“Without me?�
“Without you I go nowhere.�
She looked at me with shining eyes.
“Come,� said I, “let us go into the outer room. We may find out something.�
I had wound my watch in the dark and looked at it now as we came into the light. It was three bells in the morning watch, or about half after nine. We went past the altar with its grim bony circle of attendants, and stared through the entrance. There was an open space at the foot of the cliff forty or fifty yards wide perhaps before the jungle began. After looking some time and seeing nothing I foolishly—and yet it would have made no difference in the end—stepped out upon the shelf which made a sort of platform in front of the cave and Mistress Lucy fearlessly came with me.
We had scarcely appeared in view when to our astounded surprise we heard the report of a firearm and a heavy bullet struck the coral wall just over our heads. I had just time to mark the spot whence it came, by the betraying smoke, as I leaped back into the shelter carrying my precious charge before me. I was puzzled beyond measure. I was certain that the savages in these parts of the South Seas knew nothing about firearms and I could not account for it. The shower of arrows and spears that now came through the opening and fell harmlessly on the sand I could easily account for, but not that shot. What could it mean? I felt that I could hold my own against savages without difficulty, but if there were European enemies there the case was different.
“That,� said I solemnly, “was a narrow escape.�
“Do these islanders have firearms?� she asked, the same thought in her mind.
“I never heard of it,� I replied. “I cannot account for it.�
“I can, though,� she said; “just before the discharge of that gun I caught sight of a man in clothes such as you wear. Is it possible that it could be one from The Rose of Devon?