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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.
I do like Thomson.... Tell Austin that the Great Eastern has six masts and four funnels. When I get back I will make a little model of her for all the chicks, and pay out cotton reels.... Here we are at 4.20 at Brest. We leave probably to-morrow morning. "July 12, Great Eastern. Here as I write we run our last course for the buoy at the St. Pierre shore-end.
Long lines of surf marked the position of ugly rocks which were visible at low water, but among these there was a pathway of soft sand marked off by stakes, along which the shore-end of the cable was to lie.
It was the angriest tumult of foam possible, as if the frothing of millions of enraged creatures of the sea. "Ah, there she is!" shouted John Fisher, as the cart neared the shore-end of the point. "We will get her!" screamed Charlie, as he reached the cart. The men laughed.
"But shall we have time for this trip if you should prove successful?" asked Sam. "Plenty of time," returned his friend; "coaling is a slow as well as a dirty process, and to ship thousands of tons is not a trifle. I daresay we shall be more than a week here before the shore-end is fixed and all ready to start." "Well then, Frank," said Sam; "adieu, till we meet as shipmates."
Signal is again made to the shore, and the men of the coastguard at once set up a triangle with a pendent block, through which the shore-end of the hawser is rove, and attached to a double-block tackle. Previously, however, a block called a "traveller" has been run on to the hawser. This block travels on and above the hawser, and from it is suspended the lifebuoy.
Nellie did exactly as she was directed; and then her husband, holding the shore-end of the line, concealed himself among the rocks. He was right about the bird. Ere long, it was seen returning, and soon, on motionless, expanded wings, it hovered over the rocky point. Then it caught sight of the floating bait.
The shore-end is laid, as you may have seen, and we are all under pressing orders to march, so we start from London to-night at 5.10. "June 20, off Ushant. I am getting quite fond of the big ship.
I can get away in that." The workmen signalled to the engineer above and the car ran up the wharf and up an incline at the shore-end. The moment the car disappeared, Del Mar hurried away in the direction he had come. At the top of the grade, he noticed, was a donkey engine which operated the cable that drew the car up from the dock, and at the top of the incline was a huge pile of material.
The shore-end of the cable twenty-seven miles in length, and much thicker than the deep-sea portion had been laid at Valentia, on the 22nd of July, amid prayer and praise, speech-making, and much enthusiasm, on the part of operators and spectators. On the 23rd, the end of the shore cable was spliced to that of the main cable, and the voyage had begun.
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