Chapter 9

WHEREIN CERTAIN PEOPLE MEET UNEXPECTEDLY

Iris came back from the void to find herself lying on a truckle bed in a dimly-lighted hovel. A cotton wick flickered in a small lamp of the old Roman type. It was consuming a crude variety of castor oil, and its gamboge-colored flame clothed the smoke-darkened rafters and mud walls in somber yet vivid tints that would have gladdened the heart of a Rubens. This scenic effect, admirable to an artist, was lost on a girl waking in affright and startled by unfamiliar surroundings. She gazed up with uncomprehending eyes at two brown-skinned women bending over her.

One, the elder, was chafing her hands; the other, a tall, graceful girl, was stirring something in an earthenware vessel. She heard the girl murmur joyfully:

"Graças a Deus, elh' abria lhes olhas!"

Iris was still wandering in that strange borderland guarded by unknown forces that lies between conscious life and the sleep that is so close of kin to death. If in full possession of her senses, she might not have caught the drift of the sentence, since it was spoken in a guttural patois. But now she understood beyond cavil that because she had opened her eyes, the girl was giving thanks to the Deity. The first definite though bewildering notion that perplexed her faculties, at once clouded and unnaturally clear, was an astonished acceptance of the fact that she knew what the strange girl had said, though the phrase only remotely resembled its Spanish equivalent. She gathered its exact meaning, word for word, and it was all the more surprising that both women should smile and say something quite incomprehensible as soon as Iris lifted herself on an elbow and asked in English:

"Where am I? How did I come here?"

Then she remembered, and memory brought a feeling of helplessness not wholly devoid of self-reproach. It was bad enough that her presence should add so greatly to the dangers besetting her friends; it was far worse that she should have fainted at the very moment when such weakness might well prove fatal to them.

Why did she faint? Ah! A lively blush chased the pallor from her cheeks, and a few strenuous heartbeats restored animation to her limbs. Of course, in thinking that she had yielded solely to the stress of surcharged emotions, Iris was mistaken. What she really needed was food. A young woman of perfect physique, and dowered with the best of health, does not collapse into unconsciousness because a young man embraces her, and each at the same moment makes the blissful discovery that the wide world contains no other individual of supreme importance. Iris's great-grandmother might have "swooned" under such circumstances--not so Iris, who fainted simply because of the strain imposed by failure to eat the queer fare provided by De Sylva and his associates. She hardly realized how hungry she was until the girl handed her the bowl, which contained a couple of eggs beaten up in milk, while small quantities of rum and sugar-cane juice made the compound palatable.

"Bom!" said the girl, "bebida, senhora!"

It certainly was good, and the senhora drank it with avidity, the mixture being excellent diet for one who had eaten nothing except an over-ripe banana during thirty hours. Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to extend that period considerably. Iris had left practically untouched the meals brought her by the steward during the gale, and the early morning cup of coffee, which would have proved most grateful after a storm-tossed night, was an impossible achievement owing to the lack of water.

So Iris tackled the contents of the bowl with a vigorous appetite oddly at variance with the seeming weakness that ended in a prolonged fainting fit, and the hospitable Brazilians, to whom this fair English girl was a revelation in feature and clothing, bestirred themselves to provide further dainties. But, excepting some fruit, Iris had the wisdom to refuse other food just then. Her thoughts were rapidly becoming coherent, and she realized that a heavy meal might be absolutely disastrous. If the men made good their project she would be called on within an hour to cross the island. It seemed reasonable that, hungry though she was, she would be better fitted to climb the island hills at a fast pace if she ate sparingly. Still, she longed for a drink of water, and taxed her small stock of Spanish to make known her desire.

"Agua, senhora," she said with a smile, and the delight of mother and daughter was great, since they thought she could speak their language.

Therein, of course, they were disappointed, but not more so than Iris when she tasted the brackish fluid alone procurable on the south coast of Fernando Noronha. That was a fortunate thing in itself. Only those who have endured real thirst can tell how hard it is to refrain from drinking deeply when water is ultimately obtained; but the mixture of milk and eggs had already soothed her parched mouth and palate, and she quickly detected an unpleasantly salt flavor in the beverage they gave her.

