When she awoke, the ravine was in shadow and the interior of the cave was dark. Her first conscious sensation was that of almost intolerable thirst. Her lips were blistered, her tongue and palate sore, and she asked herself in alarm what new evil was afflicting her, until she remembered the drenching she had received and the amount of salt-laden air that had passed into her lungs. Nevertheless, she cried involuntarily for water, and again she was offered wine. She managed to smile in a strained fashion at this malicious humor of fortune. By a freak of memory she called to mind the somewhat similar predicament of the crew of a storm-tossed ship that she had once read about. They ran short of water, but the vessel carried hundreds of cases of bottled stout. During three long weeks of boating against the wind those wretched men were compelled to drink stout morning, noon, and night, and never did temperance argument apply with greater force to the seafaring community than toward the end of that enforced regimen of malt liquor.

Hozier, who had aroused her by touching her shoulder, fancied he saw the gleam of merriment in her face.

"What is amusing you?" he asked.

She told him, though she spoke with difficulty.

"It is not quite so bad as that," he said. "If there is no hitch in our plans, we should be on the island within five hours. We have everything thought out as far as may be in view of the unknown. At any rate, Miss Yorke, if we succeed in getting you safely ashore, you personally will have but slight cause for further anxiety. The proposal is that Marcel shall take you at once to the hut of an old convict whom he can trust——"

"A convict!" she gasped. The word was ominous, and she was hardly awake.

"The population of Fernando Noronha is almost entirely made of convicts and soldiers," he explained.

"But am I to be left there alone?"

"What else is there to be done? You cannot join in the attack on a fort—and that offers our only chance, it would seem. Granted an effective surprise, we may carry it. Then your guardian will bring you to us."

"What if you fail?"

"We must not fail," he said quietly.

"Please do not hide the alternative from me," she pleaded. "I have endured so much——"

"Well, don't you see, this man—who, by the way, is married, and has a daughter aged fourteen—will, if necessary, reveal your presence to the Governor. By that time, say, in a day or two, the excitement will have died down, the news of your escape will be cabled to England, you will be sent to the coast on the Government steamer, and you can travel home by the next mail."

"That sounds very simple—and European," she said, and the pathetic sarcasm was not lost on him.

"It is reasonable enough. Unfortunately for us, all the bother centers round Senhor De Sylva, to whom we owe our lives. He is outside at the moment, showing our skipper the lay of the land before the light fails, so I am free to speak plainly. When he is dead there will be no further trouble, till the next revolution. But why endeavor to look ahead when seeing is impossible? At present, what really presses is the necessity that you should eat and drink. We have shared out the whole of the available food. Here is your portion. We deemed it best to give the men one square meal. They know now that they must earn the next one."

With each instant her perceptive powers were quickening. She was aware that he had deliberately avoided the main issue. De Sylva's probable death implied a good deal, but it was the supreme test of her courage that she refrained from useless questioning. Yet she thrust aside the two bananas and supply of dried meat and crusts that Hozier placed before her.

"I cannot eat," she murmured, striving to control her voice.

"But you must. It is imperative. You would not wish to break down at the very moment your best energies will be in demand. Our lives, as well as your own, may depend on your strength. Come, Miss Yorke, no woman could have been pluckier than you. Don't fail us now."

The gloom was deepening momentarily. Hozier's back was turned to the entrance, and, in the ever-growing darkness, she was unable to see his face; but his anxious protest in no wise deceived her; she even smiled again at the ruse that attempted to saddle her with some measure of responsibility for the success or failure of the raid.

"If I promise to eat—and drink this sour wine—will you be candid?" she asked.

"Well——"

"One must bargain. There is no other way. . . . Promise!"

"I suppose you mean that I must agree to please you by wild guessing about events that may turn out quite differently."

"Candid, I said."

"Yes—that most certainly."

"In the first place, may we go into the fresh air? I must have slept many hours. What time is it?"

"About seven o'clock."

"Seven! Have I been lying here since goodness knows what time this morning?"

"You were thoroughly used up," he said, and he added, with a laugh: "If it is any consolation, I may tell you that, to the best of my belief, you never moved nor uttered a sound."

"For instance, I didn't snore," she cried, rising to her feet, and thanking the kindly night that veiled her untidiness.

"I—don't—think so."

"Oh, please be more positive than that. You send a cold shiver down my back."

"Several members of the Andromeda's crew also indulged in a prolonged siesta," he said. "I assure you it was almost out of the question to divide the sleepers into snorers and non-snorers."

A man will talk harmless nonsense of that sort when he is at his wit's end to wriggle out of a perplexing situation. Hozier was deputed to obtain the girl's consent to the proposal he had already put before her. He feared that she would refuse compliance, for he understood her fine temper better than the others. He was a young man—one but little versed in the ways of women—yet some instinct warned him that there was a nobility in Iris Yorke's nature that might set self at naught and urge her to share her companions' lot, even though certain death were the outcome.

They passed together through the cavern. Watts, sound asleep, was lying there. The majority of the men were seated on the rocks without, or lounging near the entrance. They were smoking now freely, the only stipulation being that matches were not to be struck in the open. Their whispered talk ceased when they saw the girl. Absorbed in the prospect of a fight for life, for the moment they had forgotten her, but a murmured tribute of sympathy and recognition greeted her appearance.

The Irishman found his tongue first.

"Begorrah, miss," he said, "but it's the proud man I'll be the next time I see you smilin' from the kay side at Liverpool, no matter whether I'm there meself or not."

No one laughed at the absurd phrase which so clearly expressed its meaning. But the ship's cook, Peter, noting the strips of dried meat in her hands, raised a grin by saying:

"Sorry the galley fire is out, miss, or I'd 'ave stewed 'em a bit."

This kindly badinage was gratifying, though it helped to reveal the interrupted topic of their conversation. There was no hiding the desperate character of the coming adventure. The Andromeda's crew did not attempt to minimize it. The choice offered lay only in the manner of their death. As to the prospect of ultimate escape, they hardly gave it a thought. Some among them had served in the armies of Europe, and they, at least, were under no delusion concerning the issue of an attack on a fort by less than a score of unarmed men—seventeen to be exact, since two of the ship's company were so maimed by the bursting of the shell on the forecastle as to be practically helpless; it was by the rarest good fortune that they were able to walk.

