nd
the unavoidable rigors of the passage from ship to ledge had shaken out
every hairpin. The Tam o' Shanter cap she was wearing early in the day
had disappeared at some unknown stage of the adventure. Her attitude
bespoke a mood of overwhelming dejection. Like the remainder of her
companions in misfortune, she was drenched to the skin. That physical
drawback, however, was only a minor evil in this almost unpleasantly
hot retreat; but Hozier, able now to focus matters in fairly accurate
proportion, felt that Iris had not yet plumbed the depths of suffering.
Their trials were far from ended when their feet rested on the solid
rock. There was every indication that their rescuers were refugees
like themselves. The scanty resources visible in the cave, the intense
anxiety of the elderly Portuguese to avoid observation from the chief
island of the group, the very nature of the apparently inaccessible
crag in which he and his associates were hiding--each and all of these
things spoke volumes.

Hozier did not attempt to disturb the girl until the dapper officer
produced a goatskin, and poured a small quantity of wine into a tin
cup. With a curious eagerness, he anticipated the other's obvious
intent.

"Pardon me, monsieur," he said, seizing the vessel, and his direct
Anglo-Saxon manner quite robbed his French of its politeness. Then his
vocabulary broke down, and he added more suavely in English: "I will
persuade her to drink a little. She is rather hysterical, you know."

The Portuguese nodded as though he understood. Iris looked up when
Hozier brought her the cup. The mere suggestion of something to drink
made active the parched agony of mouth and throat, but her wry face
when she found that the liquid was wine might have been amusing if the
conditions of life were less desperate.

"Is there no water?" she asked plaintively.

The officer, who was following the little by-play with his eyes,
realized the meaning of her words.

"We have no water, mademoiselle," he said. Then he glanced at the
group of bedraggled sailors. "And very little wine," he added.

"Please drink it," urged Hozier. "You are greatly run down, you know,
though you really ought to feel cheerful, since you have escaped with
your life."

"I feel quite brave," said Iris simply. "I would never have believed
that I could go through--all that," and her childish trick of listening
to the booming of the distant breakers told him how vivid wa