not abandon hope till daylight crept through the chinks of the hut.
How soon that might be she could not tell. It seemed but a few seconds
since she felt Hozier's arms around her, since her lips met his in a
passionate kiss. But, meanwhile, someone had brought her here. Her
dress, though damp, was not sopping wet. Even the slight token of the
beaten eggs showed how time must have sped while she was lying there
oblivious of everything. She tried again to question the women, and
fancied that they understood her partly, as she caught the words "meia
noite," but it was beyond her powers to ascertain whether they meant
that she had come there at midnight, or were actually telling her the
hour.

At any rate, they were most anxious for her well-being. The island
housewife produced another dish, smiled reassuringly, and said,
"Manioc--bom," repeating the phrase several times. The compound looked
appetizing, and Iris ate a little. She discovered at once that it was
tapioca, but her new acquaintance suggested "cassava" as an
alternative. The girl, however, nodded cheerfully. She had heard the
gentry at Fort San Antonio call it tapioca, and her convict father
cultivated some of the finer variety of manioc for the officers' mess.

"Ah," sighed Iris, smiling wistfully, "I am making progress in your
language, slow but sure. But please don't give me any mangroves."

The girl apparently was quite fascinated by the sound of English. She
began to chatter to her mother at an amazing rate, trying repeatedly to
imitate the hissing sound which the Latin races always perceive in
Anglo-Saxon speech. Her mother reproved her instantly. To make
amends, the girl offered Iris a fine pomegranate. Iris, of course,
lost nothing of this bit of by-play. It was almost the first touch of
nature that she had discovered among the amazing inhabitants of
Fernando Noronha.

These small amenities helped to pass the time, but Iris soon noted an
air of suspense in the older woman's attitude. Though mindful of her
guest's comfort, Luisa Gomez had ever a keen ear for external sounds.
In all probability, she was disturbed by the distant reports of
fire-arms, and it was a rare instance of innate good-breeding that she
did not alarm her guest by calling attention to them. Iris, amid such
novel surroundings, could not distinguish one noise from another.
Night-birds screamed hideously in the trees without; a host of crickets
kept up an incessant c