Iris smiled at them in her frank way.

"I hope you will all be spared to ship on a new Andromeda," she said. No sooner had the words left her lips than the thought came unbidden: "If my uncle and Captain Coke wished the ship to be thrown away, nothing could have better suited their purposes than this tragic error."

For the instant, the unforeseen outcome of that Sunday afternoon's plotting in the peaceful garden of Linden House held her imagination. She recalled each syllable of it, and there throbbed in her brain the hitherto undreamed of possibility that Coke had brought the Andromeda to Fernando Noronha in pursuance of his thievish project.

At once she whispered to Hozier:

"Is there anyone on the path below?"

"No," he said. "The Brazilians are with Coke at the top of the gully."

"Is it safe for us to go the other way."

"I think so. But you must be careful not to slip."

She caught his arm, little knowing the thrill her clasp sent through his frame. This simple gesture of her confidence was bitter-sweet. He resolutely closed his eyes to the knowledge that this might be their last talk.

"I shall not fall," she said. "I am a good mountaineer. I learnt the trick of it in Cumberland. Come with me. There is a pleasant breeze blowing from the sea."

They climbed down. Neither spoke until they stood on the curving ledge that had proved their salvation. Though the tide was rising again, the heavy sea was gone. The current still created some spume and noise as it swept past the reef, but its anger had vanished with the gale. Beyond the fringe of broken water a slight swell only served to mirror in countless facets the tender light of a perfect sunset. The eastern horizon was a broad line of silver. Nearer, the shadow of the island created bands of purest green and ultramarine.

They reached the place from which the Brazilians had thrown the rope. They could hear the quiet plash of the water in the cleft. Piled against a low-lying rock were the funnel and other debris of the Andromeda. The black hull was plainly visible beneath the surface. Even while they were looking at the wreck a huge fish curled his ten feet of length with stealthy grace from out some dim recess; it might be, perhaps, from out the crushed shell of the chart-room.

Hozier glanced at his companion. He half expected her to shrink back appalled at this sinister sight; it was her destiny to surprise him not once but many times during that amazing period.

"Is that a shark?" she asked quietly.

"Yes. . . . You stipulated for candor, you know."

"I had no notion that such a monster could move with so great elegance. I think I would rather be eaten by a shark than lie at the bottom of the sea like our poor vessel there."

"Even a shark would appreciate the compliment," he said.

Her eyes continued to watch the terrifying apparition until it prowled into hidden depths again.

"I am not sorry I have seen it," she murmured. "It helps one to understand. We are glib concerning the laws of nature, and seem to regard them much as the printed regulations stuck on hackney carriages, whatsoever they may be. Yet, how cruelly just they are! I suppose that the finding of the ship's booty by that huge creature has given a new span of life to some weaker fish."

Hozier did not know whether or not she had realized the shark's real quest. Her next words enlightened him.

"If we follow the others, will the soldiers throw our dead bodies into the sea?" she asked.

"I want you to believe that you will be absolutely safe if we escape being discovered during the crossing of the narrow strip of water that separates this rock from the island," he hastened to say. "That is your only risk, and it is a light one. Senhor De Sylva is sure that the troops will not keep the keenest lookout to-night. They are still convinced that the insurgent steamer is sunk. Our chief danger will date from to-morrow's dawn. Marcel reports that a systematic search of the island was begun to-day. It will be continued to-morrow, but on new lines, because, by that time, they will have learnt the truth. The Andros-y-Mela is not lying in pieces at the foot of this rock, the President has not escaped, and every practicable inch of Fernando Noronha and the adjacent islands will be scoured in the hope of finding him. At first sight, that looks like being in our favor; in reality, it means the end if we are discovered here. The soldiers will shoot first and inquire afterwards. I have not the slightest doubt but that plenty of evidence will be forthcoming that we were a set of desperadoes who had unlawfully interfered in the affairs of a foreign state."

She appeared to be weighing this argument, sitting in judgment on De Sylva and his theories.

"I want to do that which is for the good of all," she said at length. "Do you ask me to go to this convict's house, Mr. Hozier?"

"I urge it on you with the utmost conviction. With you off our hands, we can act freely. We must deliver an attack to-night. God in Heaven, you cannot think that we would expose you to the perils of a desperate fight!"

His sudden outburst was unexpected, even by himself. He trembled in an agony of passion. Iris placed a timid hand on his shoulder.

"I will go," she whispered. "Please do not be distressed on my account. I will go. I brought you here, not to discuss my own fate, but yours. These Brazilians will not scruple to make use of you, and then throw you aside if it suits their purpose. That man, De Sylva, does not care how he attains power, and I know that he and the officer entertain some plan which they have not revealed to you."

"You . . . know."

"Yes. I understand a little of their language. I have a mere glimpse of its sense, as one sees a landscape through a mist. When De Sylva told you to-day that San Benavides was with you heart and soul, he was lying. There were things said about a ship, and midnight, and a boat. I watched the officer's face. He was wholly opposed to the landing to-night. My mind is not so vague now. I think I can grasp his meaning. Was it not to-night that the Andros-y-Mela was to appear?"

"Yes."

"Well, may they not hope secretly that she will keep to the fixed hour? Once you and I and the others are on the island, and an alarm is given, the Brazilians could slip away unnoticed. Yes, that is it. I do not trust them any more than I trusted Captain Coke. Don't you realize that he brought the Andromeda to this place in order to wreck her more easily? It was to supply a pretext for the visit that he made undrinkable the water in the ship's tanks."

That appealing hand still rested on Philip's shoulder. Its touch affected him profoundly. With a lightning dart of memory his thoughts went back to the moment when she lay, inert and half-fainting, in his arms on the bridge, after he had taken her from the lazarette. But he controlled his voice sufficiently to say:

"You may be right; indeed, I know you are right, so far as Coke is concerned. When I went aft to find out if one of the boats could not be cleared, I noticed that a steering-gear box had been prised open again. I had time for only a second's glance, but I was sure the damage had not been done by a bullet. So the Andromeda was doomed to be lost, no matter what happened. By ——, forgive me, Miss Yorke, but this kind of thing makes one savage."

