"

Robert looked towards the approaching boat. She would not land yet for
a couple of minutes.

"By the way," he said, "will you tell me your name?"

"Playdon--Lieutenant Philip H. Playdon."

"Do you know to what nation this island belongs?"

"It is no-man's land, I think. It is marked 'uninhabited' on the
chart."

"Then," said Anstruther, "I call upon you, Lieutenant Playdon, and all
others here present, to witness that I, Robert Anstruther, late of the
Indian Army, acting on behalf of myself and Miss Iris Deane, declare
that we have taken possession of this island in the name of His
Britannic Majesty the King of England, that we are the joint occupiers
and owners thereof, and claim all property rights vested therein."

These formal phrases, coming at such a moment, amazed his hearers. Iris
alone had an inkling of the underlying motive.

"I don't suppose any one will dispute your title," said the naval
officer gravely. He unquestionably imagined that suffering and exposure
had slightly disturbed the other man's senses, yet he had seldom seen
any person who looked to be in more complete possession of his
faculties.

"Thank you," replied Robert with equal composure, though he felt
inclined to laugh at Playdon's mystification. "I only wished to secure
a sufficient number of witnesses for a verbal declaration. When I have
a few minutes to spare I will affix a legal notice on the wall in front
of our cave."

Playdon bowed silently. There was something in the speaker's manner
that puzzled him. He detailed a small guard to accompany Robert and
Iris, who now walked towards the beach, and asked Mir Jan to pilot him
as suggested by Anstruther.

The boat was yet many yards from shore when Iris ran forward and
stretched out her arms to the man who was staring at her with wistful
despair.

"Father! Father!" she cried. "Don't you know me?"

Sir Arthur Deane was looking at the two strange figures on the sands,
and each moment his heart sank lower. This island held his final hope.
During many weary weeks, since the day when a kindly Admiral placed the
cruiser _Orient_ at his disposal, he had scoured the China Sea,
the coasts of Borneo and Java, for some tidings of the ill-fated
_Sirdar_.

He met naught save blank nothingness, the silence of the great ocean
mausoleum. Not a boat, a spar, a lifebuoy, was cast up by the waves to
yield faintest trace of the lost steamer. Every naval man knew what had
happened. The vess