"What was the poor devil doing here?" he asked. "Why did he bury himself in this rock, with mining utensils and a few rough stores? He could not be a castaway. There is the indication of purpose, of preparation, of method combined with ignorance, for none who knew the ways of Dyaks and Chinese pirates would venture to live here alone, if he could help it, and if he really were alone." The thing was a mystery, would probably remain a mystery for ever.

"Be it steel or be it lead, Anyhow the man is dead."

There was relief in hearing his own voice. He could hum, and think, and act. Arming himself with the axe he attacked the bushes and branches of trees in front of the cave. He cut a fresh approach to the well, and threw the litter over the skeleton. At first he was inclined to bury it where it lay, but he disliked the idea of Iris walking unconsciously over the place. No time could be wasted that day. He would seize an early opportunity to act as grave-digger.

After an absence of little more than an hour he rejoined the girl. She saw him from afar, and wondered whence he obtained the axe he shouldered.

"You are a successful explorer," she cried when he drew near.

"Yes, Miss Deane. I have found water, implements, a shelter, even light."

"What sort of light—spiritual, or material?"

"Oil."

"Oh!"

Iris could not remain serious for many consecutive minutes, but she gathered that he was in no mood for frivolity.

"And the shelter—is it a house?" she continued.

"No, a cave. If you are sufficiently rested you might come and take possession."

Her eyes danced with excitement. He told her what he had seen, with reservations, and she ran on before him to witness these marvels.

"Why did you make a new path to the well?" she inquired after a rapid survey.

"A new path!" The pertinent question staggered him.

"Yes, the people who lived here must have had some sort of free passage."

He lied easily. "I have only cleared away recent growth," he said.

"And why did they dig a cave? It surely would be much more simple to build a house from all these trees."

"There you puzzle me," he said frankly.

They had entered the cavern but a little way and now came out.

"These empty cartridges are funny. They suggest a fort, a battle." Woman-like, her words were carelessly chosen, but they were crammed with inductive force.

Embarked on the toboggan slope of untruth the sailor slid smoothly downwards.

"Events have colored your imagination, Miss Deane. Even in England men often preserve such things for future use. They can be reloaded."

"Yes, I have seen keepers do that. This is different. There is an air of—"

"There is a lot to be done," broke in Jenks emphatically. "We must climb the hill and get back here in time to light another fire before the sun goes down. I want to prop a canvas sheet in front of the cave, and try to devise a lamp."

"Must I sleep inside?" demanded Iris.

"Yes. Where else?"

There was a pause, a mere whiff of awkwardness.

"I will mount guard outside," went on Jenks. He was trying to improve the edge of the axe by grinding it on a soft stone.

The girl went into the cave again. She was inquisitive, uneasy.

"That arrangement—" she began, but ended in a sharp cry of terror. The dispossessed birds had returned during the sailor's absence.

"I will kill them," he shouted in anger.

"Please don't. There has been enough of death in this place already."

The words jarred on his ears. Then he felt that she could only allude to the victims of the wreck.

"I was going to say," she explained, "that we must devise a partition. There is no help for it until you construct a sort of house. Candidly, I do not like this hole in the rock. It is a vault, a tomb."

"You told me that I was in command, yet you dispute my orders." He strove hard to appear brusquely good-humored, indifferent, though for one of his mould he was absurdly irritable. The cause was over-strain, but that explanation escaped him.

"Quite true. But if sleeping in the cold, in dew or rain, is bad for me, it must be equally bad for you. And without you I am helpless, you know."

His arms twitched to give her a reassuring hug. In some respects she was so childlike; her big blue eyes were so ingenuous. He laughed sardonically, and the harsh note clashed with her frank candor. Here, at least, she was utterly deceived. His changeful moods were incomprehensible.

"I will serve you to the best of my ability, Miss Deane," he exclaimed. "We must hope for a speedy rescue, and I am inured to exposure. It is otherwise with you. Are you ready for the climb?"

Mechanically she picked up a stick at her feet. It was the sailor's wand of investigation. He snatched it from her hands and threw it away among the trees.

"That is a dangerous alpenstock," he said. "The wood is unreliable. It might break. I will cut you a better one," and he swung the axe against a tall sapling.

Iris mentally described him as "funny." She followed him in the upward curve of the ascent, for the grade was not difficult and the ground smooth enough, the storms of years having pulverized the rock and driven sand into its clefts. The persistent inroads of the trees had done the rest. Beyond the flight of birds and the scampering of some tiny monkeys overhead, they did not disturb a living creature.

The crest of the hill was tree-covered, and they could see nothing beyond their immediate locality until the sailor found a point higher than the rest, where a rugged collection of hard basalt and the uprooting of some poon trees provided an open space elevated above the ridge.

For a short distance the foothold was precarious. Jenks helped the girl in this part of the climb. His strong, gentle grasp gave her confidence. She was flushed with exertion when they stood together on the summit of this elevated perch. They could look to every point of the compass except a small section on the south-west. Here the trees rose behind them until the brow of the precipice was reached.

The emergence into a sunlit panorama of land and sea, though expected, was profoundly enthralling. They appeared to stand almost exactly in the center of the island, which was crescent-shaped. It was no larger than the sailor had estimated. The new slopes now revealed were covered with verdure down to the very edge of the water, which, for nearly a mile seawards, broke over jagged reefs. The sea looked strangely calm from this height. Irregular blue patches on the horizon to south and east caught the man's first glance. He unslung the binoculars he still carried and focused them eagerly.

"Islands!" he cried, "and big ones, too!"

"How odd!" whispered Iris, more concerned in the scrutiny of her immediate surroundings. Jenks glanced at her sharply. She was not looking at the islands, but at a curious hollow, a quarry-like depression beneath them to the right, distant about three hundred yards and not far removed from the small plateau containing the well, though isolated from it by the south angle of the main cliff.

Here, in a great circle, there was not a vestige of grass, shrub, or tree, nothing save brown rock and sand. At first the sailor deemed it to be the dried-up bed of a small lake. This hypothesis would not serve, else it would be choked with verdure. The pit stared up at them like an ominous eye, though neither paid further attention to it, for the glorious prospect mapped at their feet momentarily swept aside all other considerations.

"What a beautiful place!" murmured Iris. "I wonder what it is called."

"Limbo."

The word came instantly. The sailor's gaze was again fixed on those distant blue outlines. Miss Deane was dissatisfied.

"Nonsense!" she exclaimed. "We are not dead yet. You must find a better name than that."

"Well, suppose we christen it Rainbow Island?"

"Why 'Rainbow'?"

"That is the English meaning of 'Iris,' in Latin, you know."

"So it is. How clever of you to think of it! Tell me, what is the meaning of 'Robert,' in Greek?"

He turned to survey the north-west side of the island. "I do not know," he answered. "It might not be far-fetched to translate it as 'a ship's steward: a menial.'"

Miss Iris had meant her playful retort as a mere light-hearted quibble. It annoyed her, a young person of much consequence, to have her kindly condescension repelled.

"I suppose so," she agreed; "but I have gone through so much in a few hours that I am bewildered, apt to forget these nice distinctions."

Where these two quareling, or flirting? Who can tell?

Jenks was closely examining the reef on which the Sirdar struck. Some square objects were visible near the palm tree. The sun, glinting on the waves, rendered it difficult to discern their significance.

"What do you make of those?" he inquired, handing the glasses, and blandly ignoring Miss Deane's petulance. Her brain was busy with other things while she twisted the binoculars to suit her vision. Rainbow Island—Iris—it was a nice conceit. But "menial" struck a discordant note. This man was no menial in appearance or speech. Why was he so deliberately rude?

"I think they are boxes or packing-cases," she announced.

"Ah, that was my own idea. I must visit that locality."

"How? Will you swim?"

"No," he said, his stern lips relaxing in a smile, "I will not swim; and by the way, Miss Deane, be careful when you are near the water. The lagoon is swarming with sharks at present. I feel tolerably assured that at low tide, when the remnants of the gale have vanished, I will be able to walk there along the reef."

"Sharks!" she cried. "In there! What horrible surprises this speck of land contains! I should not have imagined that sharks and seals could live together."

"You are quite right," he explained, with becoming gravity. "As a rule sharks infest only the leeward side of these islands. Just now they are attracted in shoals by the wreck."

"Oh." Iris shivered slightly.

"We had better go back now. The wind is keen here, Miss Deane."



She knew that he purposely misunderstood her gesture. His attitude conveyed a rebuke. There was no further room for sentiment in their present existence; they had to deal with chill necessities. As for the sailor, he was glad that the chance turn of their conversation enabled him to warn her against the lurking dangers of the lagoon. There was no need to mention the devil-fish now; he must spare her all avoidable thrills.

