d at four in the morning, picked up the buoy
with our deck-engine, popped the cable across a boat, tested the wires
to make sure the fault was not behind us, and started picking up at
11. Everything worked admirably, and about 2 P.M. in came the fault.
There is no doubt the cable was broken by coral-fishers; twice they
have had it up to their own knowledge.

"Many men have been ashore to-day and have come back tipsy, and the
whole ship is in a state of quarrel from top to bottom, and they will
gossip just within my hearing. And we have had moreover three French
gentlemen and a French lady to dinner, and I had to act host and try
to manage the mixtures to their taste. The good-natured little
Frenchwoman was most amusing; when I asked her if she would have some
apple tart--'_Mon Dieu_,' with heroic resignation, '_je veux bien_';
or a little _plombodding_--'_Mais ce que vous voudrez, Monsieur!_'

"_SS. Elba, somewhere not far from Bona, Oct. 19._

"Yesterday [after three previous days of useless grappling] was
destined to be very eventful. We began dredging at daybreak, and
hooked at once every time in rocks; but by capital luck, just as we
were deciding it was no use to continue in that place, we hooked the
cable: up it came, was tested, and lo! another complete break, a
quarter of a mile off. I was amazed at my own tranquillity under these
disappointments, but I was not really half so fussy as about getting a
cab. Well, there was nothing for it but grappling again, and, as you
may imagine, we were getting about six miles from shore. But the water
did not deepen rapidly; we seemed to be on the crest of a kind of
submarine mountain in prolongation of Cape de Gonde, and pretty havoc
we must have made with the crags. What rocks we did hook! No sooner
was the grapnel down than the ship was anchored; and then came such a
business: ship's engines going, deck-engine thundering, belt slipping,
fear of breaking ropes: actually breaking grapnels. It was always an
hour or more before we could get the grapnel down again. At last we
had to give up the place, though we knew we were close to the cable,
and go farther to sea in much deeper water; to my great fear, as I
knew the cable was much eaten away and would stand but little strain.
Well, we hooked the cable first dredge this time, and pulled it slowly
and gently to the top, with much trepidation. Was it the