encumbrance from the boats; that a specified number of men should go
into each boat; and that the remainder should hang by the gunwales,
while the boats were to be rowed gently towards the _Smeaton_, as the
course to the floating light lay rather to windward of the rock.

But when he attempted to give utterance to his thoughts the words
refused to come. So powerful an effect had the awful nature of their
position upon him, that his parched tongue could not articulate. He
learned, from terrible experience, that saliva is as necessary to
speech as the tongue itself. Stooping hastily, he dipped his hand
into a pool of salt water and moistened his mouth. This produced
immediate relief and he was about to speak, when Ruby Brand, who had
stood at his elbow all the time with compressed lips and a stern
frown on his brow, suddenly took off his cap, and waving it above his
head, shouted "A boat! a boat!" with all the power of his lungs.

All eyes were at once turned in the direction to which he pointed,
and there, sure enough, a large boat was seen through the haze,
making towards the rock.

Doubtless many a heart there swelled with gratitude to God, who had
thus opportunely and most unexpectedly sent them relief at the
eleventh hour; but the only sound that escaped them was a cheer, such
as men seldom give or hear save in eases of deliverance in times of
dire extremity.

The boat belonged to James Spink, the Bell Rock pilot, who chanced to
have come off express from Arbroath that day with letters.

We have said that Spink came off _by chance_; but, when we consider