cable tank was located, and two and a half miles
of cable were taken out before the fault could be removed. We then
weighed anchor and buoyed six miles out, talked with Misamis over the
wire, and then attached the end to a buoy and dropped it overboard,
preferring to wait until morning to make our splice and proceed on
our return trip to Dumaguete. At daylight we picked up the buoy,
drew the end of the cable on board, spliced it, and at eight o'clock
were proceeding toward the island of Negros, laying cable as we went.

Then for the first time did we hoist the cable-ship insignia on
the foremast head, three balls, which at a little distance looked
not unlike the sign of a pawnshop, though our three balls were hung
vertically from the masthead, two red ones with a white octahedron
shape between them. After dark two red lights with a white centre
light were substituted for these signals, each serving as a warning
to other vessels that we were either laying or picking up cable and
could not be expected to observe the etiquette of the high seas. In
other words, we were to have the right of way. As I understand it,
disabled steamers also carry three balls by day, all of them being red
in that case, and by night three red lights, our centre white ball by
day and centre white light after dark protecting us from well-meant
efforts at rescue by other vessels, which would of course foul our
cable and cause no end of mischief.

We sailed very slowly to Dumaguete, not over five knots an hour, with
the cable paying out perhaps six knots, this speed limitation being
necessary in order to stop the ship quickly in case of accident. It
seemed a sentient thing, that cable creeping slowly along the paying
out machinery, winding itself over the drum, and then stretching out
to full length and disappearing down the covered wooden cable troughs
on the main and quarter decks, and so into the sea at the stern of
the ship; the hose meanwhile playing a stream of water over the drum,
brakes, and jockey pulley, where the friction is always greatest. This
water ran off in a dirty yellow stream, flooding the forward deck,
while the tar from the cable decorated the ship from stem to stern,
thus transforming our _Burnside_ from a pretty, trig looking yacht
into a veritable work-a-day old scow.

Everyone on board was in the best possible spirits all morning because
we were really under way and accomplishing work that showed. Even
the natives in the