They gathered the stores from the first al fresco dining-room and reached the cave without incident. Another fire was lighted, and whilst Iris attended to the kitchen the sailor felled several young trees. He wanted poles, and these were the right size and shape. He soon cleared a considerable space. The timber was soft and so small in girth that three cuts with the axe usually sufficed. He dragged from the beach the smallest tarpaulin he could find, and propped it against the rock in such manner that it effectually screened the mouth of the cave, though admitting light and air.

He was so busy that he paid little heed to Iris. But the odor of fried ham was wafted to him. He was lifting a couple of heavy stones to stay the canvas and keep it from flapping in the wind, when the girl called out—

"Wouldn't you like to have a wash before dinner?"

He straightened himself and looked at her. Her face and hands were shining, spotless. The change was so great that his brow wrinkled with perplexity.

"I am a good pupil," she cried. "You see I am already learning to help myself. I made a bucket out of one of the dish-covers by slinging it in two ropes. Another dish-cover, some sand and leaves supplied basin, soap, and towel. I have cleaned the tin cups and the knives, and see, here is my greatest treasure."

She held up a small metal lamp.

"Where in the world did you find that?" he exclaimed.

"Buried in the sand inside the cave."

"Anything else?"

His tone was abrupt She was so disappointed by the seeming want of appreciation of her industry that a gleam of amusement died from her eyes and she shook her head, stooping at once to attend to the toasting of some biscuits.

This time he was genuinely sorry.

"Forgive me, Miss Deane," he said penitently. "My words are dictated by anxiety. I do not wish you to make discoveries on your own account. This is a strange place, you know—an unpleasant one in some respects."

"Surely I can rummage about my own cave?"

"Most certainly. It was careless of me not to have examined its interior more thoroughly."

"Then why do you grumble because I found the lamp?"

"I did not mean any such thing. I am sorry."

"I think you are horrid. If you want to wash you will find the water over there. Don't wait. The ham will be frizzled to a cinder."

Unlucky Jenks! Was ever man fated to incur such unmerited odium? He savagely laved his face and neck. The fresh cool water was delightful at first, but it caused his injured nail to throb dreadfully. When he drew near to the fire he experienced an unaccountable sensation of weakness. Could it be possible that he was going to faint? It was too absurd. He sank to the ground. Trees, rocks, and sand-strewn earth indulged in a mad dance. Iris's voice sounded weak and indistinct. It seemed to travel in waves from a great distance. He tried to brush away from his brain these dim fancies, but his iron will for once failed, and he pitched headlong downwards into darkness.

When he recovered the girl's left arm was round his neck. For one blissful instant he nestled there contentedly. He looked into her eyes and saw that she was crying. A gust of anger rose within him that he should be the cause of those tears.

"Damn!" he said, and tried to rise.

"Oh! are you better?" Her lips quivered pitifully.

"Yes. What happened? Did I faint?"

"Drink this."

She held a cup to his mouth and he obediently strove to swallow the contents. It was champagne. After the first spasm of terror, and when the application of water to his face failed to restore consciousness, Iris had knocked the head off the bottle of champagne.

He quickly revived. Nature had only given him a warning that he was overdrawing his resources. He was deeply humiliated. He did not conceive the truth, that only a strong man could do all that he had done and live. For thirty-six hours he had not slept. During part of the time he fought with wilder beasts than they knew at Ephesus. The long exposure to the sun, the mental strain of his foreboding that the charming girl whose life depended upon him might be exposed to even worse dangers than any yet encountered, the physical labor he had undergone, the irksome restraint he strove to place upon his conduct and utterances—all these things culminated in utter relaxation when the water touched his heated skin.

But he was really very much annoyed. A powerful man always is annoyed when forced to yield. The revelation of a limit to human endurance infuriates him. A woman invariably thinks that the man should be scolded, by way of tonic.

"How could you frighten me so?" demanded Iris, hysterically. "You must have felt that you were working too hard. You made me rest. Why didn't you rest yourself?"

He looked at her wistfully. This collapse must not happen again, for her sake. These two said more with eyes than lips. She withdrew her arm; her face and neck crimsoned.

"There," she said with compelled cheerfulness. "You are all right now. Finish the wine."

He emptied the tin. It gave him new life. "I always thought," he answered gravely, "that champagne was worth its weight in gold under certain conditions. These are the conditions."

Iris reflected, with elastic rebound from despair to relief, that men in the lower ranks of life do not usually form theories on the expensive virtues of the wine of France. But her mind was suddenly occupied by a fresh disaster.

"Good gracious!" she cried. "The ham is ruined."

It was burnt black. She prepared a fresh supply. When it was ready, Jenks was himself again. They ate in silence, and shared the remains of the bottle. The man idly wondered what was the plat du jour at the Savoy that evening. He remembered that the last time he was there he had called for Jambon de York aux epinards and half a pint of Heidseck.

"Coelum non animum mutant, qui trans mare currant," he thought. By a queer trick of memory he could recall the very page in Horace where this philosophical line occurs. It was in the eleventh epistle of the first book. A smile illumined his tired face.

Iris was watchful. She had never in her life cooked even a potato or boiled an egg. The ham was her first attempt.

"My cooking amuses you?" she demanded suspiciously.

"It gratifies every sense," he murmured. "There is but one thing needful to complete my happiness."

"And that is?"

"Permission to smoke."

"Smoke what?"

He produced a steel box, tightly closed, and a pipe, "I will answer you in Byron's words," he said—

"'Sublime tobacco! which from east to west Cheers the tar's labour or the Turkman's rest.'"

"Your pockets are absolute shops," said the girl, delighted that his temper had improved. "What other stores do you carry about with you?"

He lit his pipe and solemnly gave an inventory of his worldly goods. Beyond the items she had previously seen he could only enumerate a silver dollar, a very soiled and crumpled handkerchief, and a bit of tin. A box of Norwegian matches he threw away as useless, but Iris recovered them.

"You never know what purpose they may serve," she said. In after days a weird significance was attached to this simple phrase.

"Why do you carry about a bit of tin?" she went on.

How the atmosphere of deception clung to him! Here was a man compelled to lie outrageously who, in happier years, had prided himself on scrupulous accuracy even in small things.

"Plague upon it!" he silently protested. "Subterfuge and deceit are as much at home in this deserted island as in Mayfair."

"I found it here, Miss Deane," he answered.

Luckily she interpreted "here" as applying to the cave.

"Let me see it. May I?"

He handed it to her. She could make nothing of it, so together they puzzled over it. The sailor rubbed it with a mixture of kerosene and sand. Then figures and letters and a sort of diagram were revealed. At last they became decipherable. By exercising patient ingenuity some one had indented the metal with a sharp punch until the marks assumed this aspect (see cut, following page).

Iris was quick-witted. "It is a plan of the island," she cried.

"Also the latitude and the longitude."

"What does 'J.S.' mean?"

"Probably the initials of a man's name; let us say John Smith, for instance."

"And the figures on the island, with the 'X' and the dot?"

"I cannot tell you at present," he said. "I take it that the line across the island signifies this gap or canyon, and the small intersecting line the cave. But 32 divided by 1, and an 'X' surmounted by a dot are cabalistic. They would cause even Sherlock Holmes to smoke at least two pipes. I have barely started one."



She ran to fetch a glowing stick to enable him to relight his pipe.

"Why do you give me such nasty little digs?" she asked. "You need not have stopped smoking just because I stood close to you."

"Really, Miss Deane—"

"There, don't protest. I like the smell of that tobacco. I thought sailors invariably smoked rank, black stuff which they call thick twist."

"I am a beginner, as a sailor. After a few more years before the mast I may hope to reach perfection."

Their eyes exchanged a quaintly pleasant challenge. Thus the man—"She is determined to learn something of my past, but she will not succeed."

And the woman—"The wretch! He is close as an oyster. But I will make him open his mouth, see if I don't."

She reverted to the piece of tin. "It looks quite mysterious, like the things you read of in stories of pirates and buried treasure."

"Yes," he admitted. "It is unquestionably a plan, a guidance, given to a person not previously acquainted with the island but cognizant of some fact connected with it. Unfortunately none of the buccaneers I can bring to mind frequented these seas. The poor beggar who left it here must have had some other motive than searching for a cache."

"Did he dig the cave and the well, I wonder?"

"Probably the former, but not the well. No man could do it unaided."

"Why do you assume he was alone?"

He strolled towards the fire to kick a stray log. "It is only idle speculation at the best, Miss Deane," he replied. "Would you like to help me to drag some timber up from the beach? If we get a few big planks we can build a fire that will last for hours. We want some extra clothes, too, and it will soon be dark."

