t at least have
whispered a question, but her ears caught a sound to which they were
now well accustomed. The light chug-chug of an engine and the flapping
of a propeller came up to them from the sea. The steam launch was
approaching. Perhaps they had been seen already! As if to emphasize
this new peril, there was an interval of silence. Steam had been shut
off. Philip touched the girl's lips lightly with a finger. Then he
lay flat on the ledge and began to creep forward. It was impossible
that he should run and warn the others, but it was essential, above all
else, that he should ascertain what the men on the launch were doing,
and the extent of their knowledge.

He found a tuft of the grass that clung to a crevice where its roots
drew hardy sustenance from the crumbling rock; he ventured to thrust
his head through this screen, following Domingo's example some hours
earlier. Almost directly beneath, his eager glance found the little
vessel. She was floating past with the current. He peered down on to
her deck as if from the top of a mast. A few cigarette-smoking
officers were grouped in her bows. Apparently, they were more
interested in the remains of the _Andromeda_ than in the natural
fortress overhead. Clustered round the hatch were some twenty
soldiers, also smoking.

One of the officers pointed to the ledge; he was excited and emphatic.
Philip could not imagine that they had detected him, but he feared lest
Iris, in her agitation, might have moved. In that clear, calm air, not
even the growing dusk would hide the flutter of a skirt or the altered
position of a white face. A man in charge of the wheel replied to the
officer with a laugh. The first speaker turned, glanced at the
Brothers reef, behind which the _Andromeda's_ boat had vanished that
morning, and nodded dubiously. The man at the wheel growled an order,
and the engine started again. Though Hozier knew not what was said,
the significance of this pantomime was not lost on him. The local
pilot was afraid of these treacherous waters in the dark, but next day
Frade de Francez (which is the islanders' name for the Grand-pere Rock)
would surely be explored if a landing could be made. At a guess, the
silent watcher took it that the steersman had declined to make a
circuit of the rock until the light was good.

Away bustled the launch, but Hozier did not move until there was no
risk of his figure being silhouetted against the sky. Even th