We sailed very slowly to Dumaguete, not over five knots an hour, with the cable paying out perhaps six knots, this speed limitation being necessary in order to stop the ship quickly in case of accident. It seemed a sentient thing, that cable creeping slowly along the paying out machinery, winding itself over the drum, and then stretching out to full length and disappearing down the covered wooden cable troughs on the main and quarter decks, and so into the sea at the stern of the ship; the hose meanwhile playing a stream of water over the drum, brakes, and jockey pulley, where the friction is always greatest. This water ran off in a dirty yellow stream, flooding the forward deck, while the tar from the cable decorated the ship from stem to stern, thus transforming our _Burnside_ from a pretty, trig looking yacht into a veritable work-a-day old scow.
Everyone on board was in the best possible spirits all morning because we were really under way and accomplishing work that showed. Even the natives in the tank, swiftly passing the cable from hand to hand, were singing in barbaric monotone to themselves, while we idle ones on the quarter-deck read a marvellous tale of love and bloodshed to the monotonous accompaniment of the cable shuffling through the wooden troughs beside us.
At about four in the afternoon, however, just as we were lazily deciding to ring for tea, there came a rush of feet from the forward part of the ship and a jangle of the engine-room's bell meaning "Full speed astern!" But quick as the ship was in coming to a standstill, and quick as were the Signal Corps men in stopping the machinery, the cable itself was quicker, and in less time than it takes to tell it, a tangle of cable in the tanks blocked the drum, causing so tremendous a strain that the cable broke, the end going overboard.
We were all sick at heart, none more so than the poor Filipino who had been knocked flat by the cable on its erratic departure from the tank. Fortunately, the native was more frightened than hurt, and not many moments later joined in a game of monte with his friends not on duty at the time. The cable laying machinery was then transformed into a grappling machine, and by half past seven that evening the strain on the dynamometer showed we had in all probability hooked something. An hour later the end was on board, and by midnight a satisfactory splice had been made by a sergeant of the Signal Corps, in charge of such work, and his band of native cable splicers. Then sufficient tests were made to ascertain if the joint were perfect, that is, if the insulation of the new piece of cable, when added to that already laid, gave the right answer.