WHEREIN CERTAIN PEOPLE MEET UNEXPECTEDLY
Iris came back from the void to find herself lying on a truckle bed in
a dimly-lighted hovel. A cotton wick flickered in a small lamp of the
old Roman type. It was consuming a crude variety of castor oil, and
its gamboge-colored flame clothed the smoke-darkened rafters and mud
walls in somber yet vivid tints that would have gladdened the heart of
a Rubens. This scenic effect, admirable to an artist, was lost on a
girl waking in affright and startled by unfamiliar surroundings. She
gazed up with uncomprehending eyes at two brown-skinned women bending
over her.
One, the elder, was chafing her hands; the other, a tall, graceful
girl, was stirring something in an earthenware vessel. She heard the
girl murmur joyfully:
"Graças a Deus, elh' abria lhes olhas!"
Iris was still wandering in that strange borderland guarded by unknown
forces that lies between conscious life and the sleep that is so close
of kin to death. If in full possession of her senses, she might not
have caught the drift of the sentence, since it was spoken in a
guttural patois. But now she understood beyond cavil that because she
had opened her eyes, the girl was giving thanks to the Deity. The
first definite though bewildering notion that perplexed her faculties,
at once clouded and unnaturally clear, was an astonished acceptance of
the fact that she knew what the strange girl had said, though the
phrase only remotely resembled its Spanish equivalent. She gathered
its exact meaning, word for word, and it was all the more surprising
that both women should smile and say something quite incomprehensible
as soon as Iris lifted herself on an elbow and asked in English:
"Where am I? How did I come here?"
[Illustration: "How did I come here?"]
Then she remembered, and memory brought a feeling of helplessness not
wholly devoid of self-reproach. It was bad enough that her presence
should add so greatly to the dangers besetting her friends; it was far
worse that she should have fainted at the very moment when such
weakness might well prove fatal to them.
Why did she faint? Ah! A lively blush chased the pallor from her
cheeks, and a few strenuous heartbeats restored animation to her limbs.
Of course, in thinking that she had yielded solely to the stress of
surcharged emotions, Iris was mistaken. What she really needed was
food. A young woman of perfect physique, and dowered with the best of
health, does not collapse into unconsciousness because a young man
embraces her, and each at the same moment makes the blissful discovery
that the wide world contains no other individual of supreme importance.
Iris's great-grandmother might have "swooned" under such
circumstances--not so Iris, who fainted simply because of the strain
imposed by failure to eat the queer fare provided by De Sylva and his
associates. She hardly realized how hungry she was until the girl
handed her the bowl, which contained a couple of eggs beaten up in
milk, while small quantities of rum and sugar-cane juice made the
compound palatable.
"Bom!" said the girl, "bebida, senhora!"
It certainly was good, and the senhora drank it with avidity, the
mixture being excellent diet for one who had eaten nothing except an
over-ripe banana during thirty hours. Indeed, it would be no
exaggeration to extend that period considerably. Iris had left
practically untouched the meals brought her by the steward during the
gale, and the early morning cup of coffee, which would have proved most
grateful after a storm-tossed night, was an impossible achievement
owing to the lack of water.
So Iris tackled the contents of the bowl with a vigorous appetite oddly
at variance with the seeming weakness that ended in a prolonged
fainting fit, and the hospitable Brazilians, to whom this fair English
girl was a revelation in feature and clothing, bestirred themselves to
provide further dainties. But, excepting some fruit, Iris had the
wisdom to refuse other food just then. Her thoughts were rapidly
becoming coherent, and she realized that a heavy meal might be
absolutely disastrous. If the men made good their project she would be
called on within an hour to cross the island. It seemed reasonable
that, hungry though she was, she would be better fitted to climb the
island hills at a fast pace if she ate sparingly. Still, she longed
for a drink of water, and taxed her small stock of Spanish to make
known her desire.
"Agua, senhora," she said with a smile, and the delight of mother and
daughter was great, since they thought she could speak their language.