"Perhaps it is matterless now. Coke will stand by the rest of us in our struggle for life, at any rate. But the Brazilians——"

"Have no fear of them. I, too, have watched San Benavides. I don't like the fellow, and wouldn't place an ounce of faith in him, but De Sylva has brains, and he knows well enough that no ship from Brazil will come to Fernando Noronha in his behalf. In fact, he dreads a visit by a Government vessel, in which event our frail chance of seizing that launch——"

She felt, rather than saw, that he had suddenly grown rigid. His right arm flew out and drew her to him.

"Sh-s-s-h!" he breathed, and pulled her behind a rock. Her woman's heart yielded to dread of the unseen. It pulsed violently, and she was tempted to scream. Despite his warning, she must at least have whispered a question, but her ears caught a sound to which they were now well accustomed. The light chug-chug of an engine and the flapping of a propeller came up to them from the sea. The steam launch was approaching. Perhaps they had been seen already! As if to emphasize this new peril, there was an interval of silence. Steam had been shut off. Philip touched the girl's lips lightly with a finger. Then he lay flat on the ledge and began to creep forward. It was impossible that he should run and warn the others, but it was essential, above all else, that he should ascertain what the men on the launch were doing, and the extent of their knowledge.

He found a tuft of the grass that clung to a crevice where its roots drew hardy sustenance from the crumbling rock; he ventured to thrust his head through this screen, following Domingo's example some hours earlier. Almost directly beneath, his eager glance found the little vessel. She was floating past with the current. He peered down on to her deck as if from the top of a mast. A few cigarette-smoking officers were grouped in her bows. Apparently, they were more interested in the remains of the Andromeda than in the natural fortress overhead. Clustered round the hatch were some twenty soldiers, also smoking.

One of the officers pointed to the ledge; he was excited and emphatic. Philip could not imagine that they had detected him, but he feared lest Iris, in her agitation, might have moved. In that clear, calm air, not even the growing dusk would hide the flutter of a skirt or the altered position of a white face. A man in charge of the wheel replied to the officer with a laugh. The first speaker turned, glanced at the Brothers reef, behind which the Andromeda's boat had vanished that morning, and nodded dubiously. The man at the wheel growled an order, and the engine started again. Though Hozier knew not what was said, the significance of this pantomime was not lost on him. The local pilot was afraid of these treacherous waters in the dark, but next day Frade de Francez (which is the islanders' name for the Grand-pere Rock) would surely be explored if a landing could be made. At a guess, the silent watcher took it that the steersman had declined to make a circuit of the rock until the light was good.

Away bustled the launch, but Hozier did not move until there was no risk of his figure being silhouetted against the sky. Even then, he wormed his way backward with slow caution. Iris was crouched where he had left her, wide-eyed, motionless.

"Good job we came here," he said. "It is evident they mean to maintain a patrol until there is news of De Sylva one way or the other. It will be interesting now to hear what the gallant San Benavides says. If any ship comes to Fernando Noronha to-night she will be seen from the island long before any signal is visible at this point."

"Do you think the others saw the launch?" she asked.

"No—not unless some of the men strayed down the gully, which they were told not to do. The breakers would drown the noise of the engines and screw."

There was a slight pause.

"Will you tell them?" she went on.

"Why not?"

This time the pause was more eloquent than words. Quite unconsciously, Iris replied to her own question.

"Of course, as you said a little while ago, we owe our lives to Dom Corria De Sylva," she murmured, as if she were reasoning with herself.

By chance, probably because Hozier stooped to help her to her feet, his arm rested lightly across her shoulders.

"I will not pretend to misunderstand you," he said. "If the Brazilians do not mean to play the game, it would be a just punishment to let them rush on their own doom. But De Sylva may not agree with this fop of an officer, and, in any event, we must go straight with him until he shows his teeth."

"You seem to dislike Captain San Benavides," she said inconsequently.

"I regard him as a brainless ass," he exclaimed.

"Somehow, that sounds like a description of a dead donkey, which one never sees."

"Mademoiselle!" came a voice from the lip of the ravine.

"One can hear him, though," laughed Hozier, with a warning pressure that suspiciously resembled a hug. These two were children, in some respects, quicker to jest than to grieve, better fitted for mirth than tragedy.

They moved out from their niche, and San Benavides blustered into vehement French.

"We are going to the landing-place before it is too dark," he muttered angrily. "We must not show a light; in a few minutes the path will be most dangerous. Please make haste, mademoiselle. We did not know where you had gone."

"The men knew," suggested Hozier in the girl's ear. He dared not trust either his temper or his vocabulary.

"We shall lose no time, now, monsieur," said Iris, hurrying on.

"This way then. No, we do not pass the cave. We go right round the cliff. Permit me, mademoiselle. I am acquainted with each step."

He took her hand. Philip followed. He was young enough to long for an opportunity to tell San Benavides that he was a puppy, a mongrel puppy. Just then he would have given a gun-metal case, filled with cigars—the only treasure he possessed—for a Portuguese dictionary.

After a really difficult and hazardous descent, they found the others awaiting them in a rock-shrouded cove. The barest standing-room was afforded by a patch of shingle and detritus. Alongside a flat stone lay three broad planks tied together with cowhide. The center plank was turned up at one end. This was the catamaran, which de Sylva had dignified by the name of boat. The primitive craft rested in a black pool in which the stars trembled, though they were hardly visible as yet in the brighter sky. The water murmured in response to the movement of the tide, but to the unaided eye there was no vestige of a passage through the volcanic barrier that reared itself on every hand.

"Were 'ave you bin?" growled Coke. "We've lost a good ten minnits. You ought to 'ave known, Hozier, that it's darkest just after sunset."

"We could not have started sooner, sir."

"W'y not? We were kep' waitin' up there, searchin' for you."

"That was our best slice of luck to-day. Had any of you appeared on the ledge you would have been seen from the launch."

"Wot launch?"

"The launch that visited us this morning. Ten minutes ago she was standing by at the foot of the rock."

Philip spoke slowly and clearly. He meant his news to strike home. As he anticipated, De Sylva broke in.

"You saw it?" he asked, and his deep voice vibrated with dismay.

"Yes. I even made out, by actions rather than words, that the darkness alone prevented the soldiers from coming here to-night. The skipper would not risk it."

De Sylva said something under his breath. He spoke rapidly to San Benavides, and the latter seemed to be cowed, for his reply was brief. Then the ex-President reverted to English.