Then she set herself to discover her whereabouts. The women were eager to impart information, but, alas, Iris's brain had regained its every-day limitations, and she could make no sense of their words. At last, seeing that the door was barred and the hut was innocent of any other opening, she stood upright, and signified by a gesture that she wished to go out. There could be no mistaking the distress, even the positive alarm, created by this demand. The girl clasped her hands in entreaty, and the older woman evidently tried most earnestly to dissuade her visitor from a proceeding fraught with utmost danger.

Being quite certain that they meant to be friendly, Iris sat down again. She knew, of course, that Marcel would come for her, if possible, and the relief displayed by her unknown entertainers was so marked that she resolved to await his appearance quietly. She would not abandon hope till daylight crept through the chinks of the hut. How soon that might be she could not tell. It seemed but a few seconds since she felt Hozier's arms around her, since her lips met his in a passionate kiss. But, meanwhile, someone had brought her here. Her dress, though damp, was not sopping wet. Even the slight token of the beaten eggs showed how time must have sped while she was lying there oblivious of everything. She tried again to question the women, and fancied that they understood her partly, as she caught the words "meia noite," but it was beyond her powers to ascertain whether they meant that she had come there at midnight, or were actually telling her the hour.

At any rate, they were most anxious for her well-being. The island housewife produced another dish, smiled reassuringly, and said, "Manioc--bom," repeating the phrase several times. The compound looked appetizing, and Iris ate a little. She discovered at once that it was tapioca, but her new acquaintance suggested "cassava" as an alternative. The girl, however, nodded cheerfully. She had heard the gentry at Fort San Antonio call it tapioca, and her convict father cultivated some of the finer variety of manioc for the officers' mess.

"Ah," sighed Iris, smiling wistfully, "I am making progress in your language, slow but sure. But please don't give me any mangroves."

The girl apparently was quite fascinated by the sound of English. She began to chatter to her mother at an amazing rate, trying repeatedly to imitate the hissing sound which the Latin races always perceive in Anglo-Saxon speech. Her mother reproved her instantly. To make amends, the girl offered Iris a fine pomegranate. Iris, of course, lost nothing of this bit of by-play. It was almost the first touch of nature that she had discovered among the amazing inhabitants of Fernando Noronha.

These small amenities helped to pass the time, but Iris soon noted an air of suspense in the older woman's attitude. Though mindful of her guest's comfort, Luisa Gomez had ever a keen ear for external sounds. In all probability, she was disturbed by the distant reports of fire-arms, and it was a rare instance of innate good-breeding that she did not alarm her guest by calling attention to them. Iris, amid such novel surroundings, could not distinguish one noise from another. Night-birds screamed hideously in the trees without; a host of crickets kept up an incessant chorus in the undergrowth; the intermittent roaring of breakers on the rocks invaded the narrow creek. The medley puzzled Iris, but the island woman well knew that stirring events were being enacted on the other side of the hill. Her husband was there--he had, indeed, prepared a careful alibi since Marcel visited him--and wives are apt to feel worried if husbands are abroad when bullets are flying.

So, while the girl, Manoela, was furtively appraising the clothing worn by Iris, and wondering how it came to pass that in some parts of the world there existed grand ladies who wore real cloth dresses, and lace embroidered under-skirts, and silk stockings, and shining leather boots--wore them, too, with as much careless ease as one draped one's self in coarse hempen skirt and shawl in Fernando Noronha--her mother was listening ever for hasty footsteps among the trailing vines.

At last, with a muttered prayer, she went to the door, and unfastened the stout wooden staple that prevented intruders from entering unbidden.

It was dark without. Dense black clouds veiled the moon, and a gust of wind moaned up the creek in presage of a tropical storm. Someone approached.

"Is that you, Manoel?" asked Luisa Gomez in a hushed voice.

There was no answer. The woman drew back. She would have closed the door, but a slim, active figure sprang across the threshold. She shrieked in terror. The new-comer was a Brazilian officer, one of those glittering beings whom she had seen lounging outside the Prindio[1] during her rare visits to the town. She was hoping to greet her Manoel, she half expected to find Marcel, but to be faced by an officer was the last thing she had thought of. In abject fear, she broke into a wild appeal to the Virgin; the officer merely laughed, though not loudly.

"Be not afraid, senhora--I am a friend," he said with quiet confidence, and the fact that he addressed her so courteously was a wondrously soothing thing in itself. But he raised a fresh wave of dread in her soul when he peered into the cabin and spoke words she did not understand.

"I think you are here, mademoiselle," he said in French. "I am come to share your retreat for a little while. Perchance by daybreak I may arrive at some plan. At present, you and I are in difficulties, is it not?"

