Chapter 5

THE REFUGEES

Watts was whimpering some broken excuse to his angry skipper when a coil of stout rope fell on top of the windlass and rebounded to the deck. More than that, one end of it stretched into the infinity of dripping rock and flying spray overhead. And it had been thrown by friendly hands. Though it dangled from some unseen ledge, its purpose seemed to be that of help rather than slaughter, whereas every other act of the inhabitants of Fernando Noronha had been suggestive of homicidal mania in its worst form.

Coke and Hozier recovered the use of their faculties simultaneously. The eyes of the two men met, but Coke was the first to find his voice.

"Salvage, by G--d!" he cried. "Up you go, Hozier! I'll sling the girl behind you. She can't manage it alone, an' it needs someone with brains to fix things up there for the rest of us." And he added hoarsely in Philip's ear: "Sharp's the word. We 'aven't many minutes!"

Philip made no demur. The captain's strong common sense had suggested the best step that could be taken in the interests of all. Iris, who was nearer yielding now that there was a prospect of being rescued than when death was clamoring at her feet among the trembling remains of the ship, silently permitted Coke and a sailor to strip off a life-belt and tie her and Hozier back to back. It was wonderful, though hidden from her ken in that supreme moment, to see how they devised a double sling in order to distribute the strain. When each knot was securely fastened, Coke vociferated a mighty "Heave away!"

But his powerful voice was drowned by the incessant roar of the breakers; not even the united clamor of every man present, fifteen all told, including the drunken chief officer, could make itself heard above the din. Then Hozier tugged sharply at the rope three times, and it grew taut. Amid a jubilant cry from the others, he and Iris were lifted clear of the deck. At once they were carried fully twenty feet to seaward. As they swung back, not quite so far, and now well above the level of the windlass from which their perilous journey had started, a ready-witted sailor seized a few coils of a thin rope that lay tucked up in the angle of the bulwarks, and flung them across Hozier's arms.

"Take a whip with you, sir!" he yelled, and Philip showed that he understood by gripping the rope between his teeth. It was obvious that the rescuers were working from a point well overhanging the recess into which the _Andromeda_ had driven her bows, and there might still be the utmost difficulty in throwing a rope accurately from the rock to the wreck. As a matter of fact, no less than six previous attempts had been made, and the success of the seventh was due solely to a favorable gust of wind hurtling into the cleft at the very instant it was needed. The sailor's quick thought solved this problem for the future. By tying the small rope to the heavier one, those who remained below could haul it back when some sort of signal code was established. At present, all they could do was to pay out the whip, and take care that it did not interfere with Hozier's ascent. They soon lost sight of him and the girl, for the spray and froth overhead formed an impenetrable canopy, but they reasoned that the distance to be traveled could not be great; otherwise the throwing of a rope would have been a physical impossibility in the first instance.

Once there was a check. They waited anxiously, but there was no sign given by the frail rope that they were to haul in again. Then the upward movement continued.

"Chunk o' rock in the way," announced Coke, glaring round at the survivors as if to challenge contradiction. No one answered. These men were beginning to measure their lives against the life of the wedge of iron and timber kept in position by the crumbling frame of the ship. It was a fast-diminishing scale. The figures painted on the _Andromeda's_ bows represented minutes rather than feet.

Watts was lying crouched on deck, with his arms thrown round the windlass. Looking ever for a fresh incursion of rats, he seemed to be cheered by the fact that his dreaded assailants preferred the interior of the forecastle to the wave-swept deck. He was the only man there who had no fear of death. Suddenly he began to croon a long-forgotten sailor's chanty. Perhaps, in some dim way, a notion of his true predicament had dawned on him, for there was a sinister purport to the verse.

"Now, me lads, sing a stave of the Dead Man's Mass; Ye'll never sail 'ome again, O. We're twelve old salts an' the skipper's lass, Marooned in the Spanish Main, O. Sing hay---- Sing ho---- A nikker is Davy Jones, Just one more plug, an' a swig at the jug, An' up with the skull an' bones."

