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Allen Drew, glancing carelessly about as he started for the shore-end of the pier, suddenly saw the girl coming in his direction. From that moment dating from the shock of that first glimpse of her the current of his life was changed. Women were rare enough down here on the East River docks; one of the type of this gloriously beautiful girl seemed an impossibility an hallucination.
This air of determination sufficiently impressed the boatmen to make them give way before him When he started to walk toward the shore-end of the pier. But they trooped along beside more noisily than ever.
The passage was a terrific experience though the distance between the cross-trees and the top of the cliff was not great. Neither the girl nor the skipper spoke a word. He held her tight and she hid her face against his shoulder. Fifteen of the men, under the orders of Bill Brennen, held the shore-end of the hawser.
The first rocket was carried to the right of the vessel, which was now clearly visible. The second went to the other side. There was a reef of rocks on that side which lay a few yards farther out from the beach than the wreck. Over this reef the rocket-line fell and got entangled. Part of the shore-end of the apparatus also broke down.
Robin made a splendid heave so splendid indeed that it caused him to stagger backward, and again he stumbled into his own battery! This time, however, only one leg was immersed. "Another danger!" shouted Madge in great glee, "but I've caught the cable." "All right. Now make fast the shore-end to a bush, and we'll commence telegraphing.
Next morning, the 14th of February 1870, the Great Eastern lifted her mighty anchor, and spliced the end of the 2375 miles of cable she had on board to the shore-end, which had been laid by the Chiltern. This splice was effected in the presence of the Governor of Bombay, Sir Seymour Fitzgerald, who, with a small party, accompanied the Great Eastern a short distance on its way.
"Yes, and we hope to be ready in a few days to lay the shore-end of the cable," answered the young engineer. "But have they not got land-lines of telegraph which work well enough?" asked Robin. "Land-lines!" exclaimed Frank, with a look of contempt. "Yes, they have, and no doubt the lines are all right enough, but the people through whose countries they pass are all wrong.
He saw that Bill Brennen, Nick Leary, his brother Cormick and several of the men whom he had rescued from the flooded cabin had clustered around the shore-end of the hawser. He saw that they feared treachery. He made his way across, cool, fearless, with a dangerous smile on his lips. "She lays snug enough. We'll break out the freight, to-morrow," said the skipper.
"But as for you," he gritted, "if I could only just one grip of your throat is all I'd ask for, and then, you dog!" Harty closed his wireless office and headed for the water-front. Near the shore-end of the breakwater he came to a halt. He could but dimly see the beginning of the outstretching wall of concrete, but plainly enough he could hear the combers thundering over the crest of it.
Anon came William of Ely, and built a floating bridge a full half-mile in length across the black abyss of mud and reeds that yawned between the island and the mainland. But the bridge was unable to bear the weight of all the French who crowded on to it; the fastenings at the shore-end broke, and the bridge itself overturned, so that all upon it were thrown into the mud and miserably drowned.
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