shall have to blow up in the beacon yonder; so come along."

"Come, Ruby, that ought to comfort the cockles o' yer heart," said
O'Connor, who passed up the ladder as he spoke; "the smith won't need
to blow you up any more, av you're to blow yourself up in the beacon
in futur'. Arrah! there's the bell again. Sorrow wan o' me iver gits
to slape, but I'm turned up immadiately to go an' poke away at that
rock--faix, it's well named the Bell Rock, for it makes me like to
_bellow_ me lungs out wid vexation."

"That pun is _below_ contempt," said Joe Dumsby, who came up at the
moment.

"That's yer sort, laddies; ye're guid at ringing the changes on that
head onyway," cried Watt.

"I say, we're gittin' a _belly_-full of it," observed Forsyth, with a
rueful look "I hope nobody's goin' to give us another!"

"It'll create a _rebellion_," said Bremner, "if ye go on like that"

"It'll bring my _bellows_ down on the head o' the next man that
speaks!" cried Ruby, with indignation.

"Don't you hear the bell, there?" cried the foreman down the
hatchway.

There was a burst of laughter at this unconscious continuation of the
joke, and the men sprang up the ladder,--down the side, and into the
boats, which were soon racing towards the rock.