After a longer and faster haul than had been noticed previously, the rope stopped a second time. Everyone, except Watts, was watching the whip intently. His eyes peered around, wide-open, lusterless. The pounding of the seas, the grating of iron on rock, left him unmoved.

"Wy don't you jine in the chorus, you swabs?" he cried, and forthwith plunged into the second stanza.

"The _Alice_ brig sailed out of the Pool For the other side of the world, O, An' our ole man brought 'is gal from school, With 'er 'air so brown an' curled, O. Sing hum---- Sing hum---- Of death no man's a dodger, An' we squared our rig for a yardarm jig When we sighted the Jolly Roger."

He grew quite uproarious because the lilting tune evoked neither applause nor vocal efforts from the others.

"Lord luv' a duck!" he shouted. "Can't any of ye lend a hand? Cheer O, maties--'ere's a bit more----

The brig was becalmed in a sea like glass, An' it gev' us all the creeps, O, Wen the sun went down like a ball o' brass, An' the pirate rigged 'is sweeps----"

"There she goes!" yelled the sailor in charge of the line; he began to haul in the slack like a madman; Coke's fist fell heavily on the singer's right ear.

"Wen your turn comes, I'll tie the rope round your bloomin' neck!" he growled vindictively, though his eyes continued to search the dark shroud overhead that inclosed them as in a tomb. A dark form loomed downward through the mist. It was Hozier, alone, coming back to them. A frenzied cheer broke from the lips of those overwrought men. They knew what that meant. Somewhere, high above the black rocks and the flying scud, was hope throned in the blessed sunshine. They drew him in cautiously until Coke was able to grasp his hand. They were quick to see that he brought a second rope and a spare whip.

"Two at a time on both ropes," was his inspiriting message. "They're friendly Portuguese up there, but no one must be seen if a boat is sent from the island to find out what has become of the ship. So step lively! Now, Captain, tell 'em off in pairs."

Coke's method was characteristic. He literally fell on the two nearest men and began to truss them. Hozier followed his example, and tied two others back to back. They vanished, and the ropes returned, much more speedily this time. Four, and four again, were drawn up to safety. There were left the captain, Hozier, and the unhappy Watts, who was now crying because the skipper had "set about" him, just for singin' a reel ole wind-jammer song.

"You must take up this swine," said Coke to Hozier, dragging Watts to his feet with scant ceremony. "If I lay me 'ands on 'im I'll be tempted to throttle 'im."

Watts protested vigorously against being tied. He vowed that it was contrary to articles for a chief officer to be treated in such a fashion. He howled most dolorously during his transit through mid-air, but was happily quieted by another sharp rap on the head resulting from his inability to climb over the obstructing rock.

Before quitting the deck, Hozier helped to adjust the remaining rope around the captain's portly person. They were lifted clear of the trembling forecastle almost simultaneously, and in the very nick of time. Already the skeleton of the ship's hull was beginning to slip off into deep water. The deck was several feet lower than at the moment of the vessel's final impact against the rocks. Even before the three reached the ledge from which their rescuers were working, the bridge and funnel were swept away, the foremast fell, the forehold and forecastle were riotously flooded by the sea, and Watts, were he capable of using his eyes, might have seen his deadly enemies, the rats, swarming in hundreds to the tiny platform that still rose above the destroying waves. Soon, even that frail ark was shattered. When keel and garboard stroke plates snapped, all that was left of the _Andromeda_ toppled over, and the cavern she had invaded rang with a fierce note of triumph as the next wave thundered in without hindrance.

* * * * * *

It was, indeed, a new and strange world on which Iris looked when able to breathe and see once more. During that terrible ascent she had retained but slight consciousness of her surroundings. She knew that Hozier and herself were drawn close to a bulging rock, that her companion clutched at it with hands and knees, and thus fended her delicate limbs from off its broken surface; she felt herself half carried, half lifted, up into free air and dazzling light; she heard voices in a musical foreign tongue uttering words that had the ring of sympathy. And that was all for a little while. Friendly hands placed her in a warm and sunlit cleft, and she lay there, unable to think or move. By degrees, the numbness of body and mind gave way to clearer impressions. But she took much for granted. For instance, it did not seem an unreasonable thing that the familiar faces of men from the _Andromeda_ should gather near her on an uneven shelf of rock strewn with broken bolders and the litter of sea-birds. She recognized them vaguely, and their presence brought a new confidence. They increased in number; sailor-like, they began to take part instantly in the work of rescue; but she wondered dully why Hozier did not come to her, nor did she understand that he had gone back to that raging inferno beneath until she saw his blood-stained face appear over the lip of the precipice.