The request for co-operation gratified her. She complied eagerly, and without much exertion they hauled a respectable load of firewood to their new camping-ground. They also brought a number of coats to serve as coverings. Then Jenks tackled the lamp. Between the rust and the soreness of his index finger it was a most difficult operation to open it.

Before the sun went down he succeeded, and made a wick by unraveling a few strands of wool from his jersey. When night fell, with the suddenness of the tropics, Iris was able to illuminate her small domain.

They were both utterly tired and ready to drop with fatigue. The girl said "Good night," but instantly reappeared from behind the tarpaulin.

"Am I to keep the lamp alight?" she inquired.

"Please yourself, Miss Deane. Better not, perhaps. It will only burn four or five hours, any way."

Soon the light vanished, and he lay down, his pipe between his teeth, close to the cave's entrance. Weary though he was, he could not sleep forthwith. His mind was occupied with the signs on the canister head.

"32 divided by 1; an 'X' and a dot," he repeated several times. "What do they signify?"

Suddenly he sat up, with every sense alert, and grabbed his revolver. Something impelled him to look towards the spot, a few feet away, where the skeleton was hidden. It was the rustling of a bird among the trees that had caught his ear.

He thought of the white framework of a once powerful man, lying there among the bushes, abandoned, forgotten, horrific. Then he smothered a cry of surprise.

"By Jove!" he muttered. "There is no 'X' and dot. That sign is meant for a skull and cross-bones. It lies exactly on the part of the island where we saw that queer-looking bald patch today. First thing tomorrow, before the girl awakes, I must examine that place."

He resolutely stretched himself on his share of the spread-out coats, now thoroughly dried by sun and fire. In a minute he was sound asleep.



CHAPTER V

IRIS TO THE RESCUE

"Before mine eyes in opposition sits Grim death." —Milton.

He awoke to find the sun high in the heavens. Iris was preparing breakfast; a fine fire was crackling cheerfully, and the presiding goddess had so altered her appearance that the sailor surveyed her with astonishment.

He noiselessly assumed a sitting posture, tucked his feet beneath him, and blinked. The girl's face was not visible from where he sat, and for a few seconds he thought he must surely be dreaming. She was attired in a neat navy-blue dress and smart blouse. Her white canvas shoes were replaced by strong leather boots. She was quite spick and span, this island Hebe.

So soundly had he slept that his senses returned but slowly. At last he guessed what had happened. She had risen with the dawn, and, conquering her natural feeling of repulsion, selected from the store he accumulated yesterday some more suitable garments than those in which she escaped from the wreck.

He quietly took stock of his own tattered condition, and passed a reflective hand over the stubble on his chin. In a few days his face would resemble a scrubbing-brush. In that mournful moment he would have exchanged even his pipe and tobacco-box—worth untold gold—for shaving tackle. Who can say why his thoughts took such trend? Twenty-four hours can effect great changes in the human mind if controlling influences are active.

Then came a sharp revulsion of feeling. His name was Robert—a menial. He reached for his boots, and Iris heard him.

"Good morning," she cried, smiling sweetly. "I thought you would never awake. I suppose you were very, very tired. You were lying so still that I ventured to peep at you a long time ago."

"Thus might Titania peep at an ogre," he said.

"You didn't look a bit like an ogre. You never do. You only try to talk like one—sometimes."

"I claim a truce until after breakfast. If my rough compliment offends you, let me depend upon a more gentle tongue than my own—

"'Her Angel's face As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright, And made a sunshine in the shady place.'

"Those lines are surely appropriate. They come from the Faerie Queene."

"They are very nice, but please wash quickly. The eggs will be hard."

"Eggs!"

"Yes; I made a collection among the trees. I tasted one of a lot that looked good. It was first-rate."

He had not the moral courage to begin the day with a rebuke. She was irrepressible, but she really must not do these things. He smothered a sigh in the improvised basin which was placed ready for him.

Miss Deane had prepared a capital meal. Of course the ham and biscuits still bulked large in the bill of fare, but there were boiled eggs, fried bananas and an elderly cocoanut. These things, supplemented by clear cold water, were not so bad for a couple of castaways, hundreds of miles from everywhere.

For the life of him the man could not refrain from displaying the conversational art in which he excelled. Their talk dealt with Italy, Egypt, India. He spoke with the ease of culture and enthusiasm. Once he slipped into anecdote a propos of the helplessness of British soldiers in any matter outside the scope of the King's Regulations.

"I remember," he said, "seeing a cavalry subaltern and the members of an escort sitting, half starved, on a number of bags piled up in the Suakin desert. And what do you think were in the bags?"

"I don't know," said Iris, keenly alert for deductions.

"Biscuits! They thought the bags contained patent fodder until I enlightened them."

It was on the tip of her tongue to pounce on him with the comment: "Then you have been an officer in the army." But she forbore. She had guessed this earlier. Yet the mischievous light in her eyes defied control. He was warned in time and pulled himself up short.

"You read my face like a book," she cried, with a delightful little moue.

"No printed page was ever so—legible."

He was going to say "fascinating," but checked the impulse. He went on with brisk affectation—

"Now, Miss Deane, we have gossiped too long. I am a laggard this morning; but before starting work, I have a few serious remarks to make."

"More digs?" she inquired saucily.

"I repudiate 'digs.' In the first place, you must not make any more experiments in the matter of food. The eggs were a wonderful effort, but, flattered by success, you may poison yourself."

"Secondly?"

"You must never pass out of my sight without carrying a revolver, not so much for defence, but as a signal. Did you take one when you went bird's-nesting?"

"No. Why?"

There was a troubled look in his eyes when he answered—

"It is best to tell you at once that before help reaches us we may be visited by cruel and blood-thirsty savages. I would not even mention this if it were a remote contingency. As matters stand, you ought to know that such a thing may happen. Let us trust in God's goodness that assistance may come soon. The island has seemingly been deserted for many months, and therein lies our best chance of escape. But I am obliged to warn you lest you should be taken unawares."

Iris was serious enough now.

"How do you know that such danger threatens us?" she demanded.

He countered readily. "Because I happen to have read a good deal about the China Sea and its frequenters," he said. "I am the last man in the world to alarm you needlessly. All I mean to convey is that certain precautions should be taken against a risk that is possible, not probable. No more."

She could not repress a shudder. The aspect of nature was so beneficent that evil deeds seemed to be out of place in that fair isle. Birds were singing around them. The sun was mounting into a cloudless sky. The gale had passed away into a pleasant breeze, and the sea was now rippling against the distant reef with peaceful melody.

The sailor wanted to tell her that he would defend her against a host of savages if he were endowed with many lives, but he was perforce tongue-tied. He even reviled himself for having spoken, but she saw the anguish in his face, and her woman's heart acknowledged him as her protector, her shield.

"Mr. Jenks," she said simply, "we are in God's hands. I put my trust in Him, and in you. I am hopeful, nay more, confident. I thank you for what you have done, for all that you will do. If you cannot preserve me from threatening perils no man could, for you are as brave and gallant a gentleman as lives on the earth today."

Now, the strange feature of this extraordinary and unexpected outburst of pent-up emotion was that the girl pronounced his name with the slightly emphasized accentuation of one who knew it to be a mere disguise. The man was so taken aback by her declaration of faith that the minor incident, though it did not escape him, was smothered in a tumult of feeling.

He could not trust himself to speak. He rose hastily and seized the axe to deliver a murderous assault upon a sago palm that stood close at hand.

Iris was the first to recover a degree of self-possession. For a moment she had bared her soul. With reaction came a sensitive shrinking. Her British temperament, no less than her delicate nature, disapproved these sentimental displays. She wanted to box her own ears.

With innate tact she took a keen interest in the felling of the tree.

"What do you want it for?" she inquired, when the sturdy trunk creaked and fell.

Jenks felt better now.

"This is a change of diet," he explained. "No; we don't boil the leaves or nibble the bark. When I split this palm open you will find that the interior is full of pith. I will cut it out for you, and then it will be your task to knead it with water after well washing it, pick out all the fiber, and finally permit the water to evaporate. In a couple of days the residuum will become a white powder, which, when boiled, is sago."

"Good gracious!" said Iris.

"The story sounds unconvincing, but I believe I am correct. It is worth a trial."

"I should have imagined that sago grew on a stalk like rice or wheat."

"Or Topsy!"

She laughed. A difficult situation had passed without undue effort. Unhappily the man reopened it. Whilst using a crowbar as a wedge he endeavored to put matters on a straightforward footing.

"A little while ago," he said, "you seemed to imply that I had assumed the name of Jenks."

But Miss Deane's confidential mood had gone. "Nothing of the kind," she said, coldly. "I think Jenks is an excellent name."