Therein, of course, they were disappointed, but not more so than Iris
when she tasted the brackish fluid alone procurable on the south coast
of Fernando Noronha. That was a fortunate thing in itself. Only those
who have endured real thirst can tell how hard it is to refrain from
drinking deeply when water is ultimately obtained; but the mixture of
milk and eggs had already soothed her parched mouth and palate, and she
quickly detected an unpleasantly salt flavor in the beverage they gave
her.
Then she set herself to discover her whereabouts. The women were eager
to impart information, but, alas, Iris's brain had regained its
every-day limitations, and she could make no sense of their words. At
last, seeing that the door was barred and the hut was innocent of any
other opening, she stood upright, and signified by a gesture that she
wished to go out. There could be no mistaking the distress, even the
positive alarm, created by this demand. The girl clasped her hands in
entreaty, and the older woman evidently tried most earnestly to
dissuade her visitor from a proceeding fraught with utmost danger.
Being quite certain that they meant to be friendly, Iris sat down
again. She knew, of course, that Marcel would come for her, if
possible, and the relief displayed by her unknown entertainers was so
marked that she resolved to await his appearance quietly. She would
not abandon hope till daylight crept through the chinks of the hut.
How soon that might be she could not tell. It seemed but a few seconds
since she felt Hozier's arms around her, since her lips met his in a
passionate kiss. But, meanwhile, someone had brought her here. Her
dress, though damp, was not sopping wet. Even the slight token of the
beaten eggs showed how time must have sped while she was lying there
oblivious of everything. She tried again to question the women, and
fancied that they understood her partly, as she caught the words "meia
noite," but it was beyond her powers to ascertain whether they meant
that she had come there at midnight, or were actually telling her the
hour.
At any rate, they were most anxious for her well-being. The island
housewife produced another dish, smiled reassuringly, and said,
"Manioc--bom," repeating the phrase several times. The compound looked
appetizing, and Iris ate a little. She discovered at once that it was
tapioca, but her new acquaintance suggested "cassava" as an
alternative. The girl, however, nodded cheerfully. She had heard the
gentry at Fort San Antonio call it tapioca, and her convict father
cultivated some of the finer variety of manioc for the officers' mess.
"Ah," sighed Iris, smiling wistfully, "I am making progress in your
language, slow but sure. But please don't give me any mangroves."
The girl apparently was quite fascinated by the sound of English. She
began to chatter to her mother at an amazing rate, trying repeatedly to
imitate the hissing sound which the Latin races always perceive in
Anglo-Saxon speech. Her mother reproved her instantly. To make
amends, the girl offered Iris a fine pomegranate. Iris, of course,
lost nothing of this bit of by-play. It was almost the first touch of
nature that she had discovered among the amazing inhabitants of
Fernando Noronha.
These small amenities helped to pass the time, but Iris soon noted an
air of suspense in the older woman's attitude. Though mindful of her
guest's comfort, Luisa Gomez had ever a keen ear for external sounds.
In all probability, she was disturbed by the distant reports of
fire-arms, and it was a rare instance of innate good-breeding that she
did not alarm her guest by calling attention to them. Iris, amid such
novel surroundings, could not distinguish one noise from another.
Night-birds screamed hideously in the trees without; a host of crickets
kept up an incessant chorus in the undergrowth; the intermittent
roaring of breakers on the rocks invaded the narrow creek. The medley
puzzled Iris, but the island woman well knew that stirring events were
being enacted on the other side of the hill. Her husband was there--he
had, indeed, prepared a careful alibi since Marcel visited him--and
wives are apt to feel worried if husbands are abroad when bullets are
flying.
So, while the girl, Manoela, was furtively appraising the clothing worn
by Iris, and wondering how it came to pass that in some parts of the
world there existed grand ladies who wore real cloth dresses, and lace
embroidered under-skirts, and silk stockings, and shining leather
boots--wore them, too, with as much careless ease as one draped one's
self in coarse hempen skirt and shawl in Fernando Noronha--her mother
was listening ever for hasty footsteps among the trailing vines.