Then she screamed wildly: "Thank God! Oh, thank God!" and staggered to her feet in the frantic desire to help in unfastening the ropes that bound him to the insensible Watts. One of the men tried to persuade her to sit down again, but she would not be denied. Her unaccustomed fingers strove vainly against the stiff strands, swollen as they were with wet, and drawn taut by the strain to which they had been subjected. Tears gushed forth at her own helplessness. The pain in her eyes blinded her. She shrank away again. Not until Philip himself spoke did she dare to look at him, to find that he was bending over her, and endeavoring to allay her agitation by repeated assurance of their common well-being.

But her distraught brain was not yet equal to a complexity of thought. Watts was lying close to her feet, and it thrilled her with dread and contempt when Coke bestowed a well-considered kick on his chief officer's prostrate form.

"Oh, how dare you?" she cried, indignant as an offended goddess.

"Sorry, miss," said Coke, scowling as if he were inclined to repeat the assault, though he was not then aware of the more strenuous method adopted by the rock as a sobering agent. "I didn't know you was there. But 'e fair gev' me a turn, 'e did, singin' 'is pot-'ouse crambos w'en we was in the very jors of death, so to speak."

"He must not sing," she announced gravely, "but really you should not kick him."

"Come, Miss Yorke," broke in Hozier, who was choking back a laugh that was nearer hysteria than he dreamed, "our Portuguese friends say we must not remain here an instant longer than is necessary."

"Yes," said a strange voice, "the sea is moderating. At any moment a boat may appear. Follow me, all of you. The road is a rough one, but it is not far."

The speaker was an elderly man, long-haired and bearded, of whose personality the girl caught no other details than the patriarchal beard, a pair of remarkably bright eyes, a long, pointed nose, and a red scar that ran diagonally across a domed forehead. He turned away without further explanation, and began to climb a natural pathway that wound itself up the side of an almost perpendicular wall of rock.

Hozier caught Iris by the arm, and would have assisted her, but she shook herself free. She felt, and conducted herself, like a fractious child.

"I can manage quite well," she said with an odd petulance. "Please look after that unfortunate Mr. Watts. I am not surprised that he should have been frightened by the rats. They terrified me, too. Oh, how awful they were--in the dark--when their eyes shone!"

Her mind had traveled back to the two nights and a day passed in the lazaretto. She sobbed bitterly, and stumbled over a steep ledge. She would have fallen were it not for Philip's help.

"Watts is all right," he soothed her. "Two of the men are seeing to him. And the rats are all gone now. There are none here!"

"Are you sure?"

"Quite sure."

"What became of them?"

"They are all--we left them behind on the ship."

Suddenly she clung to him.

"Don't let them send me back to the ship," she implored.

"No, no. You are safe now."

"Of course I am safe, but I dread that ship. Why did I ever come on board? Captain Coke said he would sink her. I told you----"

"Steady! Keep a little nearer the rocks on your left. The passage is narrow here."

Hozier raised his voice somewhat, and purposely hurried her. But she was not to be repressed.

"Poor ship! What had she done that she should be battered on the rocks?" she wailed.

"You must not talk," he said firmly, well knowing that if the sailors and firemen lumbering close behind had not heard her earlier comment it was due solely to the blustering wind. They were skirting the seaward face of the rocky islet on which they had found salvation. The sun was blazing at them sideways from a wide expanse of blue sky. The rear guard clouds of the gale were scurrying away over the horizon in front of their upward path. Somehow, Philip's sailor's brain was befogged. Those clouds must have blown to the northeast. If that were so, what was the sun doing in the southeast at this time of the day? It had hardly budged a point from the quarter in which some fitful gleams shone when that mad thing happened near the windlass. Thinking he was still dizzy from the effects of the blow, which the girl had ascribed to the bursting of a shell, Philip glanced at his watch. It was twenty-five minutes past eight! Yet he distinctly remembered eight bells being struck while Coke was telling him from the bridge to give the anchor thirty-five fathoms of cable. Was it possible that they had gone through so much during those few minutes? If he were really light-headed, then sun and clouds and watch were conspiring to keep him so.

