f the other.

The tendency of one flake or coil of cable to stick to the coil
immediately below, and produce a wild irremediable entanglement before
the ship could be stopped, was another danger, but these and all other
mishaps of a serious nature were escaped, and the unusually prosperous
voyage was brought to a close on the 27th of February, when the Great
Eastern reached Aden in a gale of wind--as if to remind the cable-layers
of what _might_ have been--and the cable was cut and buoyed in forty
fathoms water.

The continuation of the cable up the Red Sea, the successful termination
of the great enterprise, and the start of our hero and his companions
for Old England after their work was done, we must unwillingly leave to
the reader's imagination.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

UNCLE RIK'S ADVENTURES.

Uncle Rik seated in Mr Wright's drawing-room; Mr Wright in an
easy-chair near the window; Mrs Wright--with much of the lustre gone
out of her fine eyes--lying languidly on the sofa; Madge Mayland at work
on some incomprehensible piece of netting beside her aunt,--all in deep
mourning.

Uncle Rik has just opened a telegram, at which he stares, open eyed and
mouthed, without speaking, while his ruddy cheeks grow pale.

"Not bad news, I trust, brother," said poor Mrs Wright, to whom the
worst news had been conveyed when she heard of the wreck of the Triton.
Nothing could exceed that, she felt, in bitterness.

"What is it, Rik?" said Mr Wright, anxiously.

"Oh! nothing--nothing. That is to say, not bad news, certainly, but
amazing news. Boh! I'm a fool."

He stopped short after this complimentary assertion, for uncle Rik had
somewhere read or heard that joy can kill, and he feared to become an
accomplice in a murder.

"Come, Rik, don't keep us in suspense," said his brother, rising;
"something _has_ happened."

"O yes, something has indeed happened," cried Rik, "for this telegram is
from Sam Shipton."

"Then Robin is alive!" cried Mrs Wright, leaping up, while Madge turned
perfectly white.

"No--that is to say--yes--it may be so--of course _must_ be so--for,--
bah! what an ass I am! Listen."

He proceeded to read Sam's telegram, while Mrs Wright covered her face
with her hands and sank trembling on the sofa.

The telegram having suffered rather severe mutilation at the hands of
the foreigners by whom it was transmitted, conveyed a very confusing
idea of the facts that were intended, but the puzzling ov