She regretted the words even as they fell from her lips. The sailor gave a mighty wrench with the bar, splitting the log to its clustering leaves.

"You are right," he said. "It is distinctive, brief, dogmatic. I cling to it passionately."

Soon afterwards, leaving Iris to the manufacture of sago, he went to the leeward side of the island, a search for turtles being his ostensible object. When the trees hid him he quickened his pace and turned to the left, in order to explore the cavity marked on the tin with a skull and cross-bones. To his surprise he hit upon the remnants of a roadway—that is, a line through the wood where there were no well-grown trees, where the ground bore traces of humanity in the shape of a wrinkled and mildewed pair of Chinese boots, a wooden sandal, even the decayed remains of a palki, or litter.

At last he reached the edge of the pit, and the sight that met his eyes held him spellbound.

The labor of many hands had torn a chasm, a quarry, out of the side of the hill. Roughly circular in shape, it had a diameter of perhaps a hundred feet, and at its deepest part, towards the cliff, it ran to a depth of forty feet. On the lower side, where the sailor stood, it descended rapidly for some fifteen feet.

Grasses, shrubs, plants of every variety, grew in profusion down the steep slopes, wherever seeds could find precarious nurture, until a point was reached about ten or eleven feet from the bottom. There all vegetation ceased as if forbidden to cross a magic circle.

Below this belt the place was a charnel-house. The bones of men and animals mingled in weird confusion. Most were mere skeletons. A few bodies—nine the sailor counted—yet preserved some resemblance of humanity. These latter were scattered among the older relics. They wore the clothes of Dyaks. Characteristic hats and weapons denoted their nationality. The others, the first harvest of this modern Golgotha, might have been Chinese coolies. When the sailor's fascinated vision could register details he distinguished yokes, baskets, odd-looking spades and picks strewed amidst the bones. The animals were all of one type, small, lanky, with long pointed skulls. At last he spied a withered hoof. They were pigs.

Over all lay a thick coating of fine sand, deposited from the eddying winds that could never reach the silent depths. The place was gruesome, horribly depressing. Jenks broke out into a clammy perspiration. He seemed to be looking at the secrets of the grave.

At last his superior intelligence asserted itself. His brain became clearer, recovered its power of analysis. He began to criticize, reflect, and this is the theory he evolved—

Some one, long ago, had discovered valuable minerals in the volcanic rock. Mining operations were in full blast when the extinct volcano took its revenge upon the human ants gnawing at its vitals and smothered them by a deadly outpouring of carbonic acid gas, the bottled-up poison of the ages. A horde of pigs, running wild over the island—placed there, no doubt, by Chinese fishers—had met the same fate whilst intent on dreadful orgy.

Then there came a European, who knew how the anhydrate gas, being heavier than the surrounding air, settled like water in that terrible hollow. He, too, had striven to wrest the treasure from the stone by driving a tunnel into the cliff. He had partly succeeded and had gone away, perhaps to obtain help, after crudely registering his knowledge on the lid of a tin canister. This, again, probably fell into the hands of another man, who, curious but unconvinced, caused himself to be set ashore on this desolate spot, with a few inadequate stores. Possibly he had arranged to be taken off within a fixed time.

But a sampan, laden with Dyak pirates, came first, and the intrepid explorer's bones rested near the well, whilst his head had gone to decorate the hut of some fierce village chief. The murderers, after burying their own dead—for the white man fought hard, witness the empty cartridges—searched the island. Some of them, ignorantly inquisitive, descended into the hollow. They remained there. The others, superstitious barbarians, fled for their lives, embarking so hastily that they took from the cave neither tools nor oil, though they would greatly prize these articles.

Such was the tragic web he spun, a compound of fact and fancy. It explained all perplexities save one. What did "32 divided by 1" mean? Was there yet another fearsome riddle awaiting solution?

And then his thoughts flew to Iris. Happen what might, her bright picture was seldom absent from his brain. Suppose, egg-hunting, she had stumbled across this Valley of Death! How could he hope to keep it hidden from her? Was not the ghastly knowledge better than the horror of a chance ramble through the wood and the shock of discovery, nay, indeed, the risk of a catastrophe?

He was a man who relieved his surcharged feelings with strong language—a habit of recent acquisition. He indulged in it now and felt better. He rushed back through the trees until he caught sight of Iris industriously kneading the sago pith in one of those most useful dish-covers.

He called to her, led her wondering to the track, and pointed out the fatal quarry, but in such wise that she could not look inside it.

"You remember that round hole we saw from the summit rock?" he said. "Well, it is full of carbonic acid gas, to breathe which means unconsciousness and death. It gives no warning to the inexperienced. It is rather pleasant than otherwise. Promise me you will never come near this place again."

Now, Iris, too, had been thinking deeply. Robert Jenks bulked large in her day-dreams. Her nerves were not yet quite normal. There was a catch in her throat as she answered—

"I don't want to die. Of course I will keep away. What a horrid island this is! Yet it might be a paradise."

She bit her lip to suppress her tears, but, being the Eve in this garden, she continued—

"How did you find out? Is there anything—nasty—in there?"

"Yes, the remains of animals, and other things. I would not have told you were it not imperative."

"Are you keeping other secrets from me?"

"Oh, quite a number."

He managed to conjure up a smile, and the ruse was effective. She applied the words to his past history.

"I hope they will not be revealed so dramatically," she said.

"You never can tell," he answered. They were in prophetic vein that morning. They returned in silence to the cave.

"I wish to go inside, with a lamp. May I?" he asked.

"Certainly. Why not?"

He had an odd trick of blushing, this bronzed man with a gnarled soul. He could not frame a satisfactory reply, but busied himself in refilling the lamp.

"May I come too?" she demanded.

He flung aside the temptation to answer her in kind, merely assenting, with an explanation of his design. When the lamp was in order he held it close to the wall and conducted a systematic survey. The geological fault which favored the construction of the tunnel seemed to diverge to the left at the further end. The "face" of the rock exhibited the marks of persistent labor. The stone had been hewn away by main force when the dislocation of strata ceased to be helpful.

His knowledge was limited on the subject, yet Jenks believed that the material here was a hard limestone rather than the external basalt. Searching each inch with the feeble light, he paused once, with an exclamation.

"What is it?" cried Iris.

"I cannot be certain," he said, doubtfully. "Would you mind holding the lamp whilst I use a crowbar?"

In the stone was visible a thin vein, bluish white in color. He managed to break off a fair-sized lump containing a well-defined specimen of the foreign metal.

They hurried into the open air and examined the fragment with curious eyes. The sailor picked it with his knife, and the substance in the vein came off in laminated layers, small, brittle scales.

"Is it silver?" Iris was almost excited.

"I do not think so. I am no expert, but I have a vague idea—I have seen——"

He wrinkled his brows and pressed away the furrows with his hand, that physical habit of his when perplexed.

"I have it," he cried. "It is antimony."

Miss Deane pursed her lips in disdain. Antimony! What was antimony?

"So much fuss for nothing," she said.

"It is used in alloys and medicines," he explained. "To us it is useless."

He threw the piece of rock contemptuously among the bushes. But, being thorough in all that he undertook, he returned to the cave and again conducted an inquisition. The silver-hued vein became more strongly marked at the point where it disappeared downwards into a collection of rubble and sand. That was all. Did men give their toil, their lives, for this? So it would appear. Be that as it might, he had a more pressing work. If the cave still held a secret it must remain there.

Iris had gone back to her sago-kneading. Necessity had made the lady a bread-maid.

"Fifteen hundred years of philology bridged by circumstance," mused Jenks. "How Max Mueller would have reveled in the incident!"

Shouldering the axe he walked to the beach. The tide was low and the circular sweep of the reef showed up irregularly, its black outlines sticking out of the vividly green water like jagged teeth.

Much debris from the steamer was lying high and dry. It was an easy task for an athletic man to reach the palm tree, yet the sailor hesitated, with almost imperceptible qualms.

"A baited rat-trap," he muttered. Then he quickened his pace. With the first active spring from rock to rock his unacknowledged doubts vanished. He might find stores of priceless utility. The reflection inspired him. Jumping and climbing like a cat, in two minutes he was near the tree.

He could now see the true explanation of its growth in a seemingly impossible place. Here the bed of the sea bulged upwards in a small sand cay, which silted round the base of a limestone rock, so different in color and formation from the coral reef. Nature, whose engineering contrivances can force springs to mountain tops, managed to deliver to this isolated refuge a sufficient supply of water to nourish the palm, and the roots, firmly lodged in deep crevices, were well protected from the waves.

