The Story of the Atlantic Telegraph

But at length the ship's head was brought round, and the end of the cable lifted over the bow, and grasped by the pulling-in machine, and the engine began to puff with the labor of raising the cable from the depths of the ocean. Fortunately they were only in four or five hundred fathoms water, so that the strain was not great. But the engine worked poorly, and the operation was very slow. With the best they could do, it was impossible to raise more than a mile an hour! But patience and courage, though it should take all day and all night![B] The Great Eastern did her duty well, steaming slowly back toward Ireland, while the engine pulled, and the cable came up, though reluctantly, from the sea, till on Tuesday morning at seven o'clock, when they had hauled in a little over ten miles, the cause of offence was brought on board. It was found to be a small piece of wire, not longer than a needle, that by some accident (for they did not then suspect a design) had been driven through the outer cover of the cable till it touched the core. There was the source of all the mischief. It was this pin's point which pricked the vital cord, opening a minute passage through which the electricity, like a jet of blood from a pierced artery, went streaming into the sea. It was with an almost angry feeling, as if to punish it for its intrusion, that this insignificant and contemptible source of trouble was snatched from its place, the wounded piece of cable was cut off, and a splice made and the work of paying out renewed. But it was four o'clock in the afternoon of Tuesday before they were ready to resume the voyage. A full day and a half had been lost by this miserable piece of wire.