Iris, chilled by his stern tone, nevertheless noted his action. Still unable to concentrate her thoughts on more than one topic, and that to the exclusion of all else, she asked the time. He told her. He awaited some expression of surprise on her part, provided it were, indeed, true that only twenty-five minutes had sped since the _Andromeda_ was quietly preparing to drop anchor off South Point. But she received his news without comment. She would have been equally undisturbed if told it was midnight, and that the vessel had gone ashore on the coast of China.

Just then the track turned sharply away from the sea. A dry water-course cut deeply into the cliff where torrential rains had found an upright layer of soft scoria imbedded in the mass of basalt. Their guide was standing on the sky-line of the cleft, some forty feet above them.

"Tell the others to make haste," he said. "This is the end of your journey."

It did not strike either Hozier or the girl as being specially remarkable that a man should meet them in this extraordinary place and address them in good English. Iris, at any rate, gave no heed to this most amazing fact. She merely observed for the first time that the elderly stranger, while dressed in a beggar's rags, assumed an air of command that was almost ludicrous.

"Who is he?" she asked, being rather breathless now after a steep climb.

"I don't know," said Hozier.

"How absurd!" she gasped. "I--I think I'm dreaming. Why--have we--come here?"

She heard a coarse chuckle from Coke, not far below.

"Let 'im cough it up," the skipper was saying. "It'll do 'im good. I've seen 'im blind many a time, but 'ow any man could dope 'isself in that shape in less'n two minutes!---- Well, it fair gives me the go-by!"

Two minutes! Hozier listened, and he was recovering his wits far more rapidly than Iris. Was the skipper, then, in league with nature herself to perplex him? And Watts, too? Why did Coke hint so coarsely that he was drunk? He was on the bridge while he, Philip, was attending to the lead, and at that time the chief officer was perfectly sober.

Iris, once again, was deeply incensed by Coke's brutality.

"Horrid man!" she murmured, but she had no breath left for louder protest. It was hot as a furnace in this narrow ravine; each upward step demanded an effort. She would have slipped and hurt herself many times were it not for Hozier's firm grasp, nor did she realize the sheer exhaustion that forced him to seek support from the neighboring wall with his disengaged hand. The man in front, however, was alive to their dangerous plight. He said something in his own language--for his English had the precise staccato accent of the well-educated foreigner--and another man appeared. The sight of the newcomer startled Iris more than any other event that had happened since the _Andromeda_ reached the end of her last voyage. He wore the uniform of those dreadful beings whom she had seen on the island.

She shrieked; Hozier fancied she had sprained an ankle; but before she could utter any sort of explanation the apparition in uniform was by her side, and murmuring words that were evidently meant to be reassuring. Seeing that he was not understood, he broke into halting French.

"Courage, madame!" he said. "Il faut monter--encore un peu--et donc--vous êtes arrivé . . . Ça y est! Voilá! Comptez sur moi. Juste ciel, mais c'est affreux l'escalier."

But he worked while he poured out this medley, and Iris was standing on level ground ere he made an end. He was a handsome youngster, evidently an officer, and his eyes dwelt on the girl's face with no lack of animation as he led her into a cave which seemed to have been excavated from the inner side of a small crater.

"You can rest here in absolute safety, madame," he said. "Permit me to arrange a seat. Then I shall bring you some wine."

Iris flung off the hand which held her arm so persuasively.

"Please do not attend to me. There are wounded men who need attention far more than I," she said, speaking in English, since it never entered her mind that the Portuguese officer had been addressing her in French.

