150 A SAGA OF THE SEAS 
by ropes over the high bow of the Great Eastern. As soon as 
they saw the slime-covered line that had given so much 
trouble, they seized it firmly and fastened it with ropes. 
“When once it was made fast, all took a long breath,” wrote 
Henry Field. “The cable was recovered. They had the sea- 
serpent at last. There the monster lay, its neck firmly in 
their gripe, and its black head lying on the deck. But even 
then there was no cheering. . . . Men are sometimes stunned 
by a sudden success, and hardly know if it be not all a dream. 
. . . Yes—it was the same that they paid out into the sea thir- 
teen months before.” 
‘The great question now was whether signals could be sent 
through this cable to Ireland. If a sharp rock or a pin point 
had injured it, the transmission might be spoiled. The cable 
was hauled in to the testing-room, “where the chief electri- 
clan was to operate upon it, to see whether it was alive or 
dead,” as Henry Field said. ‘There was an hour’s preparation. 
The artist of the expedition, Robert Dudley, whose draw- 
ings later appeared in the Illustrated London News, described 
this scene: “And now, in their mysterious, darkened haunt, 
the wizards are ready to work their spells upon the tamed 
lightning. . . . Professor Thomson, be sure, is here, a worthy 
‘Wizard of the North’; Cyrus Field could no more be absent 
than the cable itself. . . . The core of the cable is stripped 
and the heart itself—the conducting wire—fixed in the instru- 
ment. . . . The ticking of the chronometer becomes monot- 
onous. Nearly a quarter of an hour has passed, and still no 
sign! Suddenly Willoughby Smith’s hat is off, and the British 
hurrah bursts from his lips, echoed by all on board with a 
volley of cheers.” The Irish station had replied; the cable 
worked. 
The conditions at the Irish end in Valentia were described 
in the Spectator of London: “Night and day, for a whole year, 
an electrician has always been on duty, watching the tiny ray 
of light through which signals are given, and twice every day 
