eated on the rocks without,
or lounging near the entrance. They were smoking now freely, the only
stipulation being that matches were not to be struck in the open.
Their whispered talk ceased when they saw the girl. Absorbed in the
prospect of a fight for life, for the moment they had forgotten her,
but a murmured tribute of sympathy and recognition greeted her
appearance.

The Irishman found his tongue first.

"Begorrah, miss," he said, "but it's the proud man I'll be the next
time I see you smilin' from the kay side at Liverpool, no matter
whether I'm there meself or not."

No one laughed at the absurd phrase which so clearly expressed its
meaning. But the ship's cook, Peter, noting the strips of dried meat
in her hands, raised a grin by saying:

"Sorry the galley fire is out, miss, or I'd 'ave stewed 'em a bit."

This kindly badinage was gratifying, though it helped to reveal the
interrupted topic of their conversation. There was no hiding the
desperate character of the coming adventure. The _Andromeda's_ crew
did not attempt to minimize it. The choice offered lay only in the
manner of their death. As to the prospect of ultimate escape, they
hardly gave it a thought. Some among them had served in the armies of
Europe, and they, at least, were under no delusion concerning the issue
of an attack on a fort by less than a score of unarmed men--seventeen
to be exact, since two of the ship's company were so maimed by the
bursting of the shell on the forecastle as to be practically helpless;
it was by the rarest good fortune that they were able to walk.

Iris smiled at them in her frank way.

"I hope you will all be spared to ship on a new _Andromeda_," she said.
No sooner had the words left her lips than the thought came unbidden:
"If my uncle and Captain Coke wished the ship to be thrown away,
nothing could have better suited their purposes than this tragic error."

For the instant, the unforeseen outcome of that Sunday afternoon's
plotting in the peaceful garden of Linden House held her imagination.
She recalled each syllable of it, and there throbbed in her brain the
hitherto undreamed of possibility that Coke had brought the _Andromeda_
to Fernando Noronha in pursuance of his thievish project.

At once she whispered to Hozier:

"Is there anyone on the path below?"

"No," he said. "The Brazilians are with Coke at the top of the gully."

"Is it safe for us to go the other way."

"I think so. But