The Stowaway Girl Part 11

She heard a coa.r.s.e chuckle from c.o.ke, not far below.

"Let 'im cough it up," the skipper was saying. "It'll do 'im good.

I've seen 'im blind many a time, but 'ow any man could dope 'isself in that shape in less'n two minutes!---- Well, it fair gives me the go-by!"

Two minutes! Hozier listened, and he was recovering his wits far more rapidly than Iris. Was the skipper, then, in league with nature herself to perplex him? And Watts, too? Why did c.o.ke hint so coa.r.s.ely that he was drunk? He was on the bridge while he, Philip, was attending to the lead, and at that time the chief officer was perfectly sober.

Iris, once again, was deeply incensed by c.o.ke's brutality.

"Horrid man!" she murmured, but she had no breath left for louder protest. It was hot as a furnace in this narrow ravine; each upward step demanded an effort. She would have slipped and hurt herself many times were it not for Hozier's firm grasp, nor did she realize the sheer exhaustion that forced him to seek support from the neighboring wall with his disengaged hand. The man in front, however, was alive to their dangerous plight. He said something in his own language--for his English had the precise staccato accent of the well-educated foreigner--and another man appeared. The sight of the newcomer startled Iris more than any other event that had happened since the _Andromeda_ reached the end of her last voyage. He wore the uniform of those dreadful beings whom she had seen on the island.

She shrieked; Hozier fancied she had sprained an ankle; but before she could utter any sort of explanation the apparition in uniform was by her side, and murmuring words that were evidently meant to be rea.s.suring. Seeing that he was not understood, he broke into halting French.

"Courage, madame!" he said. "Il faut monter--encore un peu--et donc--vous etes arrive . . . ca y est! Voila! Comptez sur moi.

Juste ciel, mais c'est affreux l'escalier."

But he worked while he poured out this medley, and Iris was standing on level ground ere he made an end. He was a handsome youngster, evidently an officer, and his eyes dwelt on the girl's face with no lack of animation as he led her into a cave which seemed to have been excavated from the inner side of a small crater.

"You can rest here in absolute safety, madame," he said. "Permit me to arrange a seat. Then I shall bring you some wine."

Iris flung off the hand which held her arm so persuasively.

"Please do not attend to me. There are wounded men who need attention far more than I," she said, speaking in English, since it never entered her mind that the Portuguese officer had been addressing her in French.

He was puzzled more by her action than her words, but Hozier, who had followed close behind, explained in sentences built on the Ollendorffian plan that mademoiselle was disturbed, mademoiselle required rest, mademoiselle hardly understood that which had arrived, _et voila tout_.

The other man smiled comprehension, though he scanned Hozier with a quick underlook.

"Is monsieur the captain?" he asked.

"No, monsieur the captain comes now. Here he is."

"Mademoiselle, without doubt, is the daughter of monsieur the captain?"

"No," said Hozier, rather curtly, turning to ascertain how Iris had disposed of herself in the interior of the cavern. It was his first experience of a South American dandy's pose towards women, or, to be exact, toward women who are young and pretty, and it seemed to him not the least marvelous event of an hour crammed with marvels that any man should endeavor to begin an active flirtation under such circ.u.mstances.

He saw that Iris was seated on a camp stool. Her face was buried in her hands. A wealth of brown hair was tumbled over her neck and shoulders; the constant showers of spray had loosened her tresses, and the unavoidable rigors of the pa.s.sage from s.h.i.+p 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 att.i.tude 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 a.s.sociates 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 quant.i.ty of wine into a tin cup. With a curious eagerness, he antic.i.p.ated 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 was 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 c.o.ke. Now that his fit of rage had pa.s.sed, the bulky skipper of the _Andromeda_ was red-faced and imperturbable as usual. The manifold perils he had pa.s.sed 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p in that manner?"

The speaker's cut-gla.s.s 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 p.r.i.c.ked 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. c.o.ke, 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 a.s.sumed 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 c.o.ke found his breath.

"Risk!" he roared. "Risk in steamin' to an anchorage an' sendin' a boat ash.o.r.e for water? There seems to be a lot of mad folk loose just now on Fernando Noronha, but I'm not one of 'em, an' that's as much as I can say for enny of you--damme if it ain't."

Evidently the Portuguese was not accustomed to the direct form of conversation in vogue among British master mariners. He bent his piercing gaze on c.o.ke's angry if somewhat fl.u.s.tered countenance, and there was a perceptible stiffening of voice and manner when he said:

"Who are you, then? Who sent you here?"

"I'm Captain James c.o.ke, of the British s.h.i.+p _Andromeda_, that's 'oo _I_ am, an' I was sent 'ere, or leastways to the River Plate, by David Verity an' Co., of Liverpool."

It must not be forgotten that c.o.ke shared with his employer a certain uncla.s.sical freedom in the p.r.o.nunciation of the s.h.i.+p's name; the long "e" apparently puzzled the other man.

"_Andromeeda_?" he muttered. "Spell it!"

"My G.o.dfather, this is an asylum for sure," grunted c.o.ke, in a spasm of furious mirth. "A-n-d-r-o-m-e-d-a. Now you've got it. Ain't it up to Portygee standard? A-n-d-r-o-m-e-d-a! 'Ow's that for the bloomin'

spellin' bee?"

But c.o.ke's humor made no appeal. The staring, brilliant eyes fixed on him did not relax their vigilance, nor did any trace of emotion exhibit itself in that calm voice.

"You are unlucky, Captain c.o.ke, most unlucky," it said. "I regret my natural mistake, which, it seems, was shared by the authorities of Fernando do Noronha. You have blundered into a nest of hornets, and, as a result, you have been badly stung. Let me explain matters. I am Dom Corria Antonio De Sylva, ex-President of the Republic of Brazil.