Having thus caught the cable, they had good hopes of getting it again, their confidence increasing with every hundred fathoms brought on board. For hours the work went on. They had raised it seven hundred fathoms—or three quarters of a mile—from the bottom, when an iron swivel gave way, and the cable once more fell back into the sea, carrying with it nearly two miles of rope.
The first attempt had failed, but the fact that they had unmistakably caught the prize gave them courage for a second. Preparations were at once begun, but fogs came on and delayed the attempt till Monday, when it was repeated. The grapnel caught again. It was late in the afternoon when it got its hold, and the work of pulling in was kept up all night. But as the sea was calm and the moon shining brightly, all joined in it with spirit, feeling elated with the hope of triumph on the morrow.
That was not to be; but each attempt seemed to come nearer and nearer to victory. This time the cable was drawn up a full mile from the bottom, and hung suspended a mile and a half below the ship. Had the rope been strong enough, it might have been brought on board. But again a swivel gave way, and the cable, whose sleep had been a second time disturbed, sought its ocean bed.
These experiments were fast using up the wire rope, and every expedient had to be resorted to, to piece it out and to give it strength. Each shackle and swivel was replaced by new bolts, and the capstan was increased four feet in diameter, by being belted with enormous plates of iron, to wind the rope around it, if the picking-up machinery should fail. This gave full work to all the mechanics on board. The ship was turned into a very cave of Vulcan, presenting at night a scene which might well take the eye of an artist, and which Russell thus describes:
"The forge fires glared on her decks, and there, out in the midst of the Atlantic, anvils rang and sparks flew; and the spectator thought of some village far away, where the blacksmith worked, unvexed by cable anxieties and greed of speedy news. As the blaze shot up, ruddy, mellow and strong, and flung arms of light aloft and along the glistening decks, and then died into a red centre, masts, spars, and ropes were for the instant touched with a golden gleaming, and strange figures and faces were called out from the darkness—vanished, glinted out again—rushed suddenly into foreground of bright pictures, which faded soon away—flickered—went out—as they were called to life by its warm breath, or were buried in the outer darkness! Outside all was obscurity, but now and then vast shadows, which moved across the arc of the lighted fog-bank, were projected far away by the flare; and one might well pardon the passing mariner, whose bark drifted him in the night across the track of the great ship, if, crossing himself, and praying with shuddering lips, he fancied he beheld a phantom ship freighted with an evil crew, and ever after told how he had seen the workshops of the Inferno floating on the bosom of the ocean."
While preparing for a third attempt, the ship had been drifting about, sometimes to a distance of thirty or forty miles, but it had marked the course where the cable lay by two buoys, thrown over about ten miles apart, each bearing a flag which might be seen at a distance, and so easily came back to the spot. On Thursday morning all was ready, and the line was cast as before, but after some hours of drifting, it was evident that the ship had passed over the cable without grappling. The line was hauled in, and the reason at once appeared. One of the flukes had caught in the chain, so that it could not strike its teeth into the bottom. This was cleared away, and the rope prepared for a fourth and final attempt.
It was at noon of Friday that the grapnel went overboard for the last time. By four o'clock it had caught, and the work of hauling-in recommenced. Again the cable was brought up nearly eight hundred fathoms, when the rope broke, carrying down two miles of its own length, and with it the hopes of the Atlantic Telegraph for the present year.
Their resources were exhausted. For nine days and nights, for the work never stopped for light or darkness, had the great ship kept moving round and round like some mighty bird of the sea, with her eye fixed on the place where her treasure had gone down, and striving to wrest it from the hand of the spoiler. Three times had they grasped the prize, and each time failed to recover it, only for want of ropes strong enough to bring it on board. The cable itself never broke. This proof of its strength was a good omen for future success.
But for the present all was over. The attempt must be abandoned for the year 1865, but not for ever; and with this purpose in her constant mind, the Great Eastern swung sullenly around, and turned her imperial head toward England, like a warrior retiring from the field—not victorious, nor yet defeated and despairing, but with her battle-flag still flying, and resolved once more to attempt the conquest of the sea.