"I have decided to send Marcel and Domingo ashore first," he said. "They will select the safest place for a landing. Marcel will bring back the catamaran, and take off Mr. Hozier and the young lady. Captain Coke and I will follow, and the others in such order as Senhor Benavides thinks fit. The catamaran will only hold three with safety, but Marcel believes he can find another for Domingo. Remember, all of you, silence is essential. If there is an accident, some of us may be called on to drown without a cry. We must be ready to do it for the sake of those who are left. Are we all agreed?"

A hum of voices answered him. De Sylva was, at least, a born leader.



CHAPTER VIII

THE RIGOR OF THE GAME

In obedience to their leader's order, Marcel, the taciturn, and Domingo, from whose lips the Britons had scarce heard a syllable, squatted on the catamaran. Marcel wielded a short paddle, and an almost imperceptible dip of its broad blade sent the strangely-built craft across the pool. Once in the shadow, it disappeared completely. There was no visible outlet. The rocks thrust their stark ridge against the sky in a seemingly impassable barrier. Some of the men stared at the jagged crests as though they half expected to see the Brazilians making a portage, just as travelers in the Canadian northwest haul canoes up a river obstructed by rapids.

"Well, that gives me the go-by," growled Coke, whose alert ear caught no sound save the rippling of the water. "I say, mister, 'ow is it done?" he went on.

"It is a simple thing when you know the secret," said De Sylva. "Have you passed Fernando Noronha before, Captain?"

"Many a time."

"Have you seen the curious natural canal which you sailors call the Hole in the Wall?"

"Yes, it's near the s'uth'ard end."

"Well, the sea has worn away a layer of soft rock that existed there. In the course of centuries a channel has been cut right across the two hundred yards of land. Owing to the same cause the summer rains have excavated a ravine through the crater up above, and a similar passage exists here, only it happens to run parallel to the line of the cliff. It extends a good deal beyond its apparent outlet, and is defended by a dangerous reef. Marcel once landed on a rock during a very calm day, and saw the opening. He investigated it, luckily for me—luckily, in fact, for all of us."

Watts interrupted De Sylva's smooth periods by a startled ejaculation, and Coke turned on him fiercely.

"Wot's up now?" he demanded. "Ain't you sober yet?"

"Some dam thing jumped on me," explained Watts.

"Probably a crab," said De Sylva. "There are jumping crabs all around here. It will not hurt you. It is quite a small creature."

"Oh, if it's on'y a crab," muttered Watts, "sorry I gev' tongue, skipper. I thought it was a rat, an' I can't abide 'em."

"Then you must learn to endure them while you are in Fernando do Noronha itself," went on the Brazilian. "The island absolutely swarms with rats; some of the larger varieties are rather dangerous."

"Sufferin' Moses!" groaned Watts. "It'll be the death o' me."

"Wot color are they?" asked Coke. De Sylva's reply was given in a tone of surprise. Certainly these hardy mariners had selected an unusual topic for discussion at a critical moment.

"The common dark gray," he said.

"That's all right, then," sneered Coke. "Watts don't mind 'em gray. They're old messmates of his. It's w'en they're pink or green that he fights shy of 'em."

"I hate rats of any sort——" began Watts hotly, spurred to anger by an audible snigger among the men, but De Sylva stopped his protest peremptorily. It was idiotic, this bantering when the next half hour might be their last.

"You must learn to guard your tongue," he said with harsh distinctness. "We cannot have our plans marred by a fool's outcry."

Nevertheless, the chief officer of the Andromeda was far from being a fool. He had cut an inglorious figure during the wreck, but he was sober enough now, and it hurt his pride to be jeered at by his own skipper and treated with contumely by one whom he privately classed as a Dago. He had the good sense to realize that the present was no fit time for a display of temper; but he nursed his wrath. Dom Corria would have been well advised had he followed the counsel given so ungraciously, and guarded his own tongue.

It might well be that the ex-President, whose fortunes were on the tiptoe of desperate hazard, was beginning to despair. He may have scanned the meager forces at his disposal and felt that he was asking the gods for more than they could grant. A few minutes earlier he had put forth the suave suggestion that Hozier should be given the speediest chance of securing the girl's safety. That was politic; perhaps his stanch nerve was yielding to the strain, now that the two islanders were gone on their doubtful quest. Be that as it may, his attitude did not encourage light conversation. Even Coke withheld some jibe at the unfortunate mate's expense. A chill silence fell on the little group. The more imaginative among them were calculating the exact kind of lurch taken by the unstable raft that would mean "drowning without a cry."

Thus the minutes sped, until a dim shape emerged from the opposite blackness. It came unheard, growing from nothing into something with ghostly subtlety. Iris, a prey to many emotions, managed to stifle the exclamation of alarm that rose unbidden. But Hozier read her distress in a hardly audible sob.

"It is our friend, Marcel," he whispered. "So Domingo has made good his landing. Be brave! The sea is quite calm. This man has been to the island and back in less than a quarter of an hour."

His confidence gave her new courage. She even tried to turn danger itself into a jest.

"We seem to be living in spasms just now," she said. "We certainly crowd a good deal of excitement into a very few minutes."

The catamaran swung round and grated on the shingle. Marcel was in a hurry.

"Are you ready?" asked De Sylva, bending toward Iris.

"Yes," she said.

"Then you had better kneel behind Marcel, and steady yourself by placing your hands on his shoulders. Yes, that is it. Do not change your position until you are ashore. Now you, Mr. Hozier."

Marcel murmured something.

"Ah, good!" cried De Sylva softly. "Domingo, too, has secured a catamaran. He is bringing it at once in order to save time."

A second spectral figure emerged from the gloom. Without waiting for further instructions, Marcel swung his paddle, and the one craft passed the other in the center of the pool. Iris felt Hozier's hands on her waist. He obeyed orders, and uttered no sound, but the action told her that she might trust him implicitly. When the narrow cleft was traversed, and she saw the open sea on her right, there was ample need for some such assurance of guardianship. Viewed from the cliff, the swell that broke on the half-submerged reef was of slight volume, but it presented a very different and most disconcerting aspect when seen in profile. It seemed to be an almost impossible feat for any man to propel three narrow planks, top-heavy with a human freight, across a wide channel through which such a sea was running. Indeed, Hozier himself, sailor as he was, felt more than doubtful as to the fate of their argosy. But Marcel paddled ahead with unflagging energy once he was clear of the tortuous passage, and, before the catamaran had traveled many yards, even Iris was able to understand that the outlying ridge of rocks both protected their present track and created much of the apparent turmoil.

