large wave, which, breaking on the outer
reefs, sent the foam a little closer to his toes than was agreeable.

"That was a big one, but yonder is a bigger," cried Logan.

The wave to which he referred was indeed a majestic wall of water. It
came on with such an awful appearance of power, that some of the men
who perceived it could not repress a cry of astonishment.

In another moment it fell, and, bursting over the rocks with a
terrific roar, extinguished the forge fire, and compelled the men to
take refuge in the beacon.

Jamie Dove saved his bellows with difficulty. The other men, catching
up their things as they best might, crowded up the ladder in a more
or less draggled condition.

The beacon house was gained by means of one of the main beams, which
had been converted into a stair, by the simple process of nailing
small battens thereon, about a foot apart from each other. The men
could only go up one at a time, but as they were active and
accustomed to the work, they were all speedily within their place of
refuge. Soon afterwards the sea covered the rock, and the place where
they had been at work was a mass of seething foam.

Still there was no wind; but dark clouds had begun to rise on the
seaward horizon.

The sudden change in the appearance of the rock after the last
torches were extinguished was very striking. For a few seconds there
seemed to be no light at all. The darkness of a coal mine appeared to
have settled down on the scene. But this soon passed away, as the
men's eyes became accustomed to the change, and then the dark loom of
the advancing billows, the pale light of the flashing foam, and
occasional gleams of phosphorescence, and glimpses of black rocks in
the midst of all, took the place of the warm, busy scene which the
spot had presented a few minutes before.

"Supper, boys!" shouted Bremner.

Peter Bremner, we may remark in passing, was a particularly useful
member of society. Besides being small and corpulent, he was a
capital cook. He had acted during his busy life both as a groom and a
house-servant; he had been a soldier, a sutler, a writer's clerk, and
an apothecary--in which latter profession he had acquired the art of
writing and suggesting recipes, and a taste for making collections in
natural history. He was very partial to the use of the lancet, and
quite a terrible adept at tooth-drawing. In short, Peter was the
factotum of the beacon house, where, in addition to his other