The island, on which Diana proposed Uncle Marcus and the young men should be stranded for a while, rose straight from the sea: a barren rock. It would take three quarters of an hour to get there in the motor launch, and given a fine day it should prove a delightful expedition—“For those who like it,” said Watkins mournfully.
Diana undertook to make all the arrangements. She and John discussed the matter at length, and John would have been seen—if any one had looked—to shake his head every now and then during the discussion, and to raise a protesting hand; but protest as he would, Diana triumphed and her word was law—just as her will was his pleasure, which John was most careful to say when it was most evident her will was not his pleasure.
Uncle Marcus had suggested taking lunch with them, but Diana objected. She said they would get frightfully tired of the island, and as soon as they had seen what birds there might be just out of the shell, and what birds there might be not quite out of the shell, they would long to go home. Again Diana had her way.
They landed on the island: Diana climbing up ahead of them all and calling first to one, then to another to come and look here—and there. She pointed out evidence of original sin as presented by the sight of a little bird still attached to its shell, who was ready to fight for the rocky inheritance that was his by at least the right of priority. The men were interested. Everything in the nature of uncultivated land, be it rock or otherwise, suggested interesting problems to St. Jermyn, and at his fingers’ ends he had statistics as to how many herrings were eaten per day per gull. That opened up the “Fisheries” question, an important one.
Marcus was perfectly ready to discuss any question with St. Jermyn; but he wanted first of all to take a photograph of a particular gull, who at all events up to this moment had not deprived the poor man of a single herring. “Just wait,” he said, “one moment!”
Marcus found St. Jermyn very interesting: and exactly the kind of man he would like Diana to marry if she must marry, but he did not see the necessity. Hastings, too, was, of course, very attractive, for even to Marcus a certain length of limb and an amazing amount of virility in a young man were attractive. As to many middle-aged men youth strongly appealed to him, and it was only because of Diana that he made the smallest attempt to withstand Hastings. Having only just discovered her, as it were, he did not see why he should give her up to the first man who happened to fall in love with her.
When all the men were deeply engaged with the birds on the island, Diana took the opportunity to slip away, back to the landing-place where John awaited her orders. “Now, John,” she said; and John drew from his capacious pockets various things, among them a flask, a bottle, and a parcel. “Just inside the cave, John, there!” Diana pointed to the cave, and John climbed up the rock and put the things inside the cave. Diana followed him, and at the mouth of the cave she built a cairn of stones, and under the top stone she placed a slip of paper; then telling John to be quick she left the place as quickly as she had come and sliding down the rock called to him to slide softly: but John was heavier than Diana and slid less gracefully, and little stones came rattling down with him.
“They’ll no be hearin’ them,” said John.
Diana dropped into the boat where Tooke was biding his time, and hers. She told him to slip off quietly, and he assured her that what noise the boat would make would be drowned by the sound of the wind which was rising. John screwed up his eyes, looked out to sea, and predicted a “storrrm.” Diana was afraid they might not escape unseen, and she looked anxiously to the quickly receding island; but John said the gentlemen would be so busy in taking the little birds that they would not be looking.
“Not taking them, John; that would be horribly cruel!”