and three tremendous
cheers.

"Howld on, boys," cried O'Connor, stretching out his hand as if to
command silence; "you'll scare the dove from his cot altogether av ye
roar like that!"

"Surely they're sendin' us a fire to warm us," observed one of the
men, pointing to a boat which had put off from the _Smeaton_, and was
approaching the rock by way of _Macurich's Track_.

"What can'd be, I wonder?" said Watt; "I think I can smell
somethin'."

"I halways thought you 'ad somethink of an old dog in you," said
Dumsby.

"Ay, man!" said the Scot with a leer, "I ken o' war beasts than auld
dowgs."

"Do you? come let's 'ear wat they are," said the Englishman.

"Young puppies," answered the other.

"Hurrah! dinner, as I'm a Dutchman," cried Forsyth.

This was indeed the case. Dinner had been cooked on board the
_Smeaton_ and sent hot to the men; and this,--the first dinner ever
eaten on the Bell Rock,--was the second of the memorable events
before referred to.

The boat soon ran into the creek and landed the baskets containing
the food on _Hope's Wharf_.

The men at once made a rush at the viands, and bore them off
exultingly to the flattest part of the rock they could find.

"A regular picnic," cried Dumsby in high glee, for unusual events, of
even a trifling kind, had the effect of elating those men more than
one might have expected.

"Here's the murphies," cried O'Connor, staggering over the slippery
weed with a large smoking tin dish.

"Mind you don't let 'em fall," cried one.

"Have a care," shouted the smith; "if you drop them I'll beat you
red-hot, and hammer ye so flat that the biggest flatterer as ever
walked won't be able to spread ye out another half-inch."

"Mutton! oh!" exclaimed Forsyth, who had been some time trying to
wrench the cover off the basket containing a roast leg, and at last
succeeded.

"Here, spread them all out on this rock. You han't forgot the grog, I
hope, steward?"

"No fear of him: he's a good feller, is the steward, when he's asleep
partiklerly. The grog's here all right."

"Dinna let Dumsby git baud o't, then," cried Watt. "What! hae ye
begood a'ready? Patience, man, patience. Is there ony saut?"

"Lots of it, darlin', in the say. Sure this shape must have lost his
tail somehow. Och, murther! if there isn't Bobby Selkirk gone an'
tumbled into Port Hamilton wid the cabbage, av it's not the carrots!"

"There now, don't talk so much, boys," cried Peter Logan. "Let's