Between the sailor and the tree intervened a small stretch of shallow water. Landward this submerged saddle shelved steeply into the lagoon. Although the water in the cove was twenty fathoms in depth, its crystal clearness was remarkable. The bottom, composed of marvelously white sand and broken coral, rendered other objects conspicuous. He could see plenty of fish, but not a single shark, whilst on the inner slope of the reef was plainly visible the destroyed fore part of the Sirdar, which had struck beyond the tree, relatively to his present standpoint. He had wondered why no boats were cast ashore. Now he saw the reason. Three of them were still fastened to the davits and carried down with the hull.

Seaward the water was not so clear. The waves created patches of foam, and long submarine plants swayed gently in the undercurrent.

To reach Palm-tree Rock—anticipating its subsequent name—he must cross a space of some thirty feet and wade up to his waist.

He made the passage with ease.

Pitched against the hole of the tree was a long narrow case, very heavy, iron-clamped; and marked with letters in black triangles and the broad arrow of the British Government.

"Rifles, by all the gods!" shouted the sailor. They were really by the Enfield Small Arms Manufactory, but his glee at this stroke of luck might be held to excuse a verbal inaccuracy.

The Sirdar carried a consignment of arms and ammunition from Hong Kong to Singapore. Providence had decreed that a practically inexhaustible store of cartridges should be hurled across the lagoon to the island. And here were Lee-Metfords enough to equip half a company. He would not risk the precious axe in an attempt to open the case. He must go back for a crowbar.

What else was there in this storehouse, thrust by Neptune from the ocean bed? A chest of tea, seemingly undamaged. Three barrels of flour, utterly ruined. A saloon chair, smashed from its pivot. A battered chronometer. For the rest, fragments of timber intermingled with pulverized coral and broken crockery.

A little further on, the deep-water entrance to the lagoon curved between sunken rocks. On one of them rested the Sirdar's huge funnel. The north-west section of the reef was bare. Among the wreckage he found a coil of stout rope and a pulley. He instantly conceived the idea of constructing an aerial line to ferry the chest of tea across the channel he had forded.

He threaded the pulley with the rope and climbed the tree, adding a touch of artistic completeness to the ruin of his trousers by the operation. He had fastened the pulley high up the trunk before he realized how much more simple it would be to break open the chest where it lay and transport its contents in small parcels.

He laughed lightly. "I am becoming addleheaded," he said to himself. "Anyhow, now the job is done I may as well make use of it."

Recoiling the rope-ends, he cast them across to the reef. In such small ways do men throw invisible dice with death. With those two lines he would, within a few fleeting seconds, drag himself back from eternity.

Picking up the axe, he carelessly stepped into the water, not knowing that Iris, having welded the incipient sago into a flat pancake, had strolled to the beach and was watching him.

The water was hardly above his knees when there came a swirling rush from the seaweed. A long tentacle shot out like a lasso and gripped his right leg. Another coiled round his waist.

"My God!" he gurgled, as a horrid sucker closed over his mouth and nose. He was in the grip of a devil-fish.

A deadly sensation of nausea almost overpowered him, but the love of life came to his aid, and he tore the suffocating feeler from his face. Then the axe whirled, and one of the eight arms of the octopus lost some of its length. Yet a fourth flung itself around his left ankle. A few feet away, out of range of the axe, and lifting itself bodily out of the water, was the dread form of the cuttle, apparently all head, with distended gills and monstrous eyes.

The sailor's feet were planted wide apart. With frenzied effort he hacked at the murderous tentacles, but the water hindered him, and he was forced to lean back, in superhuman strain, to avoid losing his balance. If once this terrible assailant got him down he knew he was lost. The very need to keep his feet prevented him from attempting to deal a mortal blow.

The cuttle was anchored by three of its tentacles. Its remaining arm darted with sinuous activity to again clutch the man's face or neck. With the axe he smote madly at the curling feeler, diverting its aim time and again, but failing to deliver an effective stroke.

With agonized prescience the sailor knew that he was yielding. Were the devil-fish a giant of its tribe he could not have held out so long. As it was, the creature could afford to wait, strengthening its grasp, tightening its coils, pulling and pumping at its prey with remorseless certainty.

He was nearly spent. In a paroxysm of despair he resolved to give way, and with one mad effort seek to bury the axe in the monster's brain. But ere he could execute this fatal project—for the cuttle would have instantly swept him into the trailing weeds—five revolver shots rang out in quick succession. Iris had reached the nearest rock.

The third bullet gave the octopus cause to reflect. It squirted forth a torrent of dark-colored fluid. Instantly the water became black, opaque. The tentacle flourishing in air thrashed the surface with impotent fury; that around Jenks's waist grew taut and rigid. The axe flashed with the inspiration of hope. Another arm was severed; the huge dismembered coil slackened and fell away.

Yet was he anchored immovably. He turned to look at Iris. She never forgot the fleeting expression of his face. So might Lazarus have looked from the tomb.

"The rope!" she screamed, dropping the revolver and seizing the loose ends lying at her feet.

She drew them tight and leaned back, pulling with all her strength. The sailor flung the axe to the rocks and grasped the two ropes. He raised himself and plunged wildly. He was free. With two convulsive strides he was at the girl's side.

He stumbled to a boulder and dropped in complete collapse. After a time he felt Iris's hand placed timidly on his shoulder. He raised his head and saw her eyes shining.

"Thank you," he said. "We are quits now."



CHAPTER VI

SOME EXPLANATIONS

Fierce emotions are necessarily transient, but for the hour they exhaust the psychic capacity. The sailor had gone through such mental stress before it was yet noon that he was benumbed, wholly incapable of further sensation. Seneca tells how the island of Theresaea arose in a moment from the sea, thereby astounding ancient mariners, as well it might. Had this manifestation been repeated within a cable's length from the reef, Jenks was in mood to accept it as befitting the new order of things.

Being in good condition, he soon recovered his physical powers. He was outwardly little the worse for the encounter with the devil-fish. The skin around his mouth was sore. His waist and legs were bruised. One sweep of the axe had cut clean through the bulging leather of his left boot without touching the flesh. In a word, he was practically uninjured.

He had the doglike habit of shaking himself at the close of a fray. He did so now when he stood up. Iris showed clearer signs of the ordeal. Her face was drawn and haggard, the pupils of her eyes dilated. She was gazing into depths, illimitable, unexplored. Compassion awoke at sight of her.

"Come," said Jenks, gently. "Let us get back to the island."

He quietly resumed predominance, helping her over the rough pathway of the reef, almost lifting her when the difficulties were great.

He did not ask her how it happened that she came so speedily to his assistance. Enough that she had done it, daring all for his sake. She was weak and trembling. With the acute vision of the soul she saw again, and yet again, the deadly malice of the octopus, the divine despair of the man.

Reaching the firm sand, she could walk alone. She limped. Instantly her companion's blunted emotions quickened into life. He caught her arm and said hoarsely—

"Are you hurt in any way?"

The question brought her back from dreamland. A waking nightmare was happily shattered into dim fragments. She even strove to smile unconcernedly.

"It is nothing," she murmured. "I stumbled on the rocks. There is no sprain. Merely a blow, a bit of skin rubbed off, above my ankle."

"Let me carry you."

"The idea! Carry me! I will race you to the cave."

It was no idle jest. She wanted to run—to get away from that inky blotch in the green water.

"You are sure it is a trifle?"

"Quite sure. My stocking chafes a little; that is all. See, I will show you."

She stooped, and with the quick skill of woman, rolled down the stocking on her right leg. Modestly daring, she stretched out her foot and slightly lifted her dress. On the outer side of the tapering limb was an ugly bruise, scratched deeply by the coral.

He exhibited due surgical interest. His manner, his words, became professional.

"We will soon put that right," he said. "A strip off your muslin dress, soaked in brandy, will——"

"Brandy!" she exclaimed.

"Yes; we have some, you know. Brandy is a great tip for bruised wounds. It can be applied both ways, inside and out."

This was better. They were steadily drifting back to the commonplace. Whilst she stitched together some muslin strips he knocked the head off a bottle of brandy. They each drank a small quantity, and the generous spirit brought color to their wan cheeks. The sailor showed Iris how to fasten a bandage by twisting the muslin round the upper part of his boot. For the first time she saw the cut made by the axe.

"Did—the thing—grip you there?" she nervously inquired.

"There, and elsewhere. All over at once, it felt like. The beast attacked me with five arms."

She shuddered. "I don't know how you could fight it," she said. "How strong, how brave you must be."

This amused him. "The veriest coward will try to save his own life," he answered. "If you use such adjectives to me, what words can I find to do justice to you, who dared to come close to such a vile-looking creature and kill it. I must thank my stars that you carried the revolver."

