"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 Coke. Now that his fit of rage had passed, the bulky skipper of the Andromeda was red-faced and imperturbable as usual. The manifold perils he had passed 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 ship 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 ship in that manner?"
The speaker's cut-glass 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 pricked 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. Coke, 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 assumed 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 Coke found his breath.