filled with a strong desire to have a nearer view of the waves that
had force to mount so high. Instead, therefore, of ascending to the
lantern, he descended to the doorway, which was open, for, as the
storm blew from the eastward, the door was on the lee-side.

There were two doors--one of metal, with thick plate-glass panels at
the inner end of the passage; the other, at the outer end of it, was
made of thick solid wood bound with metal, and hung so as to open
outwards. When the two leaves of this heavy door were shut they were
flush with the tower, so that nothing was presented for the waves to
act upon. But this door was never closed except in cases of storm
from the southward.

The scene which presented itself to our hero when he stood in the
entrance passage was such as neither pen nor pencil can adequately
depict. The tide was full, or nearly so, and had the night been calm
the water would have stood about twelve or fourteen feet on the sides
of the tower, leaving a space of about the same height between its
surface and the spot at the top of the copper ladder where Ruby
stood; but such was the wild commotion of the sea that this space was
at one moment reduced to a few feet, as the waves sprang up towards
the doorway, or nearly doubled, as they sank hissing down to the very
rock.

Acres of white, leaping, seething foam covered the spot where the
terrible Bell Rock lay. Never for a moment did that boiling cauldron
get time to show one spot of dark-coloured water. Billow after billow
came careering on from the open sea in quick succession, breaking
with indescribable force and fury just a few yards to windward of the
foundations of the lighthouse, where the outer ledges of the rock,
although at the time deep down in the water, were sufficiently near
the surface to break their first full force, and save the tower from
destruction, though not from many a tremendous blow and overwhelming
deluge of water.

When the waves hit the rock they were so near that the lighthouse
appeared to receive the shock. Rushing round it on either side, the
cleft billows met again to leeward, just opposite the door, where
they burst upwards in a magnificent cloud of spray to a height of
full thirty feet. At one time, while Ruby held on by the man-ropes
at the door and looked over the edge, he could see a dark abyss
with the foam shimmering pale far below; another instant, and the
solid building perceptibly trembled, as a green sea h