The Battery and the Boiler: Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables. Robert Michael Ballantyne
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swan, you mean,” said another comrade. “The fly that is most killing among Newfoundland whales is a swan fastened whole to a shark hook—though a small boat’s anchor will do if you haven’t the right tackle.”
“Come, don’t talk nonsense, but let’s have a song!” said a brother electrician to the sporting youth.
“I never sing,” he replied, “except when hurt, and then I sing out. But see, our best musician has just seated himself at the instrument.”
“I don’t talk shop, Nimrod; call it the piano.”
Most of those present drew towards the musical corner, where Ebenezer Smith, having just entered the saloon in search of Robin, had been prevailed on to sit down and enliven the company. Robin, who had been delayed by difficulty in finding the note-book, stopped to listen.
Smith had a fair average voice and a vigorous manner.
“You wouldn’t object to hear the cook’s last?” asked Smith, running his fingers lightly over the keys.
“Of course not—go on,” chorused several voices.
“I had no idea,” lisped a simple youth, who was one of a small party of young gentlemen interested in engineering and science, who had been accommodated with a passage,—“I had no idea that our cook was a poet as well as an admirable chef de cuisine.”
“Oh, it’s not our cook he means,” explained the sporting electrician; “Mr Smith refers to a certain sea-cook—or his son, I’m not sure which—who is chef des horse-marines.”
“Is there a chorus?” asked one.
“Of course there is,” replied Smith; “a sea-song without a chorus is like a kite without a tail—it is sure to fall flat, but the chorus is an old and well-known one—it is only the song that is new. Now then, clear your throats, gentlemen.”
’Twas on a Friday morning that I went off,
An’ shipped in the Nancy Lee,
But that ship caught a cold and with one tremendous cough
Went slap to the bottom of the sea, the sea, the sea,
Went slap to the bottom of the sea.
Chorus.—Then the raging sea may roar,
An’ the stormy winds may blow,
While we jolly sailor boys rattle up aloft,
And the landlubbers lie down below, below, below
And the landlubbers lie down below.
For wery nigh a century I lived with the crabs,
An’ danced wi’ the Mermaids too,
An’ drove about the Ocean in mother o’ pearl cabs,
An’ dwelt in a cavern so blue, so blue, so blue,
An’ dwelt in a cavern so blue.
Chorus.—Then the raging sea, etcetera.
I soon forgot the sorrows o’ the world above
In the pleasures o’ the life below;
Queer fish they made up to me the want o’ human love,
As through the world o’ waters I did go, did go, did go;
As through the world o’ waters I did go.
Chorus.—Then the raging sea, etcetera.
One day a horrid grampus caught me all by the nose,
An’ swung me up to the land,
An’ I never went to sea again, as everybody knows,
And as everybody well may understand, ’derstand, ’derstand,
And as everybody well may understand.
Chorus.—Then the raging sea, etcetera.
The plaudits with which this song was received were, it need scarcely be remarked, due more to the vigour of the chorus and the enthusiasm of the audience than to intrinsic merit. Even Robin Wright was carried off his legs for the moment, and, modest though he was, broke in at the chorus with such effect—his voice being shrill and clear—that, he unintentionally outyelled all the rest, and would have fled in consternation from the saloon if he had not been caught and forcibly detained by the sporting electrician, who demanded what right he had to raise his steam-whistle in that fashion.
“But I say, young Wright,” he added in a lower tone, leading our hero aside, “what’s this rumour I hear about a ghost in the steward’s cabin?”
“Oh! it is nothing to speak of,” replied Robin, with a laugh. “The lad they call Stumps got a fright—that’s all.”
“But that’s enough. Let us hear about it.”
“Well, I suppose you know,” said Robin, “that there’s a ghost in the Great Eastern.”
“No, I don’t know it from personal experience, but I have heard a report to that effect.”
“Well, I was down in Jim Slagg’s berth, having a chat with him about the nature of electric currents—for he has a very inquiring mind,—and somehow we diverged to ghosts, and began to talk of the ghost of the Great Eastern.
“‘I don’t believe in the Great Eastern ghost—no, nor in ghosts of any kind,’ said Stumps, who was sitting near us eating a bit of cheese.
“‘But I believe in ’em,’ said the boy Jeff, who was seated on the other side of the table, and looked at us so earnestly that we could scarce help smiling—though we didn’t feel in a smiling humour at the time, for it was getting dark, and we had got to talking in low tones and looking anxiously over our shoulders, you know—
“‘Oh yes, I know,’ replied the sportsman, with a laugh; ‘I have shuddered and grue-oo-ed many a time over ghost-stories. Well?’
“‘I don’t believe in ’em, Jeff. Why do you?’ asked Stumps, in a scoffing tone.
“‘Because I hear one every night a’most when I go down into the dark places below to fetch things. There’s one particular spot where the ghost goes tap-tap-tapping continually.’
“‘Fiddlededee,’ said Stumps.
“‘Come down, and you shall hear it for yourself,’ said Jeff.
“Now, they say that Stumps is a coward, though he boasts a good deal—”
“You may say,” interrupted the sportsman, “that Stumps is a coward because he boasts a good deal. Boasting is often a sign of cowardice—though not always.”
“Well,” continued Robin, “being ashamed to draw back, I suppose, he agreed to accompany Jeff.
“‘Won’t you come too, Slagg?’ said Stumps.
“‘No; I don’t care a button for ghosts. Besides, I’m too busy, but Wright will go. There, don’t bother me!’ said Jim.
“I noticed, as I went last out of the room, that Slagg rose quickly and pulled a sheet off one of the beds. Afterwards, looking back, I saw him slip out and run down the passage in the opposite direction. I suspected he was about some mischief, but said nothing.
“It was getting dark, as I have said, though not dark enough for lighting the lamps, and in some corners below it was as dark as midnight. To one of these places Jeff led us.
“‘Mind