On Friday morning, the thirteenth of July, the fleet finally bade adieu to the land. Was Friday an unlucky day? Some of the sailors thought so, and would have been glad to leave a day before or after. But Columbus sailed on Friday, and discovered the New World on Friday; and so this expedition put to sea on Friday, and, as a good Providence would have it, reached land on the other side of the Atlantic on the same day of the week! As the ships disappeared below the horizon, Mr. Glass and Mr. Varley went up on their watch-tower--not to look, but to listen for the first voice from the sea. The ships bore away for the buoy where lay the end of the shore line; but the weather was thick and foggy, with frequent bursts of rain, and they could not see far on the water. For an hour or two they went sailing round and round, like sea-gulls in search of prey. At length the Albany caught sight of the buoy tossing on the waves, and, firing a signal gun, bore down straight upon it. The cable was soon hauled up from its bed, a hundred fathoms deep, and brought over the stern of the Great Eastern; and the watchers on shore, who had been waiting with some impatience, saw the first flash, and Varley read, "Got the shore end--all right--going to make the splice." Then all was still, and they knew that that delicate operation was going on. Quick, nimble hands tore off the covering from some yards of the shore end of the main cable, till they came to the core; then, swiftly unwinding the copper wires, they laid them together, twining them as closely and carefully as a silken braid. Thus stripped and bare this new-born child of the sea was wrapped in swaddling-clothes, covered up with many coatings of gutta-percha, and hempen rope, and strong iron wires, the whole bound round and round with heavy bands, and the splicing was complete. Signals were now sent through the whole cable on board the Great Eastern and back to the telegraph-house at Valentia, and the whole length, two thousand four hundred and forty nautical miles, was reported perfect. And so with light hearts they bore away. It was a little after three o'clock. As they turned to the west, the following was the "order of battle": the Terrible went ahead, standing off on the starboard bow, to keep other vessels out of the course; the Medway was on the port, and the Albany on the starboard quarter, ready to pick up or let go a buoy, or to do other work that might be required. All these ships were to keep their allotted positions, within signalling distance of the Great Eastern, and at any time that she was heard firing guns, they were to close in with her to render assistance. Their course lay thirty miles to the south of that of the last year, so that there could be no danger, in fishing for the old cable, of disturbing the new.