At last, with a muttered prayer, she went to the door, and unfastened
the stout wooden staple that prevented intruders from entering unbidden.
It was dark without. Dense black clouds veiled the moon, and a gust of
wind moaned up the creek in presage of a tropical storm. Someone
approached.
"Is that you, Manoel?" asked Luisa Gomez in a hushed voice.
There was no answer. The woman drew back. She would have closed the
door, but a slim, active figure sprang across the threshold. She
shrieked in terror. The new-comer was a Brazilian officer, one of
those glittering beings whom she had seen lounging outside the
Prindio[1] during her rare visits to the town. She was hoping to greet
her Manoel, she half expected to find Marcel, but to be faced by an
officer was the last thing she had thought of. In abject fear, she
broke into a wild appeal to the Virgin; the officer merely laughed,
though not loudly.
"Be not afraid, senhora--I am a friend," he said with quiet confidence,
and the fact that he addressed her so courteously was a wondrously
soothing thing in itself. But he raised a fresh wave of dread in her
soul when he peered into the cabin and spoke words she did not
understand.
"I think you are here, mademoiselle," he said in French. "I am come to
share your retreat for a little while. Perchance by daybreak I may
arrive at some plan. At present, you and I are in difficulties, is it
not?"
Iris recognized the voluble, jerky speech. A wild foreboding gripped
her heart until she was like to shudder under its fierce anguish.
"You, Captain San Benavides?" she asked, and her utterance was
unnaturally calm.
"I, mademoiselle," he said, "and, alas! I am alone. May I come in?
It is not well to show a light at this hour, seeing that the island is
overrun with infuriated soldiers."
The concluding sentence was addressed to Luisa Gomez in Portuguese.
Realizing instinctively that the man came as a friend, she stood aside,
trembling, on the verge of tears. He entered, and the door was closed
behind him. The yellow gleam of the lamp fell on his smart uniform,
and gilded the steel scabbard of his sword. In that dim interior the
signs of his three days' sojourn on Grand-père were not in evidence,
and he had not been harmed during the struggle on the main road or in
the rush for the launch.
He doffed his rakish-looking kepi and bowed low before Iris. Perhaps
the white misery in her face touched him more deeply than he had
counted on. Be that as it may, a note of genuine sympathy vibrated in
his voice as he said:
"I am the only man who escaped, mademoiselle. The others? Well, it is
war, and war is a lottery."
"Do you mean that they have been killed, all killed?" she murmured with
a pitiful sob.
"I--I think so."
"You . . . think? Do you not know?"
He sighed. His hand sought an empty cigarette case. Such was the
correct military air, he fancied--to treat misfortunes rather as jests.
He frowned because the case was empty, but smiled at Iris.
"It is so hard, mademoiselle, when one speaks these things in a strange
tongue. Permit me to explain that which has arrived. We encountered a
picket, and surprised it. Having secured some weapons and
accouterments, we hastened to the quay, where was moored the little
steamship. Unhappily, she was crowded with soldiers. They fired, and
there was a short fight. I was knocked down, and, what do you call
it?--_étourdi_--while one might count ten. I rose, half blinded, and
what do I see? The vessel leaving the quay--full of men engaged in
combat, while, just beyond the point, a warship is signaling her
arrival. It was a Brazilian warship, mademoiselle. She showed two red
rockets followed by a white one. It was only a matter of minutes
before she met the little steamship. I tell you that it was bad luck,
that--a vile blow. I was angry, yes. I stamp my foot and say foolish
things. Then I run!"
