The Wings of the Morning Part 49

"Well, I am helpless. I cannot even squeeze you. By the way, Iris, during the next few days say nothing about our mine."

"Oh, why not?"

"Just a personal whim. It will please me."

"If it pleases you, Robert, I am satisfied."

He pressed her arm by way of answer. They were too near to the waiting trio for other comment.

"Captain Fitzroy," cried Iris, "let me introduce Mr. Anstruther to you.

Lord Ventnor, you have met Mr. Anstruther before."

The sailor shook hands. Lord Ventnor smiled affably.

"Your enforced residence on the island seems to have agreed with you,"

he said.

"Admirably. Life here had its drawbacks, but we fought our enemies in the open. Didn't we, Iris?"

"Yes, dear. The poor Dyaks were not sufficiently modernized to attack us with false testimony."

His lordship's sallow face wrinkled somewhat. So Iris knew of the court-martial, nor was she afraid to proclaim to all the world that this man was her lover. As for Captain Fitzroy, his bushy eyebrows disappeared into his peaked cap when he heard the manner of their speech.

Nevertheless Ventnor smiled again.

"Even the Dyaks respected Miss Deane," he said.

But Anstruther, sorry for the manifest uneasiness of the shipowner, repressed the retort on his lips, and forthwith suggested that they should walk to the north beach in the first instance, that being the scene of the wreck.

During the next hour he became auditor rather than narrator. It was Iris who told of his wild fight against wind and waves, Iris who showed them where he fought with the devil-fish, Iris who expatiated on the long days of ceaseless toil, his dauntless courage in the face of every difficulty, the way in which he rescued her from the clutch of the savages, the skill of his preparations against the antic.i.p.ated attack, and the last great achievement of all, when, time after time, he foiled the Dyaks' best-laid plans, and flung them off, crippled and disheartened, during the many phases of the thirty hours' battle.

She had an attentive audience. Most of the _Orient's_ officers quietly came up and followed the girl's glowing recital with breathless interest. Robert vainly endeavored more than once to laugh away her thrilling eulogy. But she would have none of it. Her heart was in her words. He deserved this tribute of praise, unstinted, unmeasured, abundant in its simple truth, yet sounding like a legend spun by some romantic poet, were not the grim evidences of its accuracy visible on every hand.

She was so volubly clear, so precise in fact, so subtle in her clever delineations of humorous or tragic events, that her father was astounded, and even Anstruther silently admitted that a man might live until he equaled the years of a Biblical patriarch without discovering all the resources of a woman.

There were tears in her eyes when she ended; but they were tears of thankful happiness, and Lord Ventnor, a silent listener who missed neither word nor look, felt a deeper chill in his cold heart as he realized that this woman's love could never be his. The knowledge excited his pa.s.sion the more. His hatred of Anstruther now became a mania, an insensate resolve to mortally stab this meddler who always stood in his path.

Robert hoped that his present ordeal was over. It had only begun. He was called on to answer questions without number. Why had the tunnel been made? What was the mystery of the Valley of Death? How did he manage to guess the dimensions of the sun-dial? How came he to acquire such an amazing stock of out-of-the-way knowledge of the edible properties of roots and trees? How? Why? Where? When? They never would be satisfied, for not even the British navypoking its nose into the recesses of the world--often comes across such an amazing story as the adventures of this couple on Rainbow Island.

He readily explained the creation of quarry and cave by telling them of the vein of antimony embedded in the rock near the fault. Antimony is one of the substances that covers a mult.i.tude of doubts. No one, not excepting the doctors who use it, knows much about it, and in Chinese medicine it might be a chief factor of exceeding nastiness.

Inside the cavern, the existence of the partially completed shaft to the ledge accounted for recent disturbances on the face of the rock, and new-comers could not, of course, distinguish the bones of poor "J.S." as being the remains of a European.

Anstruther was satisfied that none of them hazarded the remotest guess as to the value of the gaunt rock they were staring at, and chance helped him to baffle further inquiry.

A trumpeter on board the _Orient_ was blowing his lungs out to summon them to luncheon, when Captain Fitzroy put a final query.

"I can quite understand," he said to Robert, "that you have an affection for this weird place."

"I should think so indeed," muttered the stout midshipman, glancing at Iris.

"But I am curious to know," continued the commander, "why you lay claim to the island? You can hardly intend to return here."

He pointed to Robert's placard stuck on the rock.

Anstruther paused before he answered. He felt that Lord Ventnor's dark eyes were fixed on him. Everybody was more or less desirous to have this point cleared up. He looked the questioner squarely in the face.

"In some parts of the world," he said, "there are sunken reefs, unknown, uncharted, on which many a vessel has been lost without any contributory fault on the part of her officers?"

"Undoubtedly."

"Well, Captain Fitzroy, when I was stationed with my regiment in Hong Kong I encountered such a reef, and wrecked my life on it. At least, that is how it seemed to me then. Fortune threw me ash.o.r.e here, after a long and bitter submergence. You can hardly blame me if I cling to the tiny speck of land that gave me salvation."

"No," admitted the sailor. He knew there was something more in the allegory than the text revealed, but it was no business of his.

"Moreover," continued Robert smilingly, "you see I have a partner."

"There cannot be the slightest doubt about the partner," was the prompt reply.

Then every one laughed, Iris more than any, though Sir Arthur Deane's gaiety was forced, and Lord Ventnor could taste the acidity of his own smile.

Later in the day the first lieutenant told his chief of Anstruther's voluntary statement concerning the court-martial. Captain Fitzroy was naturally pained by this unpleasant revelation, but he took exactly the same view as that expressed by the first lieutenant in Robert's presence.

Nevertheless he pondered the matter, and seized an early opportunity of mentioning it to Lord Ventnor. That distinguished n.o.bleman was vastly surprised to learn how Anstruther had cut the ground from beneath his feet.

"Yes," he said, in reply to the sailor's request for information, "I know all about it. It could not well be otherwise, seeing that next to Mrs. Costobell I was the princ.i.p.al witness against him."

"That must have been d----d awkward for you," was the unexpected comment.

"Indeed! Why?"

"Because rumor linked your name with that of the lady in a somewhat outspoken way."

"You astonish me. Anstruther certainly made some stupid allegations during the trial; but I had no idea he was able to spread this malicious report subsequently."

"I am not talking of Hong Kong, my lord, but of Singapore, months later."

Captain Fitzroy's tone was exceedingly dry. Indeed, some people might deem it offensive.

His lordship permitted himself the rare luxury of an angry scowl.

"Rumor is a lying jade at the best," he said curtly. "You must remember, Captain Fitzroy, that I have uttered no word of scandal about Mr. Anstruther, and any doubts concerning his conduct can be set at rest by perusing the records of his case in the Adjutant-General's office at Hong Kong."

"Hum!" said the sailor, turning on his heel to enter the chart-room.

This was no way to treat a real live lord, a personage of some political importance, too, such as the Special Envoy to w.a.n.g Hai.

Evidently, Iris was no mean advocate. She had already won for the "outcast" the suffrages of the entire ship's company.

The girl and her father went back to the island with Robert. After taking thought, the latter decided to ask Mir Jan to remain in possession until he returned. There was not much risk of another Dyak invasion. The fate of Taung S'Ali's expedition would not encourage a fresh set of marauders, and the Mahommedan would be well armed to meet unforeseen contingencies, whilst on his, Anstruther's, representations the _Orient_ would land an abundance of stores. In any event, it was better for the native to live in freedom on Rainbow Island than to be handed over to the authorities as an escaped convict, which must be his immediate fate no matter what magnanimous view the Government of India might afterwards take of his services.