He was puzzled more by her action than her words, but Hozier, who had followed close behind, explained in sentences built on the Ollendorffian plan that mademoiselle was disturbed, mademoiselle required rest, mademoiselle hardly understood that which had arrived, _et voilá tout_.

The other man smiled comprehension, though he scanned Hozier with a quick underlook.

"Is monsieur the captain?" he asked.

"No, monsieur the captain comes now. Here he is."

"Mademoiselle, without doubt, is the daughter of monsieur the captain?"

"No," said Hozier, rather curtly, turning to ascertain how Iris had disposed of herself in the interior of the cavern. It was his first experience of a South American dandy's pose towards women, or, to be exact, toward women who are young and pretty, and it seemed to him not the least marvelous event of an hour crammed with marvels that any man should endeavor to begin an active flirtation under such circumstances.

He saw that Iris was seated on a camp stool. Her face was buried in her hands. A wealth of brown hair was tumbled over her neck and shoulders; the constant showers of spray had loosened her tresses, and the unavoidable rigors of the passage from ship to ledge had shaken out every hairpin. The Tam o' Shanter cap she was wearing early in the day had disappeared at some unknown stage of the adventure. Her attitude bespoke a mood of overwhelming dejection. Like the remainder of her companions in misfortune, she was drenched to the skin. That physical drawback, however, was only a minor evil in this almost unpleasantly hot retreat; but Hozier, able now to focus matters in fairly accurate proportion, felt that Iris had not yet plumbed the depths of suffering. Their trials were far from ended when their feet rested on the solid rock. There was every indication that their rescuers were refugees like themselves. The scanty resources visible in the cave, the intense anxiety of the elderly Portuguese to avoid observation from the chief island of the group, the very nature of the apparently inaccessible crag in which he and his associates were hiding--each and all of these things spoke volumes.

Hozier did not attempt to disturb the girl until the dapper officer produced a goatskin, and poured a small quantity of wine into a tin cup. With a curious eagerness, he anticipated the other's obvious intent.

"Pardon me, monsieur," he said, seizing the vessel, and his direct Anglo-Saxon manner quite robbed his French of its politeness. Then his vocabulary broke down, and he added more suavely in English: "I will persuade her to drink a little. She is rather hysterical, you know."

The Portuguese nodded as though he understood. Iris looked up when Hozier brought her the cup. The mere suggestion of something to drink made active the parched agony of mouth and throat, but her wry face when she found that the liquid was wine might have been amusing if the conditions of life were less desperate.

"Is there no water?" she asked plaintively.

The officer, who was following the little by-play with his eyes, realized the meaning of her words.

"We have no water, mademoiselle," he said. Then he glanced at the group of bedraggled sailors. "And very little wine," he added.

"Please drink it," urged Hozier. "You are greatly run down, you know, though you really ought to feel cheerful, since you have escaped with your life."

"I feel quite brave," said Iris simply. "I would never have believed that I could go through--all that," and her childish trick of listening to the booming of the distant breakers told him how vivid was her recollection of the horrors crowded into those few brief minutes.

"Be quick, please," put in the elderly Portuguese with a tinge of impatience. "We have no second cup, and there are wounded men----"

"Give it to them," said Iris, lifting her face again for an instant. "I do not need it. I have told you that once already. I suppose you think I should not be here."

"I am sure our friend did not mean that," said Hozier, looking squarely into those singularly bright eyes. He caught and held them.

"I did not mean that the lady should be left to die if that is the interpretation put on my remark," came the quiet answer. "But it was an act of the utmost folly to bring a delicate girl on such an errand. I cannot imagine what your captain was thinking of when he agreed to it."

"Wot's that, mister?" demanded Coke. Now that his fit of rage had passed, the bulky skipper of the _Andromeda_ was red-faced and imperturbable as usual. The manifold perils he had passed through showed no more lasting effect on him than a shower of sleet on the thick hide of the animal he so closely resembled.

"Are _you_ the captain?" said the other.

"Yes, sir. An' I'd like to 'ear w'y my ship or 'er present trip wasn't fit for enny young leddy, let alone----"

"That is a matter for you to determine. I suppose you know best how to conduct your own business. My only concern is with the outcome of your rashness. Why did you deliberately sacrifice your ship in that manner?"