At last the raft, for it was little else, bore sharply out between two huge bowlders that might well have fallen from the mighty pile of Grand-pere itself. Pointed and angular they were, and set like a gateway to an abode of giants. Beyond, there was a shimmer of swift-moving water, with a silver mist on the surface, though from a height of a few feet it would have been easy to distinguish the bold contours of Fernando Noronha itself.

Marcel plied his paddle vigorously, and Iris thought they were heading against the current, since there was a constant swirl of white-tipped waves on both sides of the curved plank, and her dress soon became soaked. But Hozier knew that one man could not drive a craft that had no artificial buoyancy in the teeth of a four-knot tidal stream. Marcel was edging across the channel, and making good use of the very force that threatened to sweep him away. Indeed, in less than five minutes, a definite clearing yet darkening of the atmospheric light showed that land was near. The hiss of the ripple subsided, the tide ceased its chant, and a dark mass sprang into uncanny distinctness right ahead.

The girl's first sensation on nearing the island was an unpleasant one. She was conscious of a slight but somewhat nauseating odor, quite unlike anything within her ken previously. It suffused the air, and grew more pronounced as the catamaran crept noiselessly into a tiny bay.

Hozier sympathized with her distress; knowing that acquaintance with an evil often helps to minimize its effect, he bent close to her ear and whispered the words:

"Mangrove swamp."

Iris had read of mangroves. In a dim way, she classed them with tamarinds, and cocoa-palms, and other sub-tropical products. At any rate, she was exceedingly anxious to tell Hozier that if mangroves tasted as they smelt she would need to be very hungry before she ate one!

Marcel was endowed with quick ears. Though Hozier's whisper could hardly have reached him, he held up a warning hand, even while he brought the catamaran ashore on the shingle, so gently that not a pebble was disturbed. He rose, a gaunt scarecrow, stepped off, and drew the shallow craft somewhat further up the sloping beach. Then he helped Iris to her feet. She became conscious at once that his thumb-nail was of extraordinary length, and—so strangely constituted is human nature—this peculiarity made a lasting impression on her mind.

Hozier, thinking that he ought to remain near the catamaran, stood upright, but did not offer to follow the others. Iris, filled with a sudden fear, hung back. The Brazilian, aware of her resistance, sought its cause. He saw Hozier, grinned, and beckoned to him. So the three went in company, and at each upward stride the disagreeable stench, ever afterwards associated with Fernando Noronha in the girl's memories, became less and less perceptible, until, after a short walk through a clump of banana trees, it vanished altogether.

At that instant, when Iris was beginning to revel in the sweet incense of a multitude of unseen flowers, Marcel halted, motioned to Hozier to stand fast, and indicated that Iris was to come with him. At once she shrank away in terror. Though in some sense prepared for this parting, she felt it now as the crudest blow that fortune had dealt her during a day crowded with misfortunes. In all likelihood, those two would never meet again. She needed no telling as to the risk he would soon be called on to face, and her anguish was made the more bitter by the necessity that they should go from each other's presence without a spoken word.

Nevertheless, she forced herself to extend a hand in farewell. Her eyes were blinded with tears. She knew that Hozier drew her nearer. With the daring of one who may well cast the world's convention to the winds, he gathered her to his heart and kissed her. Then she uttered a little sob of happiness and sorrow, and fainted.

It was not until she was lying helpless in his embrace, with her head pillowed on his breast, and an arm thrown limply across his shoulder, that Philip understood what had happened. He loved her, and she, the promised wife of another man, had tacitly admitted that she returned his love. Born for each other, heirs of all the ages, they were destined to be separated under conditions that could not have been brought about by the worst tyrant that ever oppressed his fellow creatures. Small blame should be his portion if in that abysmal moment there came to Philip a dire temptation. There was every reason to believe that he and Iris, if they found some hiding-place on the island that night, might escape. He could send Marcel crashing into the undergrowth with a blow, carry the unconscious girl somewhere, anywhere, until the darkness shrouded them, and wait for the dawn with some degree of confidence. In a red fury of thought he pictured her face when she regained possession of her senses and was told that they had no more to fear. He saw, with a species of fantastic intuition, that the island authorities would actually acclaim them for the tidings they brought. And then, he would find those grave brown eyes of hers fixed on his in agonized inquiry. What of the others? Why had he betrayed his trust? Dom Corria de Sylva had sent him ashore in advance of any among the little band of fugitives. Marcel and Domingo were outside the pale. Their lives, at least, were surely forfeit when recaptured. It was not a prayer but a curse that Hozier muttered when Marcel whispered words he did not understand, but whose obvious meaning was that now the girl must be carried to the convict's hut, since they were losing time, and time was all-important.

So they strode on, across ground that continued to rise in gentle undulations. Even in his present frenzied mood, Hozier noticed that they were following the right bank of a rivulet, the catamaran being beached on the same side of its cove-like estuary. Progress was rather difficult. They were skirting a wood, and the trailers of a great scarlet-flowered bean and a climbing cucumber smothered the ground, canopied the trees, and swarmed over the rocks. He could not distinguish these hindrances in the darkness, but he soon found that he must walk warily. As for the effort entailed by his forlorn burden he did not give a thought to it until Marcel indicated that he must stand fast. The Brazilian went on, leaving Hozier breathless. Evidently he went to warn the inhabitants of a wretched hut, suddenly visible in the midst of a patch of maize and cassava, that there were those at hand who needed shelter.