Iris recognized the voluble, jerky speech. A wild foreboding gripped her heart until she was like to shudder under its fierce anguish.

"You, Captain San Benavides?" she asked, and her utterance was unnaturally calm.

"I, mademoiselle," he said, "and, alas! I am alone. May I come in? It is not well to show a light at this hour, seeing that the island is overrun with infuriated soldiers."

The concluding sentence was addressed to Luisa Gomez in Portuguese. Realizing instinctively that the man came as a friend, she stood aside, trembling, on the verge of tears. He entered, and the door was closed behind him. The yellow gleam of the lamp fell on his smart uniform, and gilded the steel scabbard of his sword. In that dim interior the signs of his three days' sojourn on Grand-père were not in evidence, and he had not been harmed during the struggle on the main road or in the rush for the launch.

He doffed his rakish-looking kepi and bowed low before Iris. Perhaps the white misery in her face touched him more deeply than he had counted on. Be that as it may, a note of genuine sympathy vibrated in his voice as he said:

"I am the only man who escaped, mademoiselle. The others? Well, it is war, and war is a lottery."

"Do you mean that they have been killed, all killed?" she murmured with a pitiful sob.

"I--I think so."

"You . . . think? Do you not know?"

He sighed. His hand sought an empty cigarette case. Such was the correct military air, he fancied--to treat misfortunes rather as jests. He frowned because the case was empty, but smiled at Iris.

"It is so hard, mademoiselle, when one speaks these things in a strange tongue. Permit me to explain that which has arrived. We encountered a picket, and surprised it. Having secured some weapons and accouterments, we hastened to the quay, where was moored the little steamship. Unhappily, she was crowded with soldiers. They fired, and there was a short fight. I was knocked down, and, what do you call it?--_étourdi_--while one might count ten. I rose, half blinded, and what do I see? The vessel leaving the quay--full of men engaged in combat, while, just beyond the point, a warship is signaling her arrival. It was a Brazilian warship, mademoiselle. She showed two red rockets followed by a white one. It was only a matter of minutes before she met the little steamship. I tell you that it was bad luck, that--a vile blow. I was angry, yes. I stamp my foot and say foolish things. Then I run!"

Iris made no reply. She hid her face in her hands. She could frame no more questions. San Benavides was trying to tell her that Hozier and the rest had been overwhelmed by fate at the very instant escape seemed to be within reach. The Brazilian, probably because of difficulties that beset him in using a foreign language, did not make it clear that he had flung himself flat in the dust when he heard the order to fire given by someone on board the launch. He said nothing of a tragic incident wherein Marcel, shot through the lungs, fell over him, and he, San Benavides, mistaking the convict for an assailant, wrestled furiously with a dying man. He even forgot to state that had he charged home with the others, he would either have met a bullet or gained the deck of the launch, and that his failure to reach the vessel was due to his own careful self-respect. For San Benavides was not a coward. He could be brave spectacularly, but he had no stomach for a fight in the dark, when stark hazard chooses some to triumph and some to die. That sort of devilish courage might be well enough for those crude sailors; a Portuguese gentleman of high lineage and proved mettle demanded a worthier field for his deeds of derring-do. Saperlotte! If one had a cigarette one could talk more fluently!

"Believe me, mademoiselle," he went on, speaking with a proud humility that was creditable to his powers as an actor, "the tears came to my eyes when I understood what had happened. For myself, what do I care? I would gladly have given my life to save my brave companions. But I thought of you, solitary, waiting here in distress, so I hurried into the village, and my uniform secured me from interruption until I was able to leave the road and cross the hills."

Then the lightning of a woman's intuition pierced the abyss of despair. Surely there were curious blanks in this thrilling narrative. As was her way when thoroughly aroused, Iris stood up and seized San Benavides almost roughly by the arm. Her distraught eyes searched his face with a pathetic earnestness.

"Why do you think that the launch did not get away?" she cried. "It was dark. The moon might have been in shadow. If the launch met the warship and was seen, there must have been firing----"

"Chère mademoiselle, there was much firing," he protested.

"At sea?"

The words came dully. She was stricken again, even more shrewdly. The gloom was closing in on her, yet she forced herself to drag the truth from his unwilling lips.

"Yes. Of course, I could not wait there in that open place. I was compelled to seek shelter. Troops were running from town and citadel. I avoided them by a miracle. And my sole concern then was your safety."