"Ah!" she said, "that reminds me. You do not practice what you preach. I found your pistol lying on the stone in the cave. That is one reason why I followed you."

It was quite true. He laid the weapon aside when delving at the rock, and forgot to replace it in his belt.

"It was stupid of me," he admitted; "but I am not sorry."

"Why?"

"Because, as it is, I owe you my life."

"You owe me nothing," she snapped. "It is very thoughtless of you to run such risks. What will become of me if anything happens to you? My point of view is purely selfish, you see."

"Quite so. Purely selfish." He smiled sadly. "Selfish people of your type are somewhat rare, Miss Deane."

Not a conversation worth noting, perhaps, save in so far as it is typical of the trite utterances of people striving to recover from some tremendous ordeal. Epigrams delivered at the foot of the scaffold have always been carefully prepared beforehand.

The bandage was ready; one end was well soaked in brandy. She moved towards the cave, but he cried—

"Wait one minute. I want to get a couple of crowbars."

"What for?"

"I must go back there." He jerked his head in the direction of the reef. She uttered a little sob of dismay.

"I will incur no danger this time," he explained. "I found rifles there. We must have them; they may mean salvation."

When Iris was determined about anything, her chin dimpled. It puckered delightfully now.

"I will come with you," she announced.

"Very well. I will wait for you. The tide will serve for another hour."

He knew he had decided rightly. She could not bear to be alone—yet. Soon the bandage was adjusted and they returned to the reef. Scrambling now with difficulty over the rough and dangerous track, Iris was secretly amazed by the remembrance of the daring activity she displayed during her earlier passage along the same precarious roadway.

Then she darted from rock to rock with the fearless certainty of a chamois. Her only stumble was caused, she recollected, by an absurd effort to avoid wetting her dress. She laughed nervously when they reached the place. This time Jenks lifted her across the intervening channel.

"Is this the spot where you fell?" he asked, tenderly.

"Yes; how did you guess it?"

"I read it in your eyes."

"Then please do not read my eyes, but look where you are going."

"Perhaps I was doing that too," he said.

They were standing on the landward side of the shallow water in which he fought the octopus.

Already the dark fluid emitted by his assailant in its final discomfiture was passing away, owing to the slight movement of the tide.

Iris was vaguely conscious of a double meaning in his words. She did not trouble to analyze them. All she knew was that the man's voice conveyed a subtle acknowledgment of her feminine divinity. The resultant thrill of happiness startled, even dismayed her. This incipient flirtation must be put a stop to instantly.

"Now that you have brought me here with so much difficulty, what are you going to do?" she said. "It will be madness for you to attempt to ford that passage again. Where there is one of those horrible things there are others, I suppose."

Jenks smiled. Somehow he knew that this strict adherence to business was a cloak for her real thoughts. Already these two were able to dispense with spoken word.

But he sedulously adopted her pretext.

"That is one reason why I brought the crowbars," he explained. "If you will sit down for a little while I will have everything properly fixed."

He delved with one of the bars until it lodged in a crevice of the coral. Then a few powerful blows with the back of the axe wedged it firmly enough to bear any ordinary strain. The rope-ends reeved through the pulley on the tree were lying where they fell from the girl's hand at the close of the struggle. He deftly knotted them to the rigid bar, and a few rapid turns of a piece of wreckage passed between the two lines strung them into a tautness that could not be attained by any amount of pulling.

Iris watched the operation in silence. The sailor always looked at his best when hard at work. The half-sullen, wholly self-contained expression left his face, which lit up with enthusiasm and concentrated intelligence. That which he essayed he did with all his might. Will power and physical force worked harmoniously. She had never before seen such a man. At such moments her admiration of him was unbounded.

He, toiling with steady persistence, felt not the inward spur which sought relief in speech, but Iris was compelled to say something.

"I suppose," she commented with an air of much wisdom, "you are contriving an overhead railway for the safe transit of yourself and the goods?"

"Y—yes."

"Why are you so doubtful about it?"

"Because I personally intended to walk across. The ropes will serve to convey the packages."

She rose imperiously. "I absolutely forbid you to enter the water again. Such a suggestion on your part is quite shameful. You are taking a grave risk for no very great gain that I can see, and if anything happens to you I shall be left all alone in this awful place."

She could think of no better argument. Her only resource was a woman's expedient—a plea for protection against threatening ills.

The sailor seemed to be puzzled how best to act.

"Miss Deane," he said, "there is no such serious danger as you imagine. Last time the cuttle caught me napping. He will not do so again. Those rifles I must have. If it will serve to reassure you, I will go along the line myself."

He made this concession grudgingly. In very truth, if danger still lurked in the neighboring sea, he would be far less able to avoid it whilst clinging to a rope that sagged with his weight, and thus working a slow progress across the channel, than if he were on his feet and prepared to make a rush backwards or forwards.

Not until Iris watched him swinging along with vigorous overhead clutches did this phase of the undertaking occur to her.

"Stop!" she screamed.

He let go and dropped into the water, turning towards her.

"What is the matter now?" he said.

"Go on; do!"

He stood meekly on the further side to listen to her rating.

"You knew all the time that it would be better to walk, yet to please me you adopted an absurdly difficult method. Why did you do it?"

"You have answered your own question."

"Well, I am very, very angry with you."

"I'll tell you what," he said, "if you will forgive me I will try and jump back. I once did nineteen feet three inches in—er—in a meadow, but it makes such a difference when you look at a stretch of water the same width."

"I wish you would not stand there talking nonsense. The tide will be over the reef in half an hour," she cried.

Without another word he commenced operations. There was plenty of rope, and the plan he adopted was simplicity itself. When each package was securely fastened he attached it to a loop that passed over the line stretched from the tree to the crowbar. To this loop he tied the lightest rope he could find and threw the other end to Iris. By pulling slightly she was able to land at her feet even the cumbrous rifle-chest, for the traveling angle was so acute that the heavier the article the more readily it sought the lower level.

They toiled in silence until Jenks could lay hands on nothing more of value. Then, observing due care, he quickly passed the channel. For an instant the girl gazed affrightedly at the sea until the sailor stood at her side again.

"You see," he said, "you have scared every cuttle within miles." And he thought that he would give many years of his life to be able to take her in his arms and kiss away her anxiety.

But the tide had turned; in a few minutes the reef would be partly submerged. To carry the case of rifles to the mainland was a manifestly impossible feat, so Jenks now did that which, done earlier, would have saved him some labor—he broke open the chest, and found that the weapons were apparently in excellent order.

He snapped the locks and squinted down the barrels of half a dozen to test them. These he laid on one side. Then he rapidly constructed a small raft from loose timbers, binding them roughly with rope, and to this argosy he fastened the box of tea, the barrels of flour, the broken saloon-chair, and other small articles which might be of use. He avoided any difficulty in launching the raft by building it close to the water's edge. When all was ready the rising tide floated it for him; he secured it to his longest rope, and gave it a vigorous push off into the lagoon. Then he slung four rifles across his shoulders, asked Iris to carry the remaining two in like manner, and began to manoeuvre the raft landwards.

"Whilst you land the goods I will prepare dinner," announced the girl.

"Please be careful not to slip again on the rocks," he said.

"Indeed I will. My ankle gives me a reminder at each step."

"I was more concerned about the rifles. If you fell you might damage them, and the incoming tide will so hopelessly rust those I leave behind that they will be useless."

She laughed. This assumption at brutality no longer deceived her.

"I will preserve them at any cost, though with six in our possession there is a margin for accidents. However, to reassure you, I will go back quickly. If I fall a second time you will still be able to replace any deficiencies in our armament."

Before he could protest she started off at a run, jumping lightly from rock to rock, though the effort cost her a good deal of pain. Disregarding his shouts, she persevered until she stood safely on the sands. Then saucily waving a farewell, she set off towards the cave.

Had she seen the look of fierce despair that settled down upon Jenks's face as he turned to his task of guiding the raft ashore she might have wondered what it meant. In any case she would certainly have behaved differently.

By the time the sailor had safely landed his cargo Iris had cooked their midday meal. She achieved a fresh culinary triumph. The eggs were fried!

"I am seriously thinking of trying to boil a ham," she stated gravely. "Have you any idea how long it takes to cook one properly?"

"A quarter of an hour for each pound."

"Admirable! But we can measure neither hours nor pounds."

"I think we can do both. I will construct a balance of some kind. Then, with a ham slung to one end, and a rifle and some cartridges to the other, I will tell you the weight of the ham to an ounce. To ascertain the time, I have already determined to fashion a sun-dial. I remember the requisite divisions with reasonable accuracy, and a little observation will enable us to correct any mistakes."

"You are really very clever, Mr. Jenks," said Iris, with childlike candor. "Have you spent several years of your life in preparing for residence on a desert island?"

