Part 4 (2/2)

'The big cable is stubborn and will not behave like his smaller brother.

The gear employed to take him off the drum is not strong enough; he gets slack on the drum and plays the mischief. Luckily for my own conscience, the gear I had wanted was negatived by Mr. Newall. Mr. Liddell does not exactly blame me, but he says we might have had a silver pulley cheaper than the cost of this delay. He has telegraphed for more men to Cagliari, to try to pull the cable off the drum into the hold, by hand.

I look as comfortable as I can, but feel as if people were blaming me. I am trying my best to get something rigged which may help us; I wanted a little difficulty, and feel much better.-The short length we have picked up was covered at places with beautiful sprays of coral, twisted and twined with sh.e.l.ls of those small, fairy animals we saw in the aquarium at home; poor little things, they died at once, with their little bells and delicate bright tints.

'12 _o'clock_.-Hurrah, victory! for the present anyhow. Whilst in our first dejection, I thought I saw a place where a flat roller would remedy the whole misfortune; but a flat roller at Cape Spartivento, hard, easily uns.h.i.+pped, running freely! There was a grooved pulley used for the paying-out machinery with a spindle wheel, which might suit me. I filled him up with tarry spunyarn, nailed sheet copper round him, bent some parts in the fire; and we are paying-in without more trouble now. You would think some one would praise me; no, no more praise than blame before; perhaps now they think better of me, though.

'10 P.M.-We have gone on very comfortably for nearly six miles. An hour and a half was spent was.h.i.+ng down; for along with many coloured polypi, from corals, sh.e.l.ls and insects, the big cable brings up much mud and rust, and makes a fishy smell by no means pleasant: the bottom seems to teem with life.-But now we are startled by a most unpleasant, grinding noise; which appeared at first to come from the large low pulley, but when the engines stopped, the noise continued; and we now imagine it is something slipping down the cable, and the pulley but acts as sounding-board to the big fiddle. Whether it is only an anchor or one of the two other cables, we know not. We hope it is not the cable just laid down.

'June 19.

'10 A.M.-All our alarm groundless, it would appear: the odd noise ceased after a time, and there was no mark sufficiently strong on the large cable to warrant the suspicion that we had cut another line through. I stopped up on the look-out till three in the morning, which made 23 hours between sleep and sleep. One goes dozing about, though, most of the day, for it is only when something goes wrong that one has to look alive.

Hour after hour, I stand on the forecastle-head, picking off little specimens of polypi and coral, or lie on the saloon deck reading back numbers of the _Times_-till something hitches, and then all is hurly-burly once more. There are awnings all along the s.h.i.+p, and a most ancient, fish-like smell beneath.

'1 _o'clock_.-Suddenly a great strain in only 95 fathoms of water-belts surging and general dismay; grapnels being thrown out in the hope of finding what holds the cable.-Should it prove the young cable! We are apparently crossing its path-not the working one, but the lost child; Mr.

Liddell _would_ start the big one first though it was laid first: he wanted to see the job done, and meant to leave us to the small one unaided by his presence.

'3.30.-Grapnel caught something, lost it again; it left its marks on the p.r.o.ngs. Started lifting gear again; and after hauling in some 50 fathoms-grunt, grunt, grunt-we hear the other cable slipping down our big one, playing the selfsame tune we heard last night-louder, however.

'10 P.M.-The pull on the deck engines became harder and harder. I got steam up in a boiler on deck, and another little engine starts hauling at the grapnel. I wonder if there ever was such a scene of confusion: Mr.

