‘Silence!’ roared Finn, putting the whole of his slender stock of vitality as one should suppose into his shout. ‘What d’ye want? to scare all hands by jawing? My lady, there’s nothen to be afraid of. It blew strong last night arter the yacht had stranded; but this island wasn’t swept or we shouldn’t be here.’
I met my sweetheart’s frightened eyes, and to change the subject asked Lady Monson if she had reached the shore unaided.
‘No,’ she answered. ‘I owe my life to the sailor who is with that big seaman down there,’ meaning Dowling. ‘I am unable to explain. I was unconscious before I left the yacht.’
‘Her ladyship was washed overboard,’ said Finn. ‘Dowling, who was swimming, got one of his hands foul of your hair, my lady. He kept hold, towed your ladyship as the swell ran him forrads, felt ground, and hauled ye ashore. He behaved well.’
‘My poor maid is drowned!’ cried Laura.
‘Too many, miss, too many! Oh, my God, too many!’ muttered poor Finn.
Meanwhile my eye had been resting incuriously upon the singular lump of rock that stood apparently poised on the highest slope in the very centre of the island. On a sudden I started to a perception that for the instant I deemed purely fanciful. The block of stuff was distant from where we were eating our breakfast some two hundred and eighty to three hundred yards. The complexion of it whilst the sky was in shadow had so much of the meerschaum-like tint of the island that one easily took it to be a mass of lava identical with the rest of the volcanic creation; but the sun was now pouring his brilliant white fires upon it, and I noticed a deal of sparkling in it as though it were coated with salt or studded with flints of crystal, whilst the bed in which it lay and the slope round about were of a dead, unreflecting pale yellow. My fixed regard attracted the attention of the others.
One of the two seamen looked and called out, ‘That ain’t a part of the island, sir.’
‘What form does it take to your fancy?’ I asked, addressing my companions generally.