But our work was not over. After landing the cable safely at Newfoundland, we had another task-to return to mid-ocean and recover that lost in the expedition of last year. This achievement has perhaps excited more surprise than the other. Many even now "don't understand it," and every day I am asked "How it was done"? Well, it does seem rather difficult to fish for a jewel at the bottom of the ocean two and a half miles deep. But it is not so very difficult when you know how. You may be sure we did not go fishing at random, nor was our success mere "luck." It was the triumph of the highest nautical and engineering skill. We had four ships, and on board of them some of the best seamen in England - men who knew the ocean as a hunter knows every trail in the forest. There was Captain Moriarty, who was in the Agamemnon in 1857-1858. He was in the Great Eastern in 1865, and saw the cable when it broke; and he and Captain Anderson at once took observations so exact that they could go right to the spot. After finding it, they marked the line of the cable by buoys; for fogs would come, and shut out sun and stars, so that no man could take an observation.
These buoys were anchored a few miles apart, they were numbered, and each had a flagstaff on it so that it could be seen by day, and a lantern by night. Having thus taken our bearings, we stood off three or four miles, so as to come broadside on, and then, casting over the grapnel, drifted slowly down upon it, dragging the bottom of the ocean as we went. At first it was a little awkward to fish in such deep water, but our men got used to it, and soon could cast a grapnel almost as straight as an old whaler throws a harpoon. Our fishing-line was of formidable size. It was made of rope, twisted with wires of steel, so as to bear a strain of thirty tons. It took about two hours for the grapnel to reach bottom, but we could tell when it struck. I often went to the bow, and sat on the rope, and could feel by the quiver that the grapnel was dragging on the bottom two miles under us. But it was a very slow business. We had storms and calms and fogs and squalls.
Still we worked on day after day. Once, on August 17th, we got the cable up, and had it in full sight for five minutes, a long, slimy monster, fresh from the ooze of the ocean's bed, but our men began to cheer so wildly that it seemed to be frightened and suddenly broke away and went down into the sea. This accident kept us at work two weeks longer, but, finally, on the last night of August we caught it. We had cast the grapnel thirty times. It was a little before midnight on Friday night that we booked the cable, and it was a little after midnight Sunday morning when we got it on board. What was the anxiety of those twenty-six hours! The strain on every man was like the strain on the cable itself. When finally it appeared, it was midnight; the lights of the ship, and those in the boats around our bows, as they flashed in the faces of the men, showed them eagerly watching for the cable to appear on the water.
At length it was brought to the surface. All who were allowed to approach crowded forward to see it. Yet not a word was spoken save by the officers in command who were heard giving orders. All felt as if life and death hung on the issue. It was only when the cable was brought over the bow and on to the deck that men dared to breathe. Even then they hardly believed their eyes. Some crept toward it to feel of it, to be sure it was there. Then we carried it along to the electricians' room, to see if our long-sought-for treasure was alive or dead. A few minutes of suspense, and a flash told of the lightning current again set free. Then did the feeling long pent up burst forth. Some turned away their heads and wept. Others broke into cheers, and the cry ran from man to man, and was heard down in the enginerooms, deck below deck, and from the boats on the water, and the other ships, while rockets lighted the darkness of the sea. Then with thankful hearts we turned our faces again to the West.
“Christ's ... yoke is an easy yoke; his burden like the burden of wings to a bird, that makes her fly the higher.”
–Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed and Smoking Flax