se of getting a boat off to
send Ruby ashore.

"You see," said Forsyth, "the day after to-morrow the 'relief boat'
is due, and it may be as well just to wait for that, Ruby, and then
you can go ashore with your friend Jamie Dove, for it's his turn this
time."

"Ay, lad, just make up your mind to stay another day," said the
smith; "as they don't know you're here they can't be wearyin' for
you, and I'll take ye an' introduce you to my little wife, that I
fell in with on the cliffs of Arbroath not long after ye was
kidnapped. Besides, Ruby, it'll do ye good to feed like a fighting
cock out here another day. Have another cup o' tea?"

"An' a junk o' beef?" said Forsyth.

"An' a slice o' toast?" said Dumsby.

Ruby accepted all these offers, and soon afterwards the four
friends descended to the rock, to take as much exercise as they
could on its limited surface, during the brief period of low water
that still remained to them.

It may easily be imagined that this ramble was an interesting one,
and was prolonged until the tide drove them into their tower of
refuge. Every rock, every hollow, called up endless reminiscences of
the busy building seasons. Ruby went over it all step by step with
somewhat of the feelings that influence a man when he revisits the
scene of his childhood. There was the spot where the forge had stood.

"D'ye mind it, lad?" said Dove. "There are the holes where the hearth
was fixed, and there's the rock where you vaulted over the bellows
when ye took that splendid dive after the fair-haired lassie into the
pool yonder."

"Mind it? Ay, I should think so!"

Then there were the holes where the great beams of the beacon had
been fixed, and the iron bats, most of which latter were still left
in the rock, and some of which may be seen there at the present day.
There was also the pool into which poor Selkirk had tumbled with the
vegetables on the day of the first dinner on the rock, and that other
pool into which Forsyth had plunged after the mermaids; and, not
least interesting among the spots of note, there was the ledge, now
named the "Last Hope", on which Mr. Stevenson and his men had stood
on the day when the boat had been carried away, and they had
expected, but were mercifully preserved from, a terrible tragedy.

After they had talked much on all these things, and long before they
were tired of it, the sea drove them to the rails; gradually, as it
rose higher, it drove them into the lightho