voice, for the roar of united wind, waves, and thunder was really tremendous even to those who _could_ swim.