s her
recollection of the horrors crowded into those few brief minutes.

"Be quick, please," put in the elderly Portuguese with a tinge of
impatience. "We have no second cup, and there are wounded men----"

"Give it to them," said Iris, lifting her face again for an instant.
"I do not need it. I have told you that once already. I suppose you
think I should not be here."

"I am sure our friend did not mean that," said Hozier, looking squarely
into those singularly bright eyes. He caught and held them.

"I did not mean that the lady should be left to die if that is the
interpretation put on my remark," came the quiet answer. "But it was
an act of the utmost folly to bring a delicate girl on such an errand.
I cannot imagine what your captain was thinking of when he agreed to
it."

"Wot's that, mister?" demanded Coke. Now that his fit of rage had
passed, the bulky skipper of the _Andromeda_ was red-faced and
imperturbable as usual. The manifold perils he had passed through
showed no more lasting effect on him than a shower of sleet on the
thick hide of the animal he so closely resembled.

"Are _you_ the captain?" said the other.

"Yes, sir. An' I'd like to 'ear w'y my ship or 'er present trip wasn't
fit for enny young leddy, let alone----"

"That is a matter for you to determine. I suppose you know best how to
conduct your own business. My only concern is with the outcome of your
rashness. Why did you deliberately sacrifice your ship in that manner?"

The speaker's cut-glass style of English left his hearers in no doubt
as to what he had said. During the tense silence that reigned for a
few seconds even some among the crew pricked their ears, while Hozier
and Iris forgot other troubles in their new bewilderment. There were
reasons why the drift of the stranger's words should be laid deeply to
heart by three people present. Coke, at any rate, found himself nearer
a state of pallid nervousness than ever before in the course of a
variegated life. It was impossible that he should actually grow pale,
but his brick-red features assumed a purple tint, and his fiery little
eyes glinted.

"Wot are you a-drivin' at, mister?" he growled at last, after trying
vainly to expectorate and compromising the effort in a husky gargle.

"Do you deny, then, that you acted like a madman? Do you say that you
did not know quite well the risk you ran in bringing your vessel to the
island in broad daylight?"

Then Coke