"Oh, my safety!" she wailed brokenly. "How does it avail me that my friends should be slain? Why was I not with them? I would rather have died as they died than live in the knowledge that I was the cause of their death."

San Benavides essayed a confidential hand on her shoulder. She shrank from him; he was not pleased but he purred amiably:

"Mademoiselle is profoundly unhappy. Under such circumstances one says things that are unmerited, is it not? If anyone is to blame, it is my wretched country, which cannot settle its political affairs without bloodshed. Ah, mademoiselle, I weep with you, and tender you my most respectful homage."

A deluge of tropical rain beat on the hut with a sudden fury. Conversation at once became difficult, nearly impossible. Iris threw herself back on the trestle in a passion of grief that rivaled the outer tempest. San Benavides, by sheer force of habit, dusted his clothes before sitting on the chair brought by Luisa Gomez. The woman's frightened gaze had dwelt on Iris and him alternately while they spoke. She understood no word that was said, but she gathered that the news brought by this handsome officer was tragic, woeful, something that would wring the heartstrings.

"Was there fighting, senhor?" she asked, close to his ear, her voice pitched in a key that conquered the storm.

He nodded. He was very tired, this dandy; now that Iris gave no further heed to him, he was troubled by the prospects of the coming day.

"Were they soldiers who fought?"

He nodded again.

"No islanders?"

Then he raised a hand in protest, though he laughed softly.

"Your good man is safe, senhora," he said. "Marcel told him to go to Sueste and tend his cattle. When he comes home it will be his duty to inform the Governor that we are here. He will be rewarded, not punished. _Sangue de Deus_! I may be shot at dawn. I pray you, let me rest a while."

The girl, Manoela, weeping out of sympathy, crept to Iris's side and gently stroked her hair. Like her mother, she could only guess that the English lady's friends were captured, perhaps dead. Even her limited experience of life's vicissitudes had taught her what short shrift was given to those who defied authority. The Republic of Brazil does not permit its criminals to be executed, but it shows no mercy to rebels. Manoela, of course, believed that the Englishmen were helping the imprisoned Dom Corria to regain power. She remembered how a mutiny was once crushed on the island, and her eyes streamed.

Meanwhile, Luisa Gomez was touched by the good-looking soldier's plight. Never, since she came to Fernando Noronha to rejoin her convict husband, had she been addressed so politely by any member of the military caste. The manners of the officers of the detachment at Fort San Antonio were not to be compared with those of Captain San Benavides. Her heart went out to him.

"We must try to help you, Senhor Capitano," she said. "If the others are dead or taken, you may not be missed."

He threw out his hands in an eloquent gesture. Life or death was a matter of complete indifference to him, it implied.

"We shall know in the morning," he said. "Have you any cigarettes? A milrei[2] for a cigarette!"

"But listen, senhor. Why not take off your uniform and dress in my clothes? You can cut off your mustaches, and wear a mantilha over your face, and we will keep you here until there is a chance of reaching a ship. Certainly that is better than being shot."

He glanced at Iris. Vanity being his first consideration, it is probable that he would have refused to be made ridiculous in her eyes, had not a knock on the door galvanized him into a fever of fright. He sprang up and glared wildly around for some means of eluding the threatened scrutiny of a search party. Luisa Gomez flung him a rough skirt and a shawl. He huddled into a corner near the bed,--in such wise that the figures of Iris and Manoela would cloak the rays of the lamp,--placed his drawn sword across his knees, and draped the two garments over his head and limbs.

Then, greatly agitated, but not daring to refuse admittance to the dreaded soldiery, the woman unbarred the door. A man staggered in. He was alone, and a swirl of wind and rain caused the lamp to flicker so madly that no one could distinguish his features until the door was closed again.

But Iris knew him. Though her eyes were dim with tears, though the new-comer carried a broken gun in his hands, and his face was blood-stained, she knew.

With a shriek that dismayed the other women--who could not guess that joy is more boisterous than sorrow, she leaped up and threw her arms around him.

"Oh, Philip, Philip!" she sobbed. "He told me you were dead . . . and I believed him!"