A dog barked—Marcel whistled softly, and the animal began to whimper. The Brazilian vanished. Hozier still held Iris in his arms; his heart was beating tumultuously; his throat ached with the labor of his lungs. His straining ears caught rustlings among the grass and roots, but otherwise a solemn peace brooded over the scene. Just beyond the hut, which was shielded from the arid hill by a grove of curiously contorted trees, the inner heights of the island rose abruptly. Something that resembled a column of cloud showed behind the rugged sky-line of the land. Even while he waited there, he saw a glint of light on its eastern side. He fancied that under stress of emotion and physical weakness his eyes were deceiving him; but the line of golden fire grew brighter and more definite. It was broken but unwavering, and black shadows began to take form as part of this phenomenon. Then he remembered the giant peak of Fernando Noronha, that mis-shapen mass which thrusts its amazing beacon a thousand feet into the air. The rising moon was gilding El Pico long ere its rays would illumine the lower land—that was all—yet he hailed the sight as a token of deliverance. It was not by idle chance that that which he had taken for a cloud should be transmuted into a torch; there sprang into his heated brain a new trust. He recalled the unceasing vigilance of One All-Powerful, who, ages ago, when His people were afflicted, "went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light."

Then Marcel came, and aroused him from the stupor that had settled on him, and together they entered into the hovel, where a dark-skinned woman and a comely girl uttered words of sympathetic sound when Iris was laid on a low trestle, and Hozier took a farewell kiss from her unheeding lips.

The Englishman stumbled away with his guide; he fancied that Marcel warned him several times to be more circumspect. He did his best, but, for the time, he was utterly spent. At last the Brazilian signified that they were near a trysting place. He uttered a cry like a night-jar's, and the answer came from no great distance. Soon they encountered Coke and De Sylva, who were awaiting them anxiously, and wondering, no doubt, why Hozier was missing, since Domingo and Marcel had fixed on an aged fig-tree as a rendezvous, and Hozier was not to be found anywhere near it.

The two boatmen hurried away, and De Sylva placed his lips close to Philip's ear.

"What went wrong?" he asked.

"Iris—Miss Yorke—fainted," was the gasping reply.

"Ah. You had to carry her?"

"Yes."

De Sylva fumbled in a pocket. He produced a flask.

"Here is some brandy. I kept it for just such an extremity. We cannot have you breaking down. Drink!"

Two weary hours elapsed before the little army of the Grand-pere Rock was reunited on the shore of Cotton-Tree Bay. Then there was a further delay, while their indefatigable scouts brought milk and water, some coarse bread, and a good supply of fruit from the hut. It was part of their scheme that they should give their friend's habitation a wide berth. If their plans miscarried he was instructed to say that he had found the English lady wandering on the shore soon after daybreak. In any event, there would be no evidence that he had entertained the invaders in his hovel; otherwise, he would lose the first-class badge that permitted him, a convict, to dwell apart with his wife and daughter.

It was with the utmost difficulty that the men could be restrained from expressing their delight when they were given water and milk to drink. The water was poor, brackish stuff; the milk was sour and had lost every particle of cream; yet they deemed each a nectar of rank, and even the miserable Watts, who had long ago ascertained that the rustlings in the herbage were caused by countless numbers of rats and mice, was ready to acclaim beverages which he was too apt to despise.

About midnight there was a bright moon sailing overhead, and De Sylva gave a low order that they were to form in Indian file. Marcel led, the ex-President himself followed, with San Benavides, Coke, and Hozier in close proximity. Domingo brought up the rear, in order to prevent straggling, and assist men who might stray from the path.

Avoiding the cultivated land surrounding the creek, the party struck up the hillside. A few plodding minutes sufficed to clear the trees and dense undergrowth. A rough, narrow path led to the saddle of the central ridge. They advanced warily but without any real difficulty. Hozier took a listless interest in watching the furtive glances cast over his shoulder by San Benavides so long as the south coast of the island was visible. At each turn in the mountain track the Brazilian officer searched the moonlit sea for the agreed signal. At last, when the northern side also came in sight, and the whole island lay spread before them, San Benavides resigned himself to the inevitable. For a little while, at least, he was perforce content to survey events through the eyes of his companions, and throw in his lot irrevocably with theirs.

Roughly speaking, Fernando Noronha itself, irrespective of the group of islands at its northeasterly extremity, stretches five miles from east to west, and averages a mile and a half in width. From Cotton-Tree Bay, to which the catamarans had brought the small force, it was barely a mile to the village, convict settlement, and citadel. Some few lights twinkling near the shore showed the exact whereabouts of the inhabited section. Another mile away to the right lay Fort San Antonio, which housed the main body of troops. Watch-fires burning on South Point, whence came the shells that disabled the Andromeda, revealed the presence of soldiers in that neighborhood. De Sylva explained that a paved road ran straight from the town and landing-place to the hamlet of Sueste and an important plantation of cocoanuts and other fruit-bearing trees that adjoined South Point. It was inadvisable to strike into that road immediately. A little more to the right there was a track leading to the Curral, or stockyard. If they headed for the latter place the men could obtain some stout cudgels. The convict peons in charge of the cattle should be overpowered and bound, thus preventing them from giving an alarm, and it was also possible to avoid the inhabited hillside overlooking the main anchorage until they were close to the citadel. Then, crossing the fort road, they would advance boldly to the enemy's stronghold, first making sure that the launch was moored in her accustomed station in the roadstead beneath the walls. San Benavides would answer the sentry's questions, there would be a combined rush for the guard-room on the right of the gate, and, if they were able to master the guard, as many of the assailants as possible would don the soldiers' coats, shakos, and accouterments. Granted success thus far, there should not be much difficulty in persuading the men in charge of the launch that a cruise round the island was to be undertaken forthwith. Marcel would remain with them until the citadel was carried. He would then hurry back to bring Iris across the island to an unfrequented beach known as the Porto do Conceicao, where he would embark her on a catamaran and row out to the steamer, which, by that time, would be lying off the harbor out of range of the troops who would surely be summoned from the distant fort.

The project bristled with audacity, and that has ever been the soul of achievement. Even the two wounded men from the Andromeda took heart when they listened to De Sylva's low-toned explanation, given under the shadow of a great rock ere the final advance was made. If all went well at the beginning, the small garrison of the citadel would be astounded when they found themselves struggling against unknown adversaries. Haste, silence, determination—these things were essential; each and all might be expected from men who literally carried their lives in their hands.

A keen breeze was blowing up there on the ridge. A bank of cloud was rising in the southwest horizon, and, at that season, when the months of rain were normally at an end, the mere presence of clouds heralded another spell of broken weather, though the preceding gale had probably marked the worst of it. Indeed, valuable auxiliary as the moon had proved during the march across rough country, it would be no ill hap if her bright face were veiled later. The mere prospect of such an occurrence was a cheering augury, and it was in the highest spirits that the little band set out resolutely for the Curral.