Iris made no reply. She hid her face in her hands. She could frame no
more questions. San Benavides was trying to tell her that Hozier and
the rest had been overwhelmed by fate at the very instant escape seemed
to be within reach. The Brazilian, probably because of difficulties
that beset him in using a foreign language, did not make it clear that
he had flung himself flat in the dust when he heard the order to fire
given by someone on board the launch. He said nothing of a tragic
incident wherein Marcel, shot through the lungs, fell over him, and he,
San Benavides, mistaking the convict for an assailant, wrestled
furiously with a dying man. He even forgot to state that had he
charged home with the others, he would either have met a bullet or
gained the deck of the launch, and that his failure to reach the vessel
was due to his own careful self-respect. For San Benavides was not a
coward. He could be brave spectacularly, but he had no stomach for a
fight in the dark, when stark hazard chooses some to triumph and some
to die. That sort of devilish courage might be well enough for those
crude sailors; a Portuguese gentleman of high lineage and proved mettle
demanded a worthier field for his deeds of derring-do. Saperlotte! If
one had a cigarette one could talk more fluently!
"Believe me, mademoiselle," he went on, speaking with a proud humility
that was creditable to his powers as an actor, "the tears came to my
eyes when I understood what had happened. For myself, what do I care?
I would gladly have given my life to save my brave companions. But I
thought of you, solitary, waiting here in distress, so I hurried into
the village, and my uniform secured me from interruption until I was
able to leave the road and cross the hills."
Then the lightning of a woman's intuition pierced the abyss of despair.
Surely there were curious blanks in this thrilling narrative. As was
her way when thoroughly aroused, Iris stood up and seized San Benavides
almost roughly by the arm. Her distraught eyes searched his face with
a pathetic earnestness.
"Why do you think that the launch did not get away?" she cried. "It
was dark. The moon might have been in shadow. If the launch met the
warship and was seen, there must have been firing----"
"Chère mademoiselle, there was much firing," he protested.
"At sea?"
The words came dully. She was stricken again, even more shrewdly. The
gloom was closing in on her, yet she forced herself to drag the truth
from his unwilling lips.
"Yes. Of course, I could not wait there in that open place. I was
compelled to seek shelter. Troops were running from town and citadel.
I avoided them by a miracle. And my sole concern then was your safety."
"Oh, my safety!" she wailed brokenly. "How does it avail me that my
friends should be slain? Why was I not with them? I would rather have
died as they died than live in the knowledge that I was the cause of
their death."
San Benavides essayed a confidential hand on her shoulder. She shrank
from him; he was not pleased but he purred amiably:
"Mademoiselle is profoundly unhappy. Under such circumstances one says
things that are unmerited, is it not? If anyone is to blame, it is my
wretched country, which cannot settle its political affairs without
bloodshed. Ah, mademoiselle, I weep with you, and tender you my most
respectful homage."
A deluge of tropical rain beat on the hut with a sudden fury.
Conversation at once became difficult, nearly impossible. Iris threw
herself back on the trestle in a passion of grief that rivaled the
outer tempest. San Benavides, by sheer force of habit, dusted his
clothes before sitting on the chair brought by Luisa Gomez. The
woman's frightened gaze had dwelt on Iris and him alternately while
they spoke. She understood no word that was said, but she gathered
that the news brought by this handsome officer was tragic, woeful,
something that would wring the heartstrings.
"Was there fighting, senhor?" she asked, close to his ear, her voice
pitched in a key that conquered the storm.
He nodded. He was very tired, this dandy; now that Iris gave no
further heed to him, he was troubled by the prospects of the coming day.
"Were they soldiers who fought?"
He nodded again.
"No islanders?"
Then he raised a hand in protest, though he laughed softly.
"Your good man is safe, senhora," he said. "Marcel told him to go to
Sueste and tend his cattle. When he comes home it will be his duty to
inform the Governor that we are here. He will be rewarded, not
punished. _Sangue de Deus_! I may be shot at dawn. I pray you, let
me rest a while."
