him, was seated with his friend the engineer down among
the great cranks, and wheels, and levers, of the regions below.

"It's well the sharks weren't on the outlook," said Frank Hedley, as he
brought forward a small bench for Letta, Sam, and Jim Slagg. "You won't
mind the oily smell, my dear," he said to Letta.

"O no. I rather like it," replied the accommodating child.

"It's said to be fattening," remarked Slagg, "even when taken through
the nose."

"Come now, let me hear all about my dear mother and the rest of them,
Frank," said Robin.

Frank began at once, and, for a considerable time, conversed about the
sayings and doings of the Wright family, and of the world at large, and
about the loss of the cable-ship; but gradually and slowly, yet surely,
the minds and converse of the little party came round to the
all-absorbing topic, like the needle to the pole.

"So, you're actually going to begin to coal to-morrow?" said Sam.

"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. Why, the Government
lines are so frequently out of order just now, that their daily
condition is reported on as if they were noble invalids. Just listen
to this," (he caught up a very much soiled and oiled
newspaper)--"`Telegraph Line Reports, Kurrachee, 2nd February, 6 p.m.--
Cable communication perfect to Fao; Turkish line is interrupted beyond
Semawali; Persian line interrupted beyond Shiraz.' And it is constantly
like that--the telegraphic disease, though intermittent, is chronic.
One can never be sure when the line may be unfit for duty. Sometimes
from storms, sometimes from the assassination of the operators in wild
districts, through which the land wires pass, and sometimes from the
destruction of lines out of pure mischief, the telegraph is often beaten
by the mail."

"There seems, indeed, much need for a cable direct," said Sam, "which
will make us independent of Turks, Persians, Arabs, and all the rest of
them. By the way, how long is your cable?"

"The cable now in our tanks is 2375 nautical miles long, but our
companion ships, the Hibernia, Chiltern, and Hawk, carry among them 1225
miles mor