“Hold your clapper, lad,” said the smith, who was at the moment busily engaged with a mess of salt pork, and potatoes to match.  “Who’s your friend?”

“No friend of mine, though I hope he’ll be one soon,” answered the steward.  “Mr. Stevenson told me to introduce him to you as your assistant.”

The smith looked up quickly, and scanned our hero with some interest; then, extending his great hard hand across the table, he said, “Welcome, messmate; sit down, I’ve only just begun.”

Ruby grasped the hand with his own, which, if not so large, was quite as powerful, and shook the smith’s right arm in a way that called forth from that rough-looking individual a smile of approbation.

“You’ve not had breakfast, lad?”

“No, not yet,” said Ruby, sitting down opposite his comrade.

“An’ the smell here don’t upset your stummick, I hope?”

The smith said this rather anxiously.

“Not in the least,” said Ruby with a laugh, and beginning to eat in a way that proved the truth of his words; “for the matter o’ that, there’s little smell and no motion just now.”

“Well, there isn’t much,” replied the smith, “but, woe’s me! you’ll get enough of it before long.  All the new landsmen like you suffer horribly from sea-sickness when they first come off.”

“But I’m not a landsman,” said Ruby.

“Not a landsman!” echoed the other.  “You’re a blacksmith, aren’t you?”

“Ay, but not a landsman.  I learned the trade as a boy and lad; but I’ve been at sea for some time past.”

“Then you won’t get sick when it blows?”

“Certainly not; will you?”

The smith groaned and shook his head, by which answer he evidently meant to assure his friend that he would, most emphatically.

“But come, it’s of no use groanin’ over what can’t be helped.  I get as sick as a dog every time the wind rises, and the worst of it is I don’t never seem to improve.  Howsever, I’m all right when I get on the rock, and that’s the main thing.”

Ruby and his friend now entered upon a long and earnest conversation as to their peculiar duties at the Bell Rock, with which we will not trouble the reader.

After breakfast they went on deck, and here Ruby had sufficient to occupy his attention and to amuse him for some hours.

As the tide that day did not fall low enough to admit of landing on the rock till noon, the men were allowed to spend the time as they pleased.  Some therefore took to fishing, others to reading, while a few employed themselves in drying their clothes, which had got wet the previous day, and one or two entertained themselves and their comrades with the music of the violin and flute.  All were busy with one thing or another, until the rock began to show its black crest above the smooth sea.  Then a bell was rung to summon the artificers to land.

This being the signal for Ruby to commence work, he joined his friend Dove, and assisted him to lower the bellows of the forge into the boat.  The men were soon in their places, with their various tools, and the boats pushed off—­Mr. Stevenson, the engineer of the building, steering one boat, and the master of the Pharos, who was also appointed to the post of landing-master, steering the other.