The girl, Manoela, weeping out of sympathy, crept to Iris's side and
gently stroked her hair. Like her mother, she could only guess that
the English lady's friends were captured, perhaps dead. Even her
limited experience of life's vicissitudes had taught her what short
shrift was given to those who defied authority. The Republic of Brazil
does not permit its criminals to be executed, but it shows no mercy to
rebels. Manoela, of course, believed that the Englishmen were helping
the imprisoned Dom Corria to regain power. She remembered how a mutiny
was once crushed on the island, and her eyes streamed.
Meanwhile, Luisa Gomez was touched by the good-looking soldier's
plight. Never, since she came to Fernando Noronha to rejoin her
convict husband, had she been addressed so politely by any member of
the military caste. The manners of the officers of the detachment at
Fort San Antonio were not to be compared with those of Captain San
Benavides. Her heart went out to him.
"We must try to help you, Senhor Capitano," she said. "If the others
are dead or taken, you may not be missed."
He threw out his hands in an eloquent gesture. Life or death was a
matter of complete indifference to him, it implied.
"We shall know in the morning," he said. "Have you any cigarettes? A
milrei[2] for a cigarette!"
"But listen, senhor. Why not take off your uniform and dress in my
clothes? You can cut off your mustaches, and wear a mantilha over your
face, and we will keep you here until there is a chance of reaching a
ship. Certainly that is better than being shot."
He glanced at Iris. Vanity being his first consideration, it is
probable that he would have refused to be made ridiculous in her eyes,
had not a knock on the door galvanized him into a fever of fright. He
sprang up and glared wildly around for some means of eluding the
threatened scrutiny of a search party. Luisa Gomez flung him a rough
skirt and a shawl. He huddled into a corner near the bed,--in such
wise that the figures of Iris and Manoela would cloak the rays of the
lamp,--placed his drawn sword across his knees, and draped the two
garments over his head and limbs.
Then, greatly agitated, but not daring to refuse admittance to the
dreaded soldiery, the woman unbarred the door. A man staggered in. He
was alone, and a swirl of wind and rain caused the lamp to flicker so
madly that no one could distinguish his features until the door was
closed again.
But Iris knew him. Though her eyes were dim with tears, though the
new-comer carried a broken gun in his hands, and his face was
blood-stained, she knew.
With a shriek that dismayed the other women--who could not guess that
joy is more boisterous than sorrow, she leaped up and threw her arms
around him.
"Oh, Philip, Philip!" she sobbed. "He told me you were dead . . . and
I believed him!"
The manner of her greeting was delightful to one who had faced death
for her sake many times during the past hour, yet Hozier was so
surprised by its warmth that he could find never a word at the moment.
But he had the good sense to throw aside the shattered rifle and return
her embrace with interest. Long ago exhausted in body, his mind reeled
now under the bewildering knowledge that this most gracious woman did
truly love him. When they parted in that same squalid hut at midnight,
he took with him the intoxication of her kiss. Yet he scarce brought
himself to believe that the night's happenings were real, or that they
two would ever meet again on earth. And now, here was Iris quivering
against his breast. He could feel the beating of her heart. The
perfume of her hair was as incense in his nostrils. She was clinging
to him as if they had loved through all eternity. No wonder he could
not speak. Had he uttered a syllable, he must have broken down like
the girl herself.
San Benavides supplied a timely tonic.
Throwing aside the rags which covered him, he tried to rise. Philip
caught a glimpse of the uniform, the sheen of the naked sword. He was
about to tear himself from Iris's clasp and spring at this new enemy
when the Brazilian spoke.
"Mil diabos!" he cried in a rage, "this cursed Inglez still lives, and
here am I posing before him like an old hag."
His voice alone saved him from being pinned to the floor by a man who
had adopted no light measures with others of his countrymen during the
past half-hour, as the dented gun-barrel, minus its stock, well showed.
But the captain's mortified fury helped to restore Philip's sanity.
Lifting Iris's glowing face to his own, he whispered:
"Tell me, sweetheart, how comes it that our Brazilian friend is here?"
