That was approval enough for Phillips. He walked deliberately along the line of cisterns, turning on the taps as he went.
“Hold on a minute,” said Gorman. “We don’t want the stuff flowing over the Queen’s shoes. She must get into the boat.”
A few minutes later the water of the cave was entirely covered with petrol. The air was acrid with the smell of it. The Queen held her handkerchief to her nose.
“Let’s get out of this as quick as we can,” she said.
CHAPTER XIX
The next fortnight was something of a disappointment to Gorman. He admits that. He had made his choice between Ireland and Salissa. It certainly seemed as if he had chosen wrongly. I remember—everybody remembers—how exciting Irish affairs were during the latter half of July, 1914. The country was like a pot, full of water on the verge of boiling. Every day an event of some sort formed like a bubble far down in the depths of Irish life, rose rapidly, and burst on the surface with a little splash. The bubbles were large or small, sometimes no more than pinheads in size, but they were evidences that the boiling point was very near. The surface of the water, that region where governing persons and leaders of public opinion air themselves, was already agitated with odd-looking swirls, sudden swayings, unaccountable swellings, all very ominous of imminent turmoil.
There were landings of arms here and there, furiously denounced by the people who had run their own cargoes the week before or intended to run them the next week. There were hurried gatherings of committees which sat in private conclaves and then issued manifestos which nobody read. Minor officials were goaded into orgies of fussiness. Major officials, statesmen, escaped when they could, to the comparative calm of suffragette-haunted public meetings in England. A Buckingham Palace Conference set all sorts of people arguing about constitutional precedents. It was recognized on all sides that a settlement of the Irish question must somehow be reached. Gorman, if he had stayed at home, would have been in the thick of it all. It is perhaps wrong to say that he would have enjoyed himself thoroughly; but life would have been an interesting and exciting thing. Salissa remained provokingly dull and uneventful.
Gorman went to the cave again, on the day after he had first seen the tanks and run von Moll’s petrol to waste. He went by himself. The Queen and Phillips took no further interest in the mystery for the moment. They went off together early in the day and did not return until evening. Even Gorman could not blame them. It was their last day together. It was gloriously fine. The island, with its white cliffs, its golden-sanded coves, its vineyards, its pleasant, shaded groves, was a paradise for lovers. And the Ida—Captain Wilson insisted on that—sailed the next day, carrying Phillips away with her.