The lassitude which strong men feel when obliged to rise before they have had enough of rest soon wears off.  The two boats had not left the Pharos twenty yards astern, when Joe Dumsby cried, “Ho! boys, let’s have a race.”

“Hooray!” shouted O’Connor, whose elastic spirits were always equal to anything, “an’ sure Ruby will sing us ’The girl we’ve left behind us’.  Och! an’ there she is, av I’m not draymin’.”

At that moment a little hand was waved from one of the ports of the floating light.  Ruby at once waved his in reply, but as the attention of the men had been directed to the vessel by Ned’s remark, each saw the salutation, and, claiming it as a compliment to himself, uttered a loud cheer, which terminated in a burst of laughter, caused by the sight of Ruby’s half-angry, half-ashamed expression of face.

As the other boat had shot ahead, however, at the first mention of the word “race”, the men forgot this incident in their anxiety to overtake their comrades.  In a few seconds both boats were going at full speed, and they kept it up all the way to the rock.

While this was going on, the Smeaton’s boat was getting ready to take the strangers on board the sloop, and just as the workmen landed on the rock, the Smeaton cast loose her sails, and proceeded to Arbroath.

There were a few seals basking on the Bell Rock this morning when the men landed.  These at once made off, and were not again seen during the day.

At first, seals were numerous on the rock.  Frequently from fifty to sixty of them were counted at one time, and they seemed for a good while unwilling to forsake their old quarters, but when the forge was set up they could stand it no longer.  Some of the boldest ventured to sun themselves there occasionally, but when the clatter of the anvil and the wreaths of smoke became matters of daily occurrence, they forsook the rock finally, and sought the peace and quiet which man denied them there in other regions of the deep.

The building of the lighthouse was attended with difficulties at every step.  As a short notice of some of these, and an account of the mode in which the great work was carried on, cannot fail to be interesting to all who admire those engineering works which exhibit prominently the triumph of mind over matter, we shall turn aside for a brief space to consider this subject.

CHAPTER XIV

SOMEWHAT STATISTICAL

It has been already said that the Bell Rock rises only a few feet out of the sea at low tide.  The foundation of the tower, sunk into the solid rock, was just three feet three inches above low water of the lowest spring-tides, so that the lighthouse may be said with propriety to be founded beneath the waves.