"He ran away when some shots were fired," which was rather unfair of
Iris. "He said the launch had been sunk by a man-of-war----"
"But he is wrong. I saw no man-of-war. We captured the launch. By
this time she is well out to sea. Unfortunately, Marcel was killed,
and Domingo badly wounded. There was no one to come for you, so I
jumped overboard and swam ashore. I had to fight my way here, and it
will soon be known that there are some of us left on the island. I
thought that perhaps I might take you back to the Grand-père cavern.
These people may give us food. I have some few sovereigns in my
pocket. . . ."
"Oh, yes, yes!" She was excited now and radiantly happy. "Of course,
Captain San Benavides must accompany us. He says the soldiers will
shoot him if they capture him. I, too, have money. Let me ask him to
explain matters to this dear woman and her daughter. They have been
more than kind to me already."
She turned to the sulky San Benavides and told him what Hozier had
suggested. He brightened at that, and began a voluble speech to Luisa
Gomez. Interrupting himself, he inquired, in French, how Hozier
proposed to reach the rock.
"On a catamaran. There are two on the beach, and I can handle one of
them all right," said Philip. "But what is this yarn of a warship?
When last I sighted the launch she was standing out of the harbor, and
the first clouds of the storm helped to screen her from the citadel."
Iris interpreted. San Benavides repeated his story of the rockets. In
her present tumult, the girl forgot the touch of realism with regard to
the firing that he had heard. Certainly there was a good deal of
promiscuous rifle-shooting after the departure of the launch, but
warships use cannon to enforce their demands, and the boom of a big gun
had not woke the echoes of Fernando Noronha that night. Philip deemed
the present no time for argument; he despised San Benavides, and gave
no credence to him. Just now the Brazilian was an evil that must be
endured.
Luisa Gomez promised to help in every possible way. Her eyes sparkled
at the sight of gold, but the poor woman would have assisted them out
of sheer pity. Nevertheless, the gift of a couple of sovereigns,
backed by the promise of many more if her husband devoted himself to
their service, spurred her to a frenzy of activity.
There was not a moment to be lost. The squall had spent itself, and a
peep through the chinks of the door showed that the moon would quickly
be in evidence again. It was essential that they should cross the
channel while the scattering clouds still dimmed her brightness; so
Manoela and her mother collected such store of food, and milk, and
water, as they could lay hands on. Well laden, all five hastened to
the creek, and Hozier, Iris, and San Benavides, boarded the larger of
the two catamarans. The strong wind had partly dissipated the noisome
odor, but it was still perceptible. Iris was sure she would never like
mangroves.
Having a degree of confidence in the queer craft that was lacking
during their earlier voyage, they did not hesitate to stack jars and
baskets against the curved prow in such a manner that the eatables
would not become soaked with salt water. Then, after a hasty farewell,
during which Iris showed her gratitude to those kindly peasants by a
hug and a kiss, Hozier pushed off and tried to guide the catamaran as
Marcel had done.
Oddly enough, he and Iris now saw the majestic outlines of the
Grand-père for the first time. The great rock rose above the water
like some immense Gothic cathedral. The illusion was heightened by a
giant spire that towered grandly from the center of the islet. It
looked a shrine built by nature in honor of its Creator, a true temple
of the infinite, and the semblance was no illusion to these three
castaways, since they regarded it as a sanctuary to which alone, under
Heaven, they might owe their lives. Hozier, of course, realized that
there was a certain element of risk in returning there. The island
authorities would surely endeavor to find out where the party of
desperadoes had lain _perdu_ between the sinking of the ship and the
attack on the picket. But the ill-starred Marcel had been confident
that none could land on the rock who was not acquainted with the
intricacies of the approach, and Philip was content to trust to the
reef-guarded passage rather than seek shelter on the mainland.
