Coke bent over him.
"If your tongue don't stop waggin' it'll soon be stickin' out between yer teeth," he hissed. "This ain't no fancy lock-up in the East Injia Dock Road, Arthur, me boy. They won't bring you a pint of cocoa 'ere, an' ax if you're comfortable. You 'aven't long to live accordin' to all accounts, so just close your mouth an' open your ears, an' mebbe you'll know w'y."
De Sylva regained his self-possession with a rapidity that was significant. He had not climbed to the presidential chair of the Republic from a clerkship in the London Embassy of the Empire without acquiring the habit of estimating his fellow men speedily and accurately. Here was one who might be led, but would never permit himself to be driven. Moreover, this dethroned ruler was by way of being a philosopher.
"I hate drunkards," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "You cannot trust them. If I had been surrounded by trustworthy men, I should not——"
He broke off. There was a sound of hurrying footsteps on the steep pathway. A figure, clad in rags that surpassed even De Sylva's, appeared in the entrance. A brief colloquy took place. De Sylva's eager questions were answered in monosyllables, or the nearest approach thereto.
"Marcel tells me that one of your boats is drifting away with a man lying in the bottom," came the uneasy explanation.
Coke's face showed a degree of surprise, which, in his case, was almost invariably akin to disbelief, but an exclamation from Hozier drew all eyes.
"Good Lord!" he cried, "that must be the lifeboat I was trying to clear when the ship struck. Macfarlane was helping me, but he was hit by a bullet and dropped across the thwarts. I thought he was dead!"
"Dead or alive, he is better off than we," said De Sylva. He questioned Marcel again briefly. "There can be no doubt that the man in the boat cast off the lashings when he found that the ship was sinking," he continued in English. "Marcel saw him doing that, and wondered why he was alone. At any rate, if he is carried beyond the reef, he has a fighting chance. We have none."
"Why not? Are these men on the island so deaf to human sympathies that they would murder all of us in cold blood?"