The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls

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attendant vessel, rolling and pitching with the motion of the sea. They
had had a surfeit of such experience ... while the barrack was under
erection.

"For two years it withstood the seas without incident, and the engineer
and men came to regard the eyrie as safe as a house on shore. But one
night the little colony received a shock. The angry Atlantic got one or
two of its trip-hammer blows well home, and smashed the structure to
fragments. Fortunately, at the time it was untenanted."

No time was lost in rebuilding the barrack and this time it withstood
all tests until it was torn down after Skerryvore was finished.

"While the foundations were being prepared, and until the barrack was
constructed, the men ran other terrible risks every morning and night
landing upon and leaving the polished surface of the reef. Five months
during the summer was the working season, but even then many days and