rrible and the Sphinx, had been appointed to
accompany and aid the Great Eastern on her important mission. A gun was
fired, and signals were made, to acquaint these with what had occurred
while the fires were being got up in the boilers of the picking-up
machinery.

Electricians as well as doctors differ, it would seem, among themselves,
for despite their skill and experience there was great difference of
opinion in the minds of those on board the big ship as to the place
where the fault lay. Some thought it was near the shore, and probably
at the splice of the shore-end with the main cable. Others calculated,
from the indications given by the tests, that it was perhaps twenty or
forty or sixty miles astern. One of the scientific gentlemen held that
it was not very far from the ship, while another gentleman, who was said
to be much experienced in "fault"-finding, asserted that it was not more
than nine or ten miles astern.

While the doctors were thus differing, the practical engineers were busy
making the needful preparations for picking-up--an operation involving
great risk of breaking the cable, and requiring the utmost delicacy of
treatment, as may be easily understood, for, while the cable is being
payed out the strain on it is comparatively small, whereas when it is
being picked up, there is not only the extra strain caused by stoppage,
and afterwards by hauling in, but there is the risk of sudden risings of
the ship's stern on the ocean swell, which might at any moment snap the
thin line like a piece of packthread.

The first difficulty and the great danger was to pass the cable from the
stern to the bow, and to turn the ship round, so as to enable them to
steam up to the cable while hauling it in. Iron chains were lashed
firmly to the cable at the stern, and secured to a wire-rope carried
round the outside of the ship to the picking-up apparatus at the bows.
The cable was down in 400 fathoms of water when the paying-out ceased,
and nice management was required to keep the ship steady, as she had now
no steerage-way; and oh! with what intense interest and curiosity and
wonder did Robin Wright regard the varied and wonderful mechanical
appliances, with which the whole affair was accomplished!

Then the cable was cut, and, with its shackles and chains, allowed to go
plump into the sea. Robin's heart and soul seemed to go along with it,
for, not expecting the event, he fancied it was lost for ever.

"Gone