The Battery and the Boiler, Robert Michael Ballantyne [best book club books .TXT] 📗

to a dead halt, and with knitted brows and set teeth, hissed, "I'll go and drown myself."

Full of this intention he broke into a run, but, not being acquainted with the place, found it necessary to ask his way to the port. This somewhat sobered him, but did not quite change his mind, so that when he eventually reached the neighbourhood of the shipping, he was still going at a quick excited walk. He was stopped by a big and obviously eccentric sea-captain, or mate, who asked him if he happened to know of any active stout young fellow who wanted to ship in a tight little craft about to sail for old England.

"No, I don't," said Stumps, angrily.

"Come now, think again," said the skipper, in no degree abashed, and putting on a nautical grin, which was meant for a winning smile. "I'm rather short-handed; give good wages; have an amiable temper, a good craft, and a splendid cook. You're just the active spirited fellow that I want. You'll ship now, eh?"

"No, I won't," said Stumps, sulkily, endeavouring to push past.

"Well, well, no offence. Keep an easy mind, and if you should chance to change it, just come and see me, Captain Bounce, of the Swordfish. There she lies, in all her beauty, quite a picture. Good-day."

The eccentric skipper passed on, but Stumps did not move. He stood there with his eyes riveted on the pavement, and his lips tightly compressed. Evidently the drowning plan had been abandoned for something else--something that caused him to frown, then to smile, then to grow slightly pale, and then to laugh somewhat theatrically. While in this mood he was suddenly pushed to one side by some one who said--

"The track's made for walkin' on, not standin', young--Hallo!"

It was Slagg who had thus roughly encountered his mate.

"Why, Stumps, what's the matter with yon?"

"Nothing."

"Where 'ave you bin to?"

"Nowhere."

"Who's bin a-frightenin' of you!"

"Nobody."

"Nothin', nowhere, an' nobody," repeated his friend; "that's what I calls a coorious combination for a man who's as white as a sheet one moment, and as red as a turkey-cock the next."

"Well, Slagg," said Stumps, recovering himself a little, "the fact is, I've been taken in and robbed."

Hereupon he related all the circumstances of his late adventure to his astonished and disgusted comrade, who asserted roundly that he was a big booby, quite unfit to take care of himself.

"Hows'ever, we must do the best we can for you," he continued, "so come along to the police-office."

Information of the robbery was given, and inquiries instituted without delay, but without avail. Indeed the chief officer held out little hope of ultimate success; nevertheless, Slagg endeavoured to buoy up his friend with assurances that they must surely get hold of the thief in the long-run.

"And if we don't," he said to Robin and Sam, during a private conversation on the subject that same night, "we must just give him each a portion of what we have, for the poor stoopid has shared our trials, and ought to share our luck."

While Stumps was being thus fleeced in the lower part of the city, Robin and Sam had gone to make inquiries about Mrs Langley, and at the Government House they discovered a clerk who had formerly been at Sarawak, and had heard of the fire, the abduction of the little girl, and of Mrs Langley having afterwards gone to Bombay; but he also told them, to their great regret, that she had left for England six months before their arrival, and he did not know her address, or even the part of England to which she had gone.

"But," continued the clerk, who was a very friendly fellow, "I'll make inquiries, and let you know the result, if you leave me your address. Meanwhile you can amuse yourself by paying a visit to that wonderful ship, the Great Eastern, which has come to lay a submarine telegraph cable between this and Aden. Of course you have heard of her arrival-- perhaps seen her."

"O yes," replied Robin. "We intend to visit her at once. She is an old acquaintance of mine, as I was in her when she laid the Atlantic cable in 1865. Does Captain Anderson still command her?"

"No," answered the clerk, who seemed much interested in what Robin said. "She is now commanded by Captain Halpin."

That evening Robin tried to console poor Letta in her disappointment at not finding her mother, and Sam sought to comfort Stumps for the loss of his treasure. Neither comforter was very successful. Letta wept in spite of Robin, and Stumps absolutely refused to be comforted!

Next day, however, the tears were dried, and Letta became cheery again in the prospect of a visit to the Great Eastern.

But Stumps was no better. Indeed he seemed worse, and flatly refused to accompany them on their trip, although all the world of Bombay was expected to go.


"Stumps, Stumps,
Down in the dumps!
Down in the dumps so low--O!"


Sang Jim Slagg as he waved his hand in farewell on quitting the hotel. "Good-bye, my boy, and get your spirits up before we return, if you can."

"I'll try," replied Stumps with a grim smile.

