A dog barked—Marcel whistled softly, and the animal began to whimper. The Brazilian vanished. Hozier still held Iris in his arms; his heart was beating tumultuously; his throat ached with the labor of his lungs. His straining ears caught rustlings among the grass and roots, but otherwise a solemn peace brooded over the scene. Just beyond the hut, which was shielded from the arid hill by a grove of curiously contorted trees, the inner heights of the island rose abruptly. Something that resembled a column of cloud showed behind the rugged sky-line of the land. Even while he waited there, he saw a glint of light on its eastern side. He fancied that under stress of emotion and physical weakness his eyes were deceiving him; but the line of golden fire grew brighter and more definite. It was broken but unwavering, and black shadows began to take form as part of this phenomenon. Then he remembered the giant peak of Fernando Noronha, that mis-shapen mass which thrusts its amazing beacon a thousand feet into the air. The rising moon was gilding El Pico long ere its rays would illumine the lower land—that was all—yet he hailed the sight as a token of deliverance. It was not by idle chance that that which he had taken for a cloud should be transmuted into a torch; there sprang into his heated brain a new trust. He recalled the unceasing vigilance of One All-Powerful, who, ages ago, when His people were afflicted, "went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light."
Then Marcel came, and aroused him from the stupor that had settled on him, and together they entered into the hovel, where a dark-skinned woman and a comely girl uttered words of sympathetic sound when Iris was laid on a low trestle, and Hozier took a farewell kiss from her unheeding lips.
The Englishman stumbled away with his guide; he fancied that Marcel warned him several times to be more circumspect. He did his best, but, for the time, he was utterly spent. At last the Brazilian signified that they were near a trysting place. He uttered a cry like a night-jar's, and the answer came from no great distance. Soon they encountered Coke and De Sylva, who were awaiting them anxiously, and wondering, no doubt, why Hozier was missing, since Domingo and Marcel had fixed on an aged fig-tree as a rendezvous, and Hozier was not to be found anywhere near it.
The two boatmen hurried away, and De Sylva placed his lips close to Philip's ear.
"What went wrong?" he asked.
"Iris—Miss Yorke—fainted," was the gasping reply.
"Ah. You had to carry her?"
"Yes."
De Sylva fumbled in a pocket. He produced a flask.
"Here is some brandy. I kept it for just such an extremity. We cannot have you breaking down. Drink!"