Liddell and W- and the captain all giving orders contradictory, &c., on the forecastle; D-, the foreman of our men, the mates, &c., following the example of our superiors; the s.h.i.+p's engine and boilers below, a 50-horse engine on deck, a boiler 14 feet long on deck beside it, a little steam winch tearing round; a dozen Italians (20 have come to relieve our hands, the men we telegraphed for to Cagliari) hauling at the rope; wiremen, sailors, in the crevices left by ropes and machinery; everything that could swear swearing-I found myself swearing like a trooper at last. We got the unknown difficulty within ten fathoms of the surface; but then the forecastle got frightened that, if it was the small cable which we had got hold of, we should certainly break it by continuing the tremendous and increasing strain. So at last Mr. Liddell decided to stop; cut the big cable, buoying its end; go back to our pleasant watering-place at Chia, take more water and start lifting the small cable. The end of the large one has even now regained its sandy bed; and three buoys-one to grapnel foul of the supposed small cable, two to the big cable-are dipping about on the surface. One more-a flag-buoy-will soon follow, and then straight for sh.o.r.e.

'June 20.

'It is an ill-wind, &c. I have an unexpected opportunity of forwarding this engineering letter; for the craft which brought out our Italian sailors must return to Cagliari to-night, as the little cable will take us nearly to Galita, and the Italian skipper could hardly find his way from thence. To-day-Sunday-not much rest. Mr. Liddell is at Spartivento telegraphing. We are at Chia, and shall shortly go to help our boat's crew in getting the small cable on board. We dropped them some time since in order that they might dig it out of the sand as far as possible.

'June 21.

'Yesterday-Sunday as it was-all hands were kept at work all day, coaling, watering, and making a futile attempt to pull the cable from the sh.o.r.e on board through the sand. This attempt was rather silly after the experience we had gained at Cape Spartivento. This morning we grappled, hooked the cable at once, and have made an excellent start. Though I have called this the small cable, it is much larger than the Bona one.-Here comes a break down and a bad one.

'June 22.

'We got over it, however; but it is a warning to me that my future difficulties will arise from parts wearing out. Yesterday the cable was often a lovely sight, coming out of the water one large incrustation of delicate, net-like corals and long, white curling sh.e.l.ls. No portion of the dirty black wires was visible; instead we had a garland of soft pink with little scarlet sprays and white enamel intermixed. All was fragile, however, and could hardly be secured in safety; and inexorable iron crushed the tender leaves to atoms.-This morning at the end of my watch, about 4 o'clock, we came to the buoys, proving our antic.i.p.ations right concerning the crossing of the cables. I went to bed for four hours, and on getting up, found a sad mess. A tangle of the six-wire cable hung to the grapnel which had been left buoyed, and the small cable had parted and is lost for the present. Our hauling of the other day must have done the mischief.

'June 23.

'We contrived to get the two ends of the large cable and to pick the short end up. The long end, leading us seaward, was next put round the drum and a mile of it picked up; but then, fearing another tangle, the end was cut and buoyed, and we returned to grapple for the three-wire cable. All this is very tiresome for me. The buoying and dredging are managed entirely by W-, who has had much experience in this sort of thing; so I have not enough to do and get very homesick. At noon the wind freshened and the sea rose so high that we had to run for land and are once more this evening anch.o.r.ed at Chia.

'June 24.

'The whole day spent in dredging without success. This operation consists in allowing the s.h.i.+p to drift slowly across the line where you expect the cable to be, while at the end of a long rope, fast either to the bow or stern, a grapnel drags along the ground. This grapnel is a small anchor, made like four pot-hooks tied back to back. When the rope gets taut, the s.h.i.+p is stopped and the grapnel hauled up to the surface in the hopes of finding the cable on its p.r.o.ngs.-I am much discontented with myself for idly lounging about and reading _Westward Ho_! for the second time, instead of taking to electricity or picking up nautical information. I am uncommonly idle. The sea is not quite so rough, but the weather is squally and the rain comes in frequent gusts.

'June 25.

'To-day about 1 o'clock we hooked the three-wire cable, buoyed the long sea end, and picked up the short [or sh.o.r.e] end. Now it is dark and we must wait for morning before lifting the buoy we lowered to-day and proceeding seawards.-The depth of water here is about 600 feet, the height of a respectable English hill; our fis.h.i.+ng line was about a quarter of a mile long. It blows pretty fresh, and there is a great deal of sea.

'26th.

'This morning it came on to blow so heavily that it was impossible to take up our buoy. The _Elba_ recommenced rolling in true Baltic style and towards noon we ran for land.

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