The event which stirred the city of Bombay to its centre at this time was indeed a memorable one. The connecting of India with England direct by a deep-sea cable was a matter of the greatest importance, because the land telegraph which existed at the time was wretchedly worked, passing, as it did, through several countries, which involved translation and re-translation, besides subjecting messages to needless delay on the part of unbusiness-like peoples. In addition to the brighter prospects which the proposed cable was opening up, the presence of the largest ship that had ever yet been constructed was a point of overwhelming attraction, and so great were the crowds that went on board to see the marine wonder, that it was found somewhat difficult to carry on the necessary work of coaling and making preparations for the voyage.

"Robin," said Sam, an they walked along with Letta between them, "I've just discovered that the agent of the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company is an old friend of mine. He has been busy erecting a cable landing-house on the shores of Back Bay, so we'll go there first and get him to accompany us to the big ship."

"Good," said Robin, "if it is not too far for Letta to walk."

The landing-house, which they soon reached, stood near to the "green" where the Bombay and Baroda Railway tumbled out its stream of cotton until the region became a very sea of bales. It was a little edifice with a thatched roof and venetian blinds, commanding a fine view of the whole of Back Bay, with Malabar Point to the right and the governor's house imbedded in trees. 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.

For the reception of the extreme end of the cable there was provided, in the cable-house, a testing table of solid masonry, with a wooden top on which the testing instruments were to stand; the great delicacy of these instruments rendering a fixed table indispensable.

When our friends reached the cable-house, native labourers, in picturesque Oriental costume, were busy thatching its roof or painting it blue, while some were screwing its parts together; for the house, with a view to future telegraphic requirements, was built so as to come to pieces for shipment to still more distant quarters of the globe.

Sam's friend could not go with him, he said, but he would introduce him to a young acquaintance among the working engineers who was going on with a party in half an hour or so. Accordingly, in a short time they were gliding over the bay, and ere long stood on the deck of the big ship.

"Oh, Letta!" said Robin, with a glitter of enthusiasm in his eyes, as he gazed round on the well-remembered deck, "it feels like meeting an old friend after a long separation."

"How nice!" said Letta.

This "how nice" of the child was, so to speak, a point of great attraction to our hero. She always accompanied it with a smile so full of sympathy, interest, and urbanity, that it became doubly significant on her lips. Letta was precocious. She had grown so rapidly in sympathetic capacity and intelligence, since becoming acquainted with her new friends, that Robin had gradually come to speak to her about his thoughts and feelings very much as he used to speak to cousin Madge when he was a boy.

"Yes," he continued, "I had forgotten how big she was, and she seems to me actually to have grown bigger. There never was a ship like her in the world. Such huge proportions, such a vast sweep of graceful lines. The chief difference that I observe is the coat of white paint they have given her. She seems to have been whitewashed from stem to stern. It was for the heat, I fancy."

"Yes, sir, it wor," said a bluff cable-man who chanced to overhear the remark, "an' if you wor in the tanks, you'd 'ave blessed Capt'n Halpin for wot he done. W'y, sir, that coat o' whitewash made a difference o' no less than eight degrees in the cable-tanks the moment it was putt on. Before that we was nigh stooed alive. Arter that we've on'y bin baked."

"Indeed?" said Robin, but before he could say more the bluff cable-man had returned to his bakery.

"Just look here," he continued, turning again to Letta; "the great ships around us seem like little ones, by contrast, and the little ones like boats,--don't they?"

"Yes, and the boats like toys," said Letta, "and the people in them like dolls."

"True, little one, and yonder comes a toy steamer," said Sam, who had been contemplating the paying-out gear in silent admiration, "with some rather curious dolls on it."

"Oh!" exclaimed Letta, with great surprise, "look, Robin, look at the horses--just as if we were on shore!"

Among the many surprising things on board of the big ship, few were more striking for incongruity than the pair of grey carriage-horses, to which Letta referred, taking their morning exercise composedly up and down one side of the deck, with a groom at their heads.

The steamer referred to by Sam was one which contained a large party of Hindu and Parsee ladies and children who had come off to see the ship. These streamed into her in a bright procession, and were soon scattered about, making the decks and saloons like Eastern flower-beds with their many-coloured costumes--of red, pink, white, and yellow silks and embroideries, and bracelets, brooches, nose-rings, anklets, and other gold and silver ornaments.

The interest taken by the natives in the Great Eastern was naturally great, and was unexpectedly illustrated in the following manner. Captain Halpin, anticipating difficulties in the matter of coaling and otherwise carrying on the work of the expedition, had resolved to specify particular days for sight-seers, and to admit them by ticket, on which a small fee was charged--the