She had brought two white men with her.
"Could he describe them?"
He pretended to limp. Evidently one was Hamilton, the lame Englishman, and the other, from his description, might have been Hopkins.
"Are there any white men prisoners on the island?" It was Cummins who asked this, and he, in fact, had asked most of the questions since he had come down to the cabin, Captain Helston almost unconsciously giving way to him.
"No prisoners, only engineers and soldiers. One white man in charge of the forts, two others in charge of all the ships' engines.
"They keep no white men prisoners. If they find one aboard a captured steamer they send him to the mainland in a junk."
"Are there any white women on the island?"
"No. Once there were two, but he thinks the white men began to quarrel amongst themselves, so they sent them away very quickly."
"No chance of winning a wife here, sir," added Cummins, chuckling.
"I'm not so certain about that," replied Helston, the hard lines on his careworn face softening.