s missing. It was the
buoy to which the Cagayan shore end had been fastened, and there was
not a little mystery as to how it could have got away from its mushroom
anchor. So, instead of starting to lay the cable to Misamis, we used
the machinery as a fishing tackle, and, after some little trouble,
hooked the Cagayan cable in a hundred and twenty-five fathoms of
water. Later in the day the buoy was picked up, a most disreputable
looking object, banged and battered almost beyond recognition, which
showed it had undoubtedly been struck during the night by the ship's
propeller, owing to the tremendously swift current in the harbour.

All that afternoon the cable sang its song of the drum, in preparation
for the morrow's trip, and a little after daylight the next morning
the Misamis buoy was picked up and its cable spliced to that in the
main tank, after which we left Iligan, paying out the cable so slowly
that it was five o'clock before we anchored off the Misamis buoy,
just in time for a splice to be made ere the swift darkness of the
tropics was upon us.

The signal sergeant in charge of such work had a large audience that
evening watching his skilful joining together of the two ends of
cable. How deft he was in unwinding the sheathing wire, how exact
in cutting off just the right amount of core from each end of the
cable, how careful in stripping the insulation from the cores' end
with a sharp knife not to nick the wires, which would have produced
untold trouble. Then the seven wires stranded together in each end
were unwound, carefully cleaned and scraped, that they might solder
readily, after which they were again twisted together with pliers,
and the joint completed. When this was done the rubber tape was wound
round and round the copper wires, after which the whole was put into
a vulcanizing bath of hot paraffine. Upon soaking half an hour, it was
removed from the paraffine and the jute serving was bound back again;
then the armour--a steel wire spiral jacket--was replaced, the spirals
winding back into their original position with the greatest ease. Wire
was then wound at intervals over this steel jacket to keep the spirals
in place, after which the whole, for ten or fifteen feet in length,
was served with a neat finish of spun yarn.

At sunrise the next morning we went into the harbour of Misamis for
the third time, staying just long enough to ascertain that the cable
was working satisfactorily, after which we s