Part 30 (1/2)

When Hozier was relieved, and summoned to a meal in the saloon with Norrie and some of the s.h.i.+p's own officers, Iris was nowhere visible.

He went straight to her cabin, and knocked.

”Who is it?” she asked.

”I, Philip. Will you be on deck in a quarter of an hour?”

”No.”

”But this time _I_ want to tell _you_ something.”

”Philip, dear, I am weary. I must rest--and--I dare not meet you.”

”Dare not?”

”I am afraid of myself. Please leave me.”

He caught the sob in her voice, and it unmanned him; he stalked off, raging. He remembered how the fiend, in Gounod's incomparable opera, whispered in the lover's ear: ”Thou fool, wait for night and the moon!”

and he was wroth with himself for the memory. While off duty he kept strict watch and ward over the gangway in which Iris's cabin was situated. It was useless; she remained hidden.

The _Unser Fritz_ was now heading southwest, and ”reeling off her ten knots an hour like clockwork,” as Norrie put it. The Recife, that enormous barrier reef which blockades hundreds of miles of the Brazilian coast, caused no anxiety to c.o.ke. He was well acquainted with these waters, and he held on stoutly until the occulting light of Maceio showed low over the sea straight ahead. It was then after midnight, and the land was still ten miles distant, but the s.h.i.+p promptly resumed her role of lame duck, lest a prowling gunboat met and interrogated her.

As c.o.ke had told Iris she might expect to be ash.o.r.e about two o'clock, she waited until half-past one ere coming on deck. Despite her unalterable decision to abide by the hideous compact entered into with her uncle and Bulmer, her first thought now was to find Hozier. Though the sky was radiant with stars, a slight haze on the surface of the sea shrouded the s.h.i.+p's decks and pa.s.sages in an uncanny darkness. c.o.ke's orders forbade the display of any lights whatsoever, except those in the engine-room and the three essential lamps carried externally. So the _Unser Fritz_ was gloomy, and the plash of the sea against her worn plates had an ominous sound, while the glittering white eye of the lighthouse winked evilly across the black plain in front.

In a word Iris was thoroughly wretched, and not a little disturbed by the near prospect of landing in a foreign country, which would probably be plunged into civil war by the mere advent of De Sylva. It need hardly be said that, under these circ.u.mstances, Hozier was the one man in whose company she would feel reasonably safe. But she could not see him anywhere. c.o.ke and Watts, with the Brazilians and a couple of Germans, were on the bridge, but Hozier was not to be found.

At last she hailed one of the _Andromeda's_ men whom she met in a gangway.

”Mr. Hozier, miss?” said he. ”Oh, he's forrard, right up in the bows, keepin' a lookout. This is a ticklish place to enter without a pilot, an' we've pa.s.sed two already.”

This information added to her distress. She ought not to go to him.

Full well she knew that her presence might distract him from an all-important task. So she sat forlornly on the fore-hatch, waiting there until he might leave his post, reviewing all the bizarre procession of events since she climbed an elm-tree in the garden of Linden House on a Sunday afternoon now so remote that it seemed to be the very beginning of life. The adventures to which that elm-tree conducted her were oddly reminiscent of the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. For once, the true had outrivaled the fabulous.

The steamer crept on lazily, and Iris fancied the hour must be nearer five o'clock than two when she heard Hozier's voice ring out clearly:

”Buoy on the port bow!”

There was a movement among the dim figures on the bridge. A minute later Hozier cried again:

”Buoy on the starboard bow!”

She understood then that they were in a marked channel. Already the road was narrowing. Soon they would be ash.o.r.e. At last Hozier came.

He saw her as he jumped down from the forecastle deck.

”Why are you here, Iris?” was all he said. She looked so bowed, so humbled, that he could not find it in his heart to reproach her for having avoided him earlier.

”I wanted to be near you,” she whispered. ”I--I am frightened, Philip.