Here they encountered no difficulty whatever. Perhaps the prevalent excitement had drawn its custodians to the town, since they found no one in charge save a couple of barking dogs, while, if there were people in the cattle-keepers' huts, they gave no sign of their presence. A few stakes were pulled up; they even came upon a couple of axes and a heavy hammer. Equipped with these weapons, eked out by three revolvers owned by the Brazilians and the dapper captain's sword, they hurried on, quitting the road instantly, and following a cow-path that wound about the base of a steep hill.

They met their first surprise when they tried to cross the road to the fort. Quite unexpectedly, they blundered into a small picket stationed there. Its object was to challenge all passers-by during the dark hours, and it formed part of the scheme already elaborated by the authorities for a complete search of every foot of ground. But Brazilian soldiers are apt to be lax in such matters. These men were all lying down, and smoking. For a marvel, they happened to be silent when Marcel led his cohort into the open road. They were listening, in fact, to the crackling of the undergrowth, though utterly unsuspicious of its cause, and the first intimation of danger was given by the startling challenge:

"Who goes there?"

It was familiar enough to island ears, and the convict answered readily:

"A friend!"

"Several friends, it would seem," laughed a voice. "Let us see who these friends are."

Luckily, in response to De Sylva's sibilant order, most of the Andromeda's crew were hidden by the scrub from which they were about to emerge.

The soldiers rose, and strolled nearer leisurely.

"Now!" shouted De Sylva, leaping forward.

There was a wild scurry, two or three shots were fired, and Hozier found himself on the ground gripping the throat of a bronzed man whom he had shoved backward with a thrust, for he had no time to swing his stake for a blow. He was aware of a pair of black eyes that glared up at him horribly in the moonlight, of white teeth that shone under long moustachios of peculiarly warlike aspect, but he felt the man was as putty in his hands, and his fingers relaxed their pressure.

He looked around. The fight was ended almost as soon as it began. The soldiers, six in all, were on their backs in the roadway. Two of them were dead. The Italian sailor had been shot through the body, and was twisting in his last agony.

The bloodshed was bad enough, but those shots were worse. They would set the island in an uproar. The reports would be heard in town, citadel, and fort, and the troops would now be on the qui vive. But De Sylva was a man of resource.

"Strip the prisoners!" he cried. "Take their arms and ammunition, but bind them back to back with their belts."

"Butt in there, me lads," vociferated Coke, who had accounted for one of the Brazilians with an ax. "Step lively! Now we've got some uniforms an' guns, we can rush that dam cittydel easy."

Hozier was busy relieving his man of his coat. When the prone warrior realized that he was not to be killed, he helped the operation, but Philip was thinking more of Iris than of deeds of derring-do.

"Why attempt to capture the citadel at all?" he asked. "Now that we can make sufficient display, is there any reason that we should not go straight for the launch?"

"Hi, mister, d'ye 'ear that?" said Coke to De Sylva. "There's horse sense in it. The whole bally place will be buzzin' like a nest of wasps till they find out wot the shots meant."

"I think it is a good suggestion," came the calm answer, "provided, that is, the launch is in the harbor."

"She's just as likely to be there now as later. If she isn't, we must hark back to the first plan. Now, you swabs, all aboard! See to them buckles afore you quit."

A bell began to toll in the convict settlement. Lights appeared in many houses scattered over the seaward slope. In truth, Fernando Noronha had not been so badly scared since its garrison mutinied three years earlier because arrears of pay were not forthcoming. It was impossible to determine as yet whether or not the island steamer was at her berth, so they could only push on boldly and trust to luck. Hozier, never for an instant forgetting Iris, saw that Marcel still remained with his leader. Under these new circumstances, it certainly would be a piece of folly to send back until they were sure of the launch. So he hurried after them, struggling the while into a coat far too small, though fortunate in the fact that his captive's head was big in proportion to the rest of his body.

Some few men were met, running from the town to the main road where they had located the shooting. Each breathlessly demanded news, and was forthwith given most disconcerting information by a savage blow. The Andromeda had received no quarter, and her crew retaliated now. They did not deliberately murder anyone, but they took good care that none of those whom they encountered would be in a condition to work mischief until the night was ended.

It was a peculiar and exasperating fact that although they were descending a steep incline to the harbor the presence of trees and houses rendered it impossible to see the actual landing-place. Hence, there was no course open but to race on at the utmost speed, though De Sylva was careful to keep his small force compact, and its pace was necessarily that of its slowest members. Among these was Coke, who had never walked so far since he was granted a captain's certificate. He swore copiously as he lumbered along, and, what between shortness of breath and his tight boots and clothing, the latter disability being added to by a ridiculously inadequate Brazilian tunic, he was barely able to reach the water's edge.

Happily, the launch was there, moored alongside a small quay. From the nearest building it was necessary to cross a low wharf some fifty yards in width, and De Sylva's whispered commands could not restrain the eager men when escape appeared no longer problematical but assured. They broke, and ran, an almost fatal thing, as it happened, since the soldiers whom Philip had seen from the rock were still on board. One of them noticed the inexplicable disorder among a body of men some of whom resembled his own comrades. He had heard the firing, and was discussing it with others when this strange thing happened.

He challenged. San Benavides answered, but his voice was shrill and unofficer-like.

The engines were started. A man leaped to the wharf. He was in the act of casting a mooring rope off a fixed capstan when De Sylva shot him between the shoulder-blades.

"On board, all of you!" shrieked the ex-President in a frenzy.

"At 'em, boys!" gasped Coke, though scarce able to stagger another foot.

The men needed no bidding. Sheets of flame leaped from the vessel's deck as the soldiers seized their rifles and fired point-blank at these mysterious assailants who spoke in a foreign language. But flame alone could not stop that desperate attack. Some fell, but the survivors sprang at the Brazilians like famished wolves on their prey. There was no more shooting. Men grappled and fell, some into the water, others on deck, or they sprawled over the hatch and wrought in frantic struggle in the narrow cabin. The fight did not last many seconds. An engineer, finding a lever and throttle valve, roared to a sailor to take the wheel, and already the launch was curving seaward when Hozier shouted:

"Where is Marcel?"