The manner of her greeting was delightful to one who had faced death for her sake many times during the past hour, yet Hozier was so surprised by its warmth that he could find never a word at the moment. But he had the good sense to throw aside the shattered rifle and return her embrace with interest. Long ago exhausted in body, his mind reeled now under the bewildering knowledge that this most gracious woman did truly love him. When they parted in that same squalid hut at midnight, he took with him the intoxication of her kiss. Yet he scarce brought himself to believe that the night's happenings were real, or that they two would ever meet again on earth. And now, here was Iris quivering against his breast. He could feel the beating of her heart. The perfume of her hair was as incense in his nostrils. She was clinging to him as if they had loved through all eternity. No wonder he could not speak. Had he uttered a syllable, he must have broken down like the girl herself.

San Benavides supplied a timely tonic.

Throwing aside the rags which covered him, he tried to rise. Philip caught a glimpse of the uniform, the sheen of the naked sword. He was about to tear himself from Iris's clasp and spring at this new enemy when the Brazilian spoke.

"Mil diabos!" he cried in a rage, "this cursed Inglez still lives, and here am I posing before him like an old hag."

His voice alone saved him from being pinned to the floor by a man who had adopted no light measures with others of his countrymen during the past half-hour, as the dented gun-barrel, minus its stock, well showed. But the captain's mortified fury helped to restore Philip's sanity. Lifting Iris's glowing face to his own, he whispered:

"Tell me, sweetheart, how comes it that our Brazilian friend is here?"

"He ran away when some shots were fired," which was rather unfair of Iris. "He said the launch had been sunk by a man-of-war----"

"But he is wrong. I saw no man-of-war. We captured the launch. By this time she is well out to sea. Unfortunately, Marcel was killed, and Domingo badly wounded. There was no one to come for you, so I jumped overboard and swam ashore. I had to fight my way here, and it will soon be known that there are some of us left on the island. I thought that perhaps I might take you back to the Grand-père cavern. These people may give us food. I have some few sovereigns in my pocket. . . ."

"Oh, yes, yes!" She was excited now and radiantly happy. "Of course, Captain San Benavides must accompany us. He says the soldiers will shoot him if they capture him. I, too, have money. Let me ask him to explain matters to this dear woman and her daughter. They have been more than kind to me already."

She turned to the sulky San Benavides and told him what Hozier had suggested. He brightened at that, and began a voluble speech to Luisa Gomez. Interrupting himself, he inquired, in French, how Hozier proposed to reach the rock.

"On a catamaran. There are two on the beach, and I can handle one of them all right," said Philip. "But what is this yarn of a warship? When last I sighted the launch she was standing out of the harbor, and the first clouds of the storm helped to screen her from the citadel."

Iris interpreted. San Benavides repeated his story of the rockets. In her present tumult, the girl forgot the touch of realism with regard to the firing that he had heard. Certainly there was a good deal of promiscuous rifle-shooting after the departure of the launch, but warships use cannon to enforce their demands, and the boom of a big gun had not woke the echoes of Fernando Noronha that night. Philip deemed the present no time for argument; he despised San Benavides, and gave no credence to him. Just now the Brazilian was an evil that must be endured.

Luisa Gomez promised to help in every possible way. Her eyes sparkled at the sight of gold, but the poor woman would have assisted them out of sheer pity. Nevertheless, the gift of a couple of sovereigns, backed by the promise of many more if her husband devoted himself to their service, spurred her to a frenzy of activity.

There was not a moment to be lost. The squall had spent itself, and a peep through the chinks of the door showed that the moon would quickly be in evidence again. It was essential that they should cross the channel while the scattering clouds still dimmed her brightness; so Manoela and her mother collected such store of food, and milk, and water, as they could lay hands on. Well laden, all five hastened to the creek, and Hozier, Iris, and San Benavides, boarded the larger of the two catamarans. The strong wind had partly dissipated the noisome odor, but it was still perceptible. Iris was sure she would never like mangroves.

Having a degree of confidence in the queer craft that was lacking during their earlier voyage, they did not hesitate to stack jars and baskets against the curved prow in such a manner that the eatables would not become soaked with salt water. Then, after a hasty farewell, during which Iris showed her gratitude to those kindly peasants by a hug and a kiss, Hozier pushed off and tried to guide the catamaran as Marcel had done.

