I like to think that splinters from my Iron Star are journeying across the world somewhat more solidly than thistledown, yet making themselves felt wherever they stop to rest. I like to think that possibly one splinter was forged into the identical steel needle which formed the indicator in the office of the first Atlantic cable, that three-thousand-mile-long wire, covered with gutta percha to keep out the salt water, which was laid from England to America under the ocean. You know that we telegraph by electricity, which is lightning in harness. But you may not know that this first deep-sea wire sent messages which were read by the way in which a flash of light was reflected in a mirror, wavering to and fro; and that the very first message was a greeting of peace and goodwill from Queen Victoria to President Buchanan.
The first message sent by the cable read as follows:—
"To the President of the United States, Washington
"The Queen desires to congratulate the President upon the successful completion of this great international work, in which the Queen has taken the greatest interest.
"The Queen is convinced that the President will join with her in fervently hoping that the electric cable, which now connects Great Britain with the United States, will prove an additional link between the nations, whose friendship is founded upon their common interest and reciprocal esteem.
"The Queen has much pleasure in thus communicating with the President, and renewing to him her wishes for the prosperity of the United States."
Let us pick up the thread of the story of one sharp splinter which we have lost sight of;—the sword which Louis of Daneshold lost in battle, which Wulf had carried and which Ulf had made far back in the days of the Northmen.
Men do not linger long around a battlefield after the fight is over, unless it is their fate to stay there forever; and with rattle of mailed harness and blare of trumpet-calls the Crusaders tramped heavily away through the sand, leaving behind them here and there a red spot on the earth, here and there a Saracen. Then, in time, a lightfooted, lightfingered troop of Arabs dashed into the little valley, sharply scanning the ground to right and left for forgotten weapons worth the picking up.
One wild, swift riding young fellow came sweeping along with his white burnous, or robe, trailing behind him in the air, and down he bent to earth like a circus rider as his eye caught a flash of sunlight. With a shout of triumph he snatched up a straight cut-and-thrust sword, which in weight and size seemed exactly made for him. This was unusual luck; for, as he said gleefully to his comrades, while Frankish swords were not uncommon trophies of war yet usually they were heavy, clumsy things, not easily wielded by the hands of Eastern men. So, that night by the camp fire at the little well under the date palms, Mohammed Ali Ben Ibyn, no longer a wild, reckless horseman, but a grave, dignified young man, thrust a fresh coal into the bowl of his long stemmed pipe, handed it politely to an elder friend, and beckoned to a slave to bring him that new weapon from his tent. Taking it he made a few passes and cuts at the empty air to learn the balance of it, then set the point of it on the metal boss of a small shield at his feet, steadily pressing downward.
Down, down went the hilt while the splendidly tempered blade curved under the pressure into a bow, until before their astonished eyes hilt and point kissed each other. Then the spring of the steel slowly overcame the muscle in the arm that bent it, and the hilt turned ever so slightly in the hand, yet quite enough; for the point glanced from the metal and sank into the leather, the blade sprung into line, and with a whiz the little buckler slid out from under foot, flew up from the sand as though it had wings and skimmed away far beyond the firelight.