One day in September, when the engineer and thirty-one men were on the rock, the tender broke from its moorings, and began to drift away from the rock, just as the tide was rising. Mr. Stevenson, perched on an eminence above the rest, surveying them at their labours, was the first, and for a while, the men being all intent on their work, the only one, who observed what had happened. He said nothing, but went to the highest point of the rock, and kept an anxious watch on the progress of the vessel and the rising of the sea. First the men on the lower tier of the works, then by degrees those above them, struck work on the approach of the water. They gathered up their tools and made towards the spot where the boats were moored, to get their jackets and stockings and prepare for quitting the rock. What their feelings were when they found only a couple of boats there, and the tender drifting off with the other in tow, may be conceived. All the peril of their situation must have flashed across their minds as they looked across the raging sea, and saw the distance between the tender and the rock increasing every moment, while all around them the water rose higher and higher. In another hour, the waves would be rolling twelve feet and more above the crag on which they stood, and all hope of the tender being able to work round to them was being quickly dissipated. They watched the fleeting vessel and the rising tide, and their hearts sank within them, but not a word was uttered. They stood silently counting their numbers and calculating the capacity of the boats; and then they turned their eyes upon their trusted leader, as if their last hope lay in his counsel. Stevenson never forgot the appalling solemnity of the moment. One chance, and but a slender one, of escape alone occurred to him. It was that, stripping themselves of their clothes, and divesting the two boats, as much as possible, of everything that weighted and encumbered them, so many men should take their seats in the boats, while the others hung on by the gunwales; and that they should then work their way, as best they could, towards either the tender or the floating barrack. Stevenson was about to explain this to his men, but found that all power of speech had left him. The anxiety of that dreadful moment had parched his throat, and his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. He stooped to one of the little pools at his feet to moisten his fevered lips with the salt water. Suddenly a shout was raised, "A boat! A boat!" and through the haze a large pilot boat could dimly be discerned making towards the rock. The pilot had observed the _Smeaton_ drifting off, and, guessing at once the critical position of the workmen on the rock, had hastened to their relief.