"Something of the sort. I have led a queer kind of existence, full of useless purposes. Fate has driven me into a corner where my odds and ends of knowledge are actually valuable. Such accidents make men millionaires."

"Useless purposes!" she repeated. "I can hardly credit that. One uses such a phrase to describe fussy people, alive with foolish activity. Your worst enemy would not place you in such a category."

"My worst enemy made the phrase effective at any rate, Miss Deane."

"You mean that he ruined your career?"

"Well—er—yes. I suppose that describes the position with fair accuracy."

"Was he a very great scoundrel?"

"He was, and is."

Jenks spoke with quiet bitterness. The girl's words had evoked a sudden flood of recollection. For the moment he did not notice how he had been trapped into speaking of himself, nor did he see the quiet content on Iris's face when she elicited the information that his chief foe was a man. A certain tremulous hesitancy in her manner when she next spoke might have warned him, but his hungry soul caught only the warm sympathy of her words, which fell like rain on parched soil.

"You are tired," she said. "Won't you smoke for a little while, and talk to me?"

He produced his pipe and tobacco, but he used his right hand awkwardly. It was evident to her alert eyes that the torn quick on his injured finger was hurting him a great deal. The exciting events of the morning had caused him temporarily to forget his wound, and the rapid coursing of the blood through the veins was now causing him agonized throbs.

With a cry of distress she sprang to her feet and insisted upon washing the wound. Then she tenderly dressed it with a strip of linen well soaked in brandy, thinking the while, with a sudden rush of color to her face, that although he could suggest this remedy for her slight hurt, he gave no thought to his own serious injury. Finally she pounced upon his pipe and tobacco-box.

"Don't be alarmed," she laughed. "I have often filled my father's pipe for him. First, you put the tobacco in loosely, taking care not to use any that is too finely powdered. Then you pack the remainder quite tightly. But I was nearly forgetting. I haven't blown, through the pipe to see if it is clean."

She suited the action to the word, using much needless breath in the operation.

"That is a first-rate pipe," she declared. "My father always said that a straight stem, with the bowl at a right angle, was the correct shape. You evidently agree with him."

"Absolutely."

"You will like my father when you meet him. He is the very best man alive, I am sure."

"You two are great friends, then?"

"Great friends! He is the only friend I possess in the world."

"What! Is that quite accurate?"

"Oh, quite. Of course, Mr. Jenks, I can never forget how much I owe to you. I like you immensely, too, although you are so—so gruff to me at times. But—but—you see, my father and I have always been together. I have neither brother nor sister, not even a cousin. My dear mother died from some horrid fever when I was quite a little girl. My father is everything to me."

"Dear child!" he murmured, apparently uttering his thoughts aloud rather than addressing her directly. "So you find me gruff, eh?"

"A regular bear, when you lecture me. But that is only occasionally. You can be very nice when you like, when you forget your past troubles. And pray, why do you call me a child?

"Have I done so?"

"Not a moment ago. How old are you, Mr. Jenks? I am twenty—twenty last December."

"And I," he said, "will be twenty-eight in August."

"Good gracious!" she gasped. "I am very sorry, but I really thought you were forty at least."

"I look it, no doubt. Let me be equally candid and admit that you, too, show your age markedly."

She smiled nervously. "What a lot of trouble you must have had to—to—to give you those little wrinkles in the corners of your mouth and eyes," she said.

"Wrinkles! How terrible!"

"I don't know. I think they rather suit you; besides, it was stupid of me to imagine you were so old. I suppose exposure to the sun creates wrinkles, and you must have lived much in the open air."

"Early rising and late going to bed are bad for the complexion," he declared, solemnly.

"I often wonder how army officers manage to exist," she said. "They never seem to get enough sleep, in the East, at any rate. I have seen them dancing for hours after midnight, and heard of them pig-sticking or schooling hunters at five o'clock next morning."

"So you assume I have been in the army?"

"I am quite sure of it."

"May I ask why?"

"Your manner, your voice, your quiet air of authority, the very way you walk, all betray you."

"Then," he said sadly, "I will not attempt to deny the fact. I held a commission in the Indian Staff Corps for nine years. It was a hobby of mine, Miss Deane, to make myself acquainted with the best means of victualing my men and keeping them in good health under all sorts of fanciful conditions and in every kind of climate, especially under circumstances when ordinary stores were not available. With that object in view I read up every possible country in which my regiment might be engaged, learnt the local names of common articles of food, and ascertained particularly what provision nature made to sustain life. The study interested me. Once, during the Soudan campaign, it was really useful, and procured me promotion."

"Tell me about it."

"During some operations in the desert it was necessary for my troop to follow up a small party of rebels mounted on camels, which, as you probably know, can go without water much longer than horses. We were almost within striking distance, when our horses completely gave out, but I luckily noticed indications which showed that there was water beneath a portion of the plain much below the general level. Half an hour's spade work proved that I was right. We took up the pursuit again, and ran the quarry to earth, and I got my captaincy."

"Was there no fight?"

He paused an appreciable time before replying. Then he evidently made up his mind to perform some disagreeable task. The watching girl could see the change in his face, the sharp transition from eager interest to angry resentment.

"Yes," he went on at last, "there was a fight. It was a rather stiff affair, because a troop of British cavalry which should have supported me had turned back, owing to the want of water already mentioned. But that did not save the officer in charge of the 24th Lancers from being severely reprimanded."

"The 24th Lancers!" cried Iris. "Lord Ventnor's regiment!"

"Lord Ventnor was the officer in question."

Her face crimonsed. "Then you know him?" she said.

"I do."

"Is he your enemy?"

"Yes."

"And that is why you were so agitated that last day on the Sirdar, when poor Lady Tozer asked me if I were engaged to him?"

"Yes."

"How could it affect you? You did not even know my name then?"

Poor Iris! She did not stop to ask herself why she framed her question in such manner, but the sailor was now too profoundly moved to heed the slip. She could not tell how he was fighting with himself, fiercely beating down the inner barriers of self-love, sternly determined, once and for all, to reveal himself in such light to this beautiful and bewitching woman that in future she would learn to regard him only as an outcast whose company she must perforce tolerate until relief came.

"It affected me because the sudden mention of his name recalled my own disgrace. I quitted the army six months ago, Miss Deane, under very painful circumstances. A general court-martial found me guilty of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. I was not even given a chance to resign. I was cashiered."

He pretended to speak with cool truculence. He thought to compel her into shrinking contempt. Yet his face blanched somewhat, and though he steadily kept the pipe between his teeth, and smoked with studied unconcern, his lips twitched a little.

And he dared not look at her, for the girl's wondering eyes were fixed upon him, and the blush had disappeared as quickly as it came.

"I remember something of this," she said slowly, never once averting her gaze. "There was some gossip concerning it when I first came to Hong Kong. You are Captain Robert Anstruther?"

"I am."

"And you publicly thrashed Lord Ventnor as the result of a quarrel about a woman?"

"Your recollection is quite accurate."

"Who was to blame?"

"The lady said that I was."

"Was it true?"

Robert Anstruther, late captain of Bengal Cavalry, rose to his feet. He preferred to take his punishment standing.

"The court-martial agreed with her, Miss Deane, and I am a prejudiced witness," he replied.

"Who was the—lady?"

"The wife of my colonel, Mrs. Costobell."

"Oh!"

Long afterwards he remembered the agony of that moment, and winced even at the remembrance. But he had decided upon a fixed policy, and he was not a man to flinch from consequences. Miss Deane must be taught to despise him, else, God help them both, she might learn to love him as he now loved her. So, blundering towards his goal as men always blunder where a woman's heart is concerned, he blindly persisted in allowing her to make such false deductions as she chose from his words.

Iris was the first to regain some measure of self-control.

"I am glad you have been so candid, Captain Anstruther," she commenced, but he broke in abruptly—

"Jenks, if you please, Miss Deane. Robert Jenks."

There was a curious light in her eyes, but he did not see it, and her voice was marvelously subdued as she continued—

"Certainly, Mr. Jenks. Let me be equally explicit before we quit the subject. I have met Mrs. Costobell. I do not like her. I consider her a deceitful woman. Your court-martial might have found a different verdict had its members been of her sex. As for Lord Ventnor, he is nothing to me. It is true he asked my father to be permitted to pay his addresses to me, but my dear old dad left the matter wholly to my decision, and I certainly never gave Lord Ventnor any encouragement. I believe now that Mrs. Costobell lied, and that Lord Ventnor lied, when they attributed any dishonorable action to you, and I am glad that you beat him in the Club. I am quite sure he deserved it."