"Lyin' dead on the wharf," said Watts.

"Are you certain?"

"He was alongside me, an' 'e threw is 'ands up, an' dropped like a shot rabbit."

"Then who has gone for Miss Yorke?"

"No one. D'ye think that this d—d President cares for anybody but hisself?"

Philip felt the deck throbbing with the pulsations of the screw. The lights on shore were gliding by. The launch was leaving Fernando Noronha, and Iris was waiting in that wretched hut beyond the hill, waiting for the summons that would not reach her, for Marcel was dead, and Domingo, the one other man who could have gone to her, was lying in the cabin with three ribs broken and a collar-bone fractured.



CHAPTER IX

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:

"Gracas 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-pere 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?—etourdi—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——"

"Chere 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-pere 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-pere 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-pere; 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-pere 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.



CHAPTER X

ON THE HIGH SEAS

Again did that awe-inspiring wand of light describe a great arc in the sky. But it was plain to be seen that it sprang from an altered base. The warship was in motion. She was about to steam around the group of islands.

Boat and catamaran raced at once for the launch; a Babel of strange oaths jarred the brooding silence; alarm, almost panic, stirred men's hearts and bubbled forth in wild speech. Under pressure of this new peril the instinct of self-preservation burst the bonds of discipline. The first law of nature may be disregarded by heroes, but the Andromeda's crew were just common sailormen, who did not know when they were heroic and did not care if they were deemed bestial. It may be urged that they had suffered much. Out of a ship's company of twenty-two exactly one half had survived the day's rigors. Domingo was lying in the cabin, too seriously injured to be concerned whether he lived or died. With him were two wounded soldiers, happily saved from the ruthless ferocity of the fight alongside the wharf, when every Brazilian in uniform found on deck was flung off to sink or swim as he was best able. Indeed, it was during this phase of the struggle that Hozier managed to scramble on shore unnoticed. He landed at the same moment as enemies who were blind to every other consideration except their own dangerous plight.

Small wonder, then, if authority was cast to the winds now that capture seemed to be unavoidable. Coke tried to still the tumult by thundering a command to Norrie, second engineer, to throw open the throttle valve. He took the wheel in person, meaning to shape a course due east, and thus endeavor to avoid the cruiser's baleful glance. But some of the men realized instantly that this expedient would fail. They were in no mood for half measures. Norrie felt a bayonet under his left shoulder-blade. Coke was roared down, and a hoarse voice growled:

"Me for the tall timbers, maties. It's each one for hisself now."

"Aye, aye!" came the chorus . . . "Shove her ashore! . . . Give us a chanst there. . . We've none at sea."

Dom Corria, being something of a fatalist, did not interfere. On this cockleshell of a craft, among these rude spirits of alien races, he was powerless. On land a diplomat and strategist of high order, here he was a cipher. Moreover, he was beaten to his knees, and he knew it. The arrival of the warship had upset his calculations. After many months' planning of flight, he had been forced, by the events of a few hours, into an aggressive campaign. His little cohort had done wonders, it is true, but of what avail were these ill-equipped stalwarts against a fast-moving fort, armed with heavy guns and propelled by thousands of steam horses? None, absolutely none. Dom Corria drew San Benavides aside.

"All is ended!" he said quietly. "We shall never see Brazil again, Salvador meu! Carmela must find another lover, it seems."

Salvador did not appear to be specially troubled by the new quest imposed on Carmela, but he was much perturbed by an uproar betokening disunion among the men who had already saved his life twice. He was beginning to believe in them. It was night, and they possessed a vessel under steam. Why did they not hurry into the obscurity of the smooth dark plain that looked so inviting?

It was left to Hozier to solve a problem that threatened to develop into a disastrous brawl. Danger sharpens a brave man's wits, but love makes him fey. To succor Iris was now his sole concern. He swung a couple of the excited sailors out of his way and managed to stem the torrent of Coke's futile curses.

"Give in to them!" he cried eagerly. "Tell them they are going ashore in the creek. That will stop the racket. If they listen to me, I can still find a means of escape."

"Avast yelpin', you swabs!" bellowed Coke. "D'ye want to let every bally sojer on the island know where you are? We're makin' for the creek. Will that please you? Now, Mr. Norrie, let her rip!"

The head of the launch swung toward the protecting shadows. The men knew the bearings of Cotton-Tree Bay, so the angry voices yielded to selfish thought. If it was to be sauve qui peut when the vessel grounded, there was ample room for thought, seeing that each man's probable fate would be that of a mad dog.

Hozier seized the precious respite. He spoke loudly enough that all should hear, and he began with a rebuke.

"I am sorry that those of us who are left should have disgraced the fine record set up by the Andromeda's crew since the ship struck," he said. "Your messmates who fell fighting would hardly believe St. Peter himself if he told them that we were on the verge of open mutiny. I am ashamed of you. Let us have no more of that sort of thing. Sink or swim, we must pull together."

There was some discordant muttering, but he gained one outspoken adherent.

"Bully for you!" said the man who had suggested tree-climbing as an expedient.

"Shut up!" was the wrathful answer. "You've made plenty of row already. I only hope you have not attracted attention on the island. You may not have been heard, owing to the disturbance on the other side, but no thanks to any of you for that. Our skipper's first notion was to put to sea. Wasn't it natural? Do you want to be hunted over Fernando Noronha at daybreak? But he would have seen the uselessness of trying to slip the cruiser before the launch had gone a cable's length. Now, here is a scheme that strikes me as workable. At any rate, it offers a forlorn hope. There is a sharp bend in the creek just where the tidal water ends. I fancy the launch will float a little higher up, but we must risk it. We will take her in, unship the mast, tie a few boughs and vines on the funnel, and not twenty search-lights will find us."

A rumble of approving murmurs showed that he had scotched the dragon. It was even ready to become subservient again. He continued rapidly:

"No vessel of deep draught can come close in shore from the east. The cruiser will have the Grand-pere rock abeam within an hour, but, to make sure, two of you will climb the ridge and watch her movements. The rest will load up every available inch of space with wood and water and food. How can we win clear of Fernando Noronha without fuel? It is a hundred to one that the launch would not steam twenty miles on her present coal supply. Such as it is, we must keep it for an emergency, even if we are compelled to tear up the deck and dismantle the cabin."