"May I ask who you are?"
"My name is Anstruther—Robert Anstruther."
Iris, clinging to his arm, heard the reply.
So he had abandoned all pretence. He was ready to face the world at her side. She stole a loving glance at him as she cried—
"Yes, Captain Anstruther, of the Indian Staff Corps. If he will not tell you all that he has done, how he has saved my life twenty times, how he has fought single-handed against eighty men, ask me!"
The naval officer did not need to look a second time at Iris's face to lengthen the list of Captain Anstruther's achievements, by one more item. He sighed. A good sailor always does sigh when a particularly pretty girl is labeled "Engaged."
But he could be very polite.
"Captain Anstruther does not appear to have left much for us to do, Miss Deane," he said. "Indeed," turning to Robert, "is there any way in which my men will be useful?"
"I would recommend that they drag the green stuff off that fire and stop the smoke. Then, a detachment should go round the north side of the island and drive the remaining Dyaks into the hands of the party you have landed, as I understand, at the further end of the south beach. Mir Jan, the Mahommedan here, who has been a most faithful ally during part of our siege, will act as guide."
The other man cast a comprehensive glance over the rock, with its scaling ladders and dangling rope-ladder, the cave, the little groups of dead or unconscious pirates—for every wounded man who could move a limb had crawled away after the first shell burst—and drew a deep breath.