Once embarked in the fairway, the management of the catamaran occupied
his mind to the complete exclusion of all other problems. He was
puzzled by the discovery that the awkward craft was traveling too far
to the westward, until he remembered that the tide had turned, and that
the current was either slack or running in the opposite direction.
Changing the paddle to the starboard side, he soon corrected this
deviation in the route. But he had been carried already a hundred
yards or more out of the straight line. To reach the two pointed rocks
that marked the entrance to the secret channel, he was obliged to creep
back along the whole shoreward face of the Grand-père; and to this
accident was due a surprise that ranked high in a day replete with
marvels.
When the catamaran rounded the last outlying crag, and they were all
straining their eyes to find the sentinel pillars, they became aware
that a small boat was being pulled cautiously toward them from the
opposite side of the rock.
Iris gasped. She heard Hozier mutter under his breath, while San
Benavides revealed his dismay by an oath and a convulsive tightening of
the hands that rested on the girl's shoulders.
Hozier strove with a few desperate strokes of the paddle to reach the
shadows of the passage before the catamaran was seen by the boat's
occupants. He might have succeeded. Many things can happen at night
and on the sea--strange escapades and hair's-breadth 'scapes--thrills
denied to stay-at-homes dwelling in cities, who seldom venture beyond a
lighted area. But there was even a greater probability that the
unwieldy catamaran might be caught by the swell and dashed side-long
against one of the half-submerged rocks that thrust their black fangs
above the water.
Happily, they were spared either alternative. At the very instant that
their lot must be put to the test of chance, Coke's hoarse accents came
to their incredulous ears.
"Let her go, Olsen," he was growling. "We've a clear course now, an'
that dam moon will spile everything if we're spotted."
In this instance hearing was believing, and Philip was the first to
guess what had actually occurred.
"Boat ahoy, skipper!" he sang out in a joyous hail.
Coke stood up. He glared hard at the reef.
"Did ye 'ear it?" he cried to De Sylva, who was steering. "Sink me, I
'ope I ain't a copyin' pore ole Watts, but if that wasn't Hozier's
voice I'm goin' dotty."
"It's all right, skipper," said Philip, sending the catamaran ahead
with a mighty sweep. "Miss Yorke is here--Captain San Benavides, too.
I was sure you would look for us if you cleared the harbor safely."
Then Coke proclaimed his sentiments in the approved ritual of the high
seas, while the big Norseman at the oars swung the boat's head round
until both craft were traveling in company to the waiting launch. But
before anything in the nature of an explanation was forthcoming from
the occupants of either the boat or the catamaran, a broad beam of
white light swept over the crest of the island from north to south. It
disappeared, to return more slowly, until it rested on Rat Island, at
the extreme northwest of the group. It remained steady there, showing
a wild panorama of rocky heights and tumbling sea.
"A search-light, by G--d!" growled Coke.
"Then there really _was_ a warship," murmured Iris.
"Ha!" said San Benavides, and his tone was almost gratified, for he had
gathered that Hozier was skeptical when told of the rockets. But in
that respect, at least, he was not mistaken. A man-of-war had entered
the roadstead, and her powerful lamp was now scouring sea and coast for
the missing launch. And in that moment of fresh peril it was forgotten
by all but one of the men who had survived so many dangers since the
sun last gilded the peak of Fernando Noronha, that were it not for Iris
having been left behind, and Philip's mad plunge overboard to go to
her, and the point-blank refusal of the _Andromeda's_ captain and crew
to put to sea without an effort to save the pair of them, the launch
would not now be hidden behind the black mass of the Grand-père rock.
Nevertheless, the fact was patent. Had the little vessel sailed to the
west, in the assumption that her only feasible course lay in that
direction, she must have been discovered by the cruiser's far-seeing
eye. And what that meant needed no words. The bones of the
_Andromeda_ supplied testimony at once silent and all-sufficing.
[1] The Governor's residence.
[2] The Brazilian milrei is worth 55 cents, or 2s. 3 1/2d. The
Portuguese is worth only one-tenth of a cent.