seemed to urge them on to redoubled exertions. Of course their
efforts were in vain. The next billow caught the boat on its foaming
crest, and raised it high in the air. For one moment the wave rose
between the boat and the men on the rock, and hid her from view, causing
Ned to exclaim, with a genuine groan, "Arrah! they's gone!"

But they were not; the boat's head had been carefully kept to the sea,
and, although she had been swept back a considerable way, and nearly
half-filled with water, she was still afloat.

The chief engineer now hailed the gentlemen, and advised them to return
and remain on board their vessel until the state of the tide would
permit him to send a proper boat for them.

In the meantime, however, a large boat from the floating light, pretty
deeply laden with lime, cement, and sand, approached, when the
strangers, with a view to avoid giving trouble, took their passage in
her to the rock. The accession of three passengers to a boat, already
in a lumbered state, put her completely out of trim, and, as it
unluckily happened, the man who steered her on this occasion was not in
the habit of attending the rock, and was not sufficiently aware of the
run of the sea at the entrance of the eastern creek.

Instead, therefore, of keeping close to the small rock called _Johnny
Gray_, he gave it, as Ruby expressed it, "a wide berth." A heavy sea
struck the boat, drove her to leeward, and, the oars getting entangled
among the rocks and seaweed, she became unmanageable. The next sea
threw her on a ledge, and, instantly leaving her, she canted seaward
upon her gunwale, throwing her crew and part of her cargo into the
water.

All this was the work of a few seconds. The men had scarce time to
realise their danger ere they found themselves down under the water; and
when they rose gasping to the surface, it was to behold the next wave
towering over them, ready to fall on their heads. When it fell it
scattered crew, cargo, and boat in all directions.

Some clung to the gunwale of the boat, others to the seaweed, and some
to the thwarts and oars which floated about, and which quickly carried
them out of the creek to a considerable distance from the spot where the
accident happened.

The instant the boat was overturned, Ruby darted towards one of the rock
boats which lay near to the spot where the party of workmen who manned
it had landed that morning. Wilson, the landing-master, was at his side
in a mom