The speaker's cut-glass style of English left his hearers in no doubt as to what he had said. During the tense silence that reigned for a few seconds even some among the crew pricked their ears, while Hozier and Iris forgot other troubles in their new bewilderment. There were reasons why the drift of the stranger's words should be laid deeply to heart by three people present. Coke, at any rate, found himself nearer a state of pallid nervousness than ever before in the course of a variegated life. It was impossible that he should actually grow pale, but his brick-red features assumed a purple tint, and his fiery little eyes glinted.

"Wot are you a-drivin' at, mister?" he growled at last, after trying vainly to expectorate and compromising the effort in a husky gargle.

"Do you deny, then, that you acted like a madman? Do you say that you did not know quite well the risk you ran in bringing your vessel to the island in broad daylight?"

Then Coke found his breath.

"Risk!" he roared. "Risk in steamin' to an anchorage an' sendin' a boat ashore for water? There seems to be a lot of mad folk loose just now on Fernando Noronha, but I'm not one of 'em, an' that's as much as I can say for enny of you--damme if it ain't."

Evidently the Portuguese was not accustomed to the direct form of conversation in vogue among British master mariners. He bent his piercing gaze on Coke's angry if somewhat flustered countenance, and there was a perceptible stiffening of voice and manner when he said:

"Who are you, then? Who sent you here?"

"I'm Captain James Coke, of the British ship _Andromeda_, that's 'oo _I_ am, an' I was sent 'ere, or leastways to the River Plate, by David Verity an' Co., of Liverpool."

It must not be forgotten that Coke shared with his employer a certain unclassical freedom in the pronunciation of the ship's name; the long "e" apparently puzzled the other man.

"_Andromeeda_?" he muttered. "Spell it!"

"My godfather, this is an asylum for sure," grunted Coke, in a spasm of furious mirth. "A-n-d-r-o-m-e-d-a. Now you've got it. Ain't it up to Portygee standard? A-n-d-r-o-m-e-d-a! 'Ow's that for the bloomin' spellin' bee?"

But Coke's humor made no appeal. The staring, brilliant eyes fixed on him did not relax their vigilance, nor did any trace of emotion exhibit itself in that calm voice.

"You are unlucky, Captain Coke, most unlucky," it said. "I regret my natural mistake, which, it seems, was shared by the authorities of Fernando do Noronha. You have blundered into a nest of hornets, and, as a result, you have been badly stung. Let me explain matters. I am Dom Corria Antonio De Sylva, ex-President of the Republic of Brazil. There is, at this moment, a determined movement on foot on the mainland to replace me in power, and, with that object in view, efforts are being made to secure my escape from the convict settlement in which my enemies have imprisoned me. I and two faithful followers are here in hiding. My friend, Capitano Salvador De San Benavides," and he bowed with much dignity toward the uniformed officer, "came here two days ago in a felucca to warn me that a steamer would lie to about a mile south of the island to-night. The steamer's name is _Andros-y-Mela_--it is rather like the name of your unhappy vessel--so much alike that the _Andromeda_ has been sunk by mistake. That is all."

Coke, listening to this explanation with the virtuous wrath of a knave who discovers that he has been wrongfully suspected, bristled now with indignation.

"Oh, that's all, is it?" he cried sarcastically. "No, sir, it ain't all, nor 'arf, nor quarter. Let me tell you that no crimson pirate on Gawd's earth can blow a British ship off the 'igh seas an' then do the dancin'-master act, with 'is 'and on 'is 'eart, an' say it was just a flamin' mistake. All! says you? Don't you believe it. There's a lot more to come yet, take my tip--a devil of a lot, or I'm the biggest lunatic within a ten-mile circle of w'ere I'm stannin', which is givin' long odds to any other crank in the whole creation."

And Coke was right, though he little guessed then why he was so thoroughly justified in assuming that he and the other survivors of the _Andromeda_ had not yet gone through half, or quarter, or more than a mere curtain-raising prelude to the strange human drama in which they were destined to be the chief actors.