Not one word did this strange man vouchsafe in reply. He started violently, seized the axe lying at his feet, and went straight among the trees, keeping his face turned from Iris so that she might not see the tears in his eyes.

As for the girl, she began to scour her cooking utensils with much energy, and soon commenced a song. Considering that she was compelled to constantly endure the company of a degraded officer, who had been expelled from the service with ignominy, she was absurdly contented. Indeed, with the happy inconsequence of youth, she quickly threw all care to the winds, and devoted her thoughts to planning a surprise for the next day by preparing some tea, provided she could surreptitiously open the chest.



CHAPTER VII

SURPRISES

Before night closed their third day on the island Jenks managed to construct a roomy tent-house, with a framework of sturdy trees selected on account of their location. To these he nailed or tied crossbeams of felled saplings; and the tarpaulins dragged from the beach supplied roof and walls. It required the united strength of Iris and himself to haul into position the heavy sheet that topped the structure, whilst he was compelled to desist from active building operations in order to fashion a rough ladder. Without some such contrivance he could not get the topmost supports adjusted at a sufficient height.

Although the edifice required at least two more days of hard work before it would be fit for habitation Iris wished to take up her quarters there immediately. This the sailor would not hear of.

"In the cave," he said, "you are absolutely sheltered from all the winds that blow or rain that falls. Our villa, however, is painfully leaky and draughty at present. When asleep, the whole body is relaxed, and you are then most open to the attacks of cold or fever, in which case, Miss Deane, I shall be reluctantly obliged to dose you with a concoction of that tree there."

He pointed to a neighboring cinchona, and Iris naturally asked why he selected that particular brand.

"Because it is quinine, not made up in nice little tabloids, but au naturel. It will not be a bad plan if we prepare a strong infusion, and take a small quantity every morning on the excellent principle that prevention is better than cure."

The girl laughed.

"Good gracious!" she said; "that reminds me—"

But the words died away on her lips in sudden fright. They were standing on the level plateau in front of the cave, well removed from the trees, and they could see distinctly on all sides, for the sun was sinking in a cloudless sky and the air was preternaturally clear, being free now from the tremulous haze of the hot hours.

Across the smooth expanse of sandy ground came the agonized shrieks of a startled bird—a large bird, it would seem—winging its way towards them with incredible swiftness, and uttering a succession of loud full-voiced notes of alarm.

Yet the strange thing was that not a bird was to be seen. At that hour the ordinary feathered inhabitants of the island were quietly nestling among the branches preparatory to making a final selection of the night's resting-place. None of them would stir unless actually disturbed.

Iris drew near to the sailor. Involuntarily she caught his arm. He stepped a half-pace in front of her to ward off any danger that might be heralded by this new and uncanny phenomenon. Together they strained their eyes in the direction of the approaching sound, but apparently their sight was bewitched; as nothing whatever was visible.

"Oh, what is it?" wailed Iris, who now clung to Jenks in a state of great apprehension.

The clucking noise came nearer, passed them within a yard, and was already some distance away towards the reef when the sailor burst into a hearty laugh, none the less genuine because of the relief it gave to his bewildered senses.

Reassured, but still white with fear, Iris cried: "Do speak, please, Mr. Jenks. What was it?"

"A beetle!" he managed to gasp.

"A beetle?"

"Yes, a small, insignificant-looking fellow, too—so small that I did not see him until he was almost out of range. He has the loudest voice for his size in the whole of creation. A man able to shout on the same scale could easily make himself heard for twenty miles."

"Then I do not like such beetles; I always hated them, but this latest variety is positively detestable. Such nasty things ought to be kept in zoological gardens, and not turned loose. Moreover, my tea will be boiled into spinach."

Nevertheless, the tea, though minus sugar or milk, was grateful enough and particularly acceptable to the sailor, who entertained Iris with a disquisition on the many virtues of that marvelous beverage. Curiously enough, the lifting of the veil upon the man's earlier history made these two much better friends. With more complete acquaintance there was far less tendency towards certain passages which, under ordinary conditions, could be construed as nothing else than downright flirtation.

They made the pleasing discovery that they could both sing. There was hardly an opera in vogue that one or other did not know sufficiently well to be able to recall the chief musical numbers. Iris had a sweet and sympathetic mezzo-soprano voice, Jenks an excellent baritone, and, to the secret amazement of the girl, he rendered one or two well-known Anglo-Indian barrack-room ditties with much humor.

This, then, was the mise-en-scene.

Iris, seated in the broken saloon-chair, which the sailor had firmly wedged into the sand for her accommodation, was attired in a close-fitting costume selected from the small store of garments so wisely preserved by Jenks. She wore a pair of clumsy men's boots several sizes too large for her. Her hair was tied up in a gipsy knot on the back of her head, and the light of a cheerful log fire danced in her blue eyes.

Jenks, unshaven and ragged, squatted tailor wise near her. Close at hand, on two sides, the shaggy walls of rock rose in solemn grandeur. The neighboring trees, decked now in the sable livery of night, were dimly outlined against the deep misty blue of sea and sky or wholly merged in the shadow of the cliffs.

They lost themselves in the peaceful influences of the hour. Shipwrecked, remote from human land, environed by dangers known or only conjectured, two solitary beings on a tiny island, thrown haphazard from the depths of the China Sea, this young couple, after passing unscathed through perils unknown even to the writers of melodrama, lifted up their voices in the sheer exuberance of good spirits and abounding vitality.

The girl was specially attracted by "The Buffalo Battery," a rollicking lyric known to all Anglo-India from Peshawur to Tuticorin. The air is the familiar one of the "Hen Convention," and the opening verse runs in this wise:

I love to hear the sepoy with his bold and martial tread, And the thud of the galloping cavalry re-echoes through my head. But sweeter far than any sound by mortal ever made Is the tramp of the Buffalo Battery a-going to parade. Chorus: For it's "Hainya! hainya! hainya! hainya!" Twist their tails and go. With a "Hathi! hathi! hathi!" ele-phant and buffalo, "Chow-chow, chow-chow, chow-chow, chow-chow," "Teri ma!" "Chel-lo!" Oh, that's the way they shout all day, and drive the buffalo.

Iris would not be satisfied until she understood the meaning of the Hindustani phrases, mastered the nasal pronunciation of "hainya," and placed the artificial accent on phant and lo in the second line of the chorus.

Jenks was concluding the last verse when there came, hurtling through the air, the weird cries of the singing beetle, returning, perchance, from successful foray on Palm-tree Rock. This second advent of the insect put an end to the concert. Within a quarter of an hour they were asleep.

Thenceforth, for ten days, they labored unceasingly, starting work at daybreak and stopping only when the light failed, finding the long hours of sunshine all too short for the manifold tasks demanded of them, yet thankful that the night brought rest. The sailor made out a programme to which he rigidly adhered. In the first place, he completed the house, which had two compartments, an inner room in which Iris slept, and an outer, which served as a shelter for their meals and provided a bedroom for the man.

Then he constructed a gigantic sky-sign on Summit Rock, the small cluster of boulders on top of the cliff. His chief difficulty was to hoist into place the tall poles he needed, and for this purpose he had to again visit Palm-tree Rock in order to secure the pulley. By exercising much ingenuity in devising shear-legs, he at last succeeded in lifting the masts into their allotted receptacles, where they were firmly secured. Finally he was able to swing into air, high above the tops of the neighboring trees, the loftiest of which he felled in order to clear the view on all sides, the name of the ship Sirdar, fashioned in six-foot letters nailed and spliced together in sections and made from the timbers of that ill-fated vessel.

Meanwhile he taught Iris how to weave a net out of the strands of unraveled cordage. With this, weighted by bullets, he contrived a casting-net and caught a lot of small fish in the lagoon. At first they were unable to decide which varieties were edible, until a happy expedient occurred to the girl.

"The seabirds can tell us," she said. "Let us spread out our haul on the sands and leave them. By observing those specimens seized by the birds and those they reject we should not go far wrong."

Though her reasoning was not infallible it certainly proved to be a reliable guide in this instance. Among the fish selected by the feathered connoisseurs they hit upon two species which most resembled whiting and haddock, and these turned out to be very palatable and wholesome.

Jenks knew a good deal of botany, and enough about birds to differentiate between carnivorous species and those fit for human food, whilst the salt in their most fortunate supply of hams rendered their meals almost epicurean. Think of it, ye dwellers in cities, content with stale buns and leathery sandwiches when ye venture into the wilds of a railway refreshment-room, these two castaways, marooned by queer chance on a desert island, could sit down daily to a banquet of vegetable soup, fish, a roast bird, ham boiled or fried, and a sago pudding, the whole washed down by cool spring water, or, should the need arise, a draught of the best champagne!