Oddly enough, he and Iris now saw the majestic outlines of the Grand-père for the first time. The great rock rose above the water like some immense Gothic cathedral. The illusion was heightened by a giant spire that towered grandly from the center of the islet. It looked a shrine built by nature in honor of its Creator, a true temple of the infinite, and the semblance was no illusion to these three castaways, since they regarded it as a sanctuary to which alone, under Heaven, they might owe their lives. Hozier, of course, realized that there was a certain element of risk in returning there. The island authorities would surely endeavor to find out where the party of desperadoes had lain _perdu_ between the sinking of the ship and the attack on the picket. But the ill-starred Marcel had been confident that none could land on the rock who was not acquainted with the intricacies of the approach, and Philip was content to trust to the reef-guarded passage rather than seek shelter on the mainland.

Once embarked in the fairway, the management of the catamaran occupied his mind to the complete exclusion of all other problems. He was puzzled by the discovery that the awkward craft was traveling too far to the westward, until he remembered that the tide had turned, and that the current was either slack or running in the opposite direction. Changing the paddle to the starboard side, he soon corrected this deviation in the route. But he had been carried already a hundred yards or more out of the straight line. To reach the two pointed rocks that marked the entrance to the secret channel, he was obliged to creep back along the whole shoreward face of the Grand-père; and to this accident was due a surprise that ranked high in a day replete with marvels.

When the catamaran rounded the last outlying crag, and they were all straining their eyes to find the sentinel pillars, they became aware that a small boat was being pulled cautiously toward them from the opposite side of the rock.

Iris gasped. She heard Hozier mutter under his breath, while San Benavides revealed his dismay by an oath and a convulsive tightening of the hands that rested on the girl's shoulders.

Hozier strove with a few desperate strokes of the paddle to reach the shadows of the passage before the catamaran was seen by the boat's occupants. He might have succeeded. Many things can happen at night and on the sea--strange escapades and hair's-breadth 'scapes--thrills denied to stay-at-homes dwelling in cities, who seldom venture beyond a lighted area. But there was even a greater probability that the unwieldy catamaran might be caught by the swell and dashed side-long against one of the half-submerged rocks that thrust their black fangs above the water.

Happily, they were spared either alternative. At the very instant that their lot must be put to the test of chance, Coke's hoarse accents came to their incredulous ears.

"Let her go, Olsen," he was growling. "We've a clear course now, an' that dam moon will spile everything if we're spotted."

In this instance hearing was believing, and Philip was the first to guess what had actually occurred.

"Boat ahoy, skipper!" he sang out in a joyous hail.

Coke stood up. He glared hard at the reef.

"Did ye 'ear it?" he cried to De Sylva, who was steering. "Sink me, I 'ope I ain't a copyin' pore ole Watts, but if that wasn't Hozier's voice I'm goin' dotty."

"It's all right, skipper," said Philip, sending the catamaran ahead with a mighty sweep. "Miss Yorke is here--Captain San Benavides, too. I was sure you would look for us if you cleared the harbor safely."

Then Coke proclaimed his sentiments in the approved ritual of the high seas, while the big Norseman at the oars swung the boat's head round until both craft were traveling in company to the waiting launch. But before anything in the nature of an explanation was forthcoming from the occupants of either the boat or the catamaran, a broad beam of white light swept over the crest of the island from north to south. It disappeared, to return more slowly, until it rested on Rat Island, at the extreme northwest of the group. It remained steady there, showing a wild panorama of rocky heights and tumbling sea.

"A search-light, by G--d!" growled Coke.

"Then there really _was_ a warship," murmured Iris.

"Ha!" said San Benavides, and his tone was almost gratified, for he had gathered that Hozier was skeptical when told of the rockets. But in that respect, at least, he was not mistaken. A man-of-war had entered the roadstead, and her powerful lamp was now scouring sea and coast for the missing launch. And in that moment of fresh peril it was forgotten by all but one of the men who had survived so many dangers since the sun last gilded the peak of Fernando Noronha, that were it not for Iris having been left behind, and Philip's mad plunge overboard to go to her, and the point-blank refusal of the _Andromeda's_ captain and crew to put to sea without an effort to save the pair of them, the launch would not now be hidden behind the black mass of the Grand-père rock.

Nevertheless, the fact was patent. Had the little vessel sailed to the west, in the assumption that her only feasible course lay in that direction, she must have been discovered by the cruiser's far-seeing eye. And what that meant needed no words. The bones of the _Andromeda_ supplied testimony at once silent and all-sufficing.

[1] The Governor's residence.

[2] The Brazilian milrei is worth 55 cents, or 2s. 3 1/2d. The Portuguese is worth only one-tenth of a cent.