When at last we reached the top of the Head, and our trouble was over, we sat down on the breezy front of the hill and looked far away across the restless water, where the sea line melted into the blue haze of the Scotch coast. Nearer to us the water itself was blue, then pale green with bands of purple above beds of weed, and over all the white waves curled into foaming crests, silent to us as snow. Southward, along the cliffs, a high steeple rock--the Old Man of Hoy--stood like a sentinel guarding the coast, his head on a level with the cliff behind him; and rounding Rora Head were the brown sails of a few fishing craft making for Stromness. "Come, Robbie," I said, when we had feasted our eyes on this scene. "Come, we must be getting home. The tide has turned this long while past, and we'll be hungry before we're back to Stromness." We were, indeed, already somewhat hungry, and regretted we had not brought food with us instead of the climbing ropes, which had not so far been required. To think of getting anything to eat where we were was needless, for we were on the most desolate part of the Hoy island, and not a house was there for miles away. The walk back along the ridge of the cliffs was easy, the ground sloping downward in our favour. About a mile further on we came to the cliffs below which our boat was moored. But, alas! we had been sadly out in our reckoning. The boat was afloat, deep down there, tugging desperately at her rope and grinding her sides against a rock. To get down to her was now a problem. From our high position we could see how the tide had risen well above the rocks by which we had climbed from one bay to the other, and our only course was to descend by the steep precipice surrounding the creek wherein the boat was moored. There was no possible way down except by the use of the ropes, and this was an extremely difficult and dangerous undertaking, for the cliffs rose fully three hundred feet in height, and our lines, of which we had two, would scarcely, when joined together, measure more than half that length. For we used them for the cliffs of Pomona, which are not in any place so high as those of Hoy. We had a long consultation first, as to which of us should make the descent. Robbie offered to go down, as he was the lighter weight and I the stronger for holding the upper end of the rope. Yet I was a little afraid of letting him undertake so difficult an adventure, being conscious that he had had less practice at cliff climbing than I. "Robbie," I said, "let me go down. You can hold the line--" and then suddenly remembering my magic stone, I added, "and remember, Robbie, that I have this little stone to keep me from harm." At once Robbie cast away all fear and became quite confident. "What fools we were not to think of that!" he exclaimed. "Come away, let us tie the lines together, and you'll go down as safe as a bird, Hal. Hooray! we have a chance of testing the worth of the stone after all!"