ng forth a shout of joyful surprise, and putting
an abrupt stoppage to the labours of the pickers-up!

They never found out what was the cause of that fault; but that was a
small matter, for, with restored sensation in the cable-nerve, renewed
communication with the shore, and resumed progress of the ship towards
her goal, they could afford to smile at former troubles.

Joy and sorrow, shower and sunshine, fair weather and foul, was at first
the alternating portion of the cable-layers.

"I can't believe my eyes!" said Robin to Jim Slagg, as they stood next
day, during a leisure hour, close to the whirling wheels and
never-ending cable, about 160 miles of which had been laid by that time.
"Just look at the Terrible and Sphinx; the sea is now so heavy that
they are thumping into the waves, burying their bows in foam, while we
are slipping along as steadily as a Thames steamer."

"That's true, sir," answered Slagg, whose admiration for our hero's
enthusiastic and simple character increased as their intimacy was
prolonged, and whose manner of address became proportionally more
respectful, "She's a steady little duck is the Great Eastern! she has
got the advantage of length, you see, over other ships, an' rides on two
waves at a time, instead of wobblin' in between 'em; but I raither think
she'd roll a bit if she was to go along in the trough of the seas.
Don't the cable go out beautiful, too--just like a long-drawn eel with
the consumption! Did you hear how deep the captain said it was
hereabouts?"

"Yes, I heard him say it was a little short of two miles deep, so it has
got a long way to sink before it reaches its oozy bed."

"How d'ee know what sort o' bed it's got to lie on?" asked Slagg.

"Because," said Robin, "the whole Atlantic where the cable is to lie has
been carefully sounded long ago, and it is found that the ocean-bed
here, which looks so like mud, is composed of millions of beautiful
shells, so small that they cannot be distinguished by the naked eye. Of
course, they have no creatures in them. It would seem that these
shell-fish go about the ocean till they die, and then fall to the bottom
like rain." See note one.

"You _don't_ say so!" returned Slagg, who, being utterly uneducated,
received suchlike information with charming surprise, and regarded Robin
as a very mine of knowledge. "Well now, that beats cock-fighting. But,
I say, how is it that the electricity works through the cable? I heerd