"Not a nibble," replied the other.
As he spoke, he was obliged to rise from a rock on which he had seated himself, because of a 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.