avern were to remain
endurable they might not smoke. So pipes were extinguished, and they
tried to better their condition. Water-soaked coats and boots placed
in the sun were dry in a few minutes. Iris was persuaded to allow her
dress to be treated in this manner. She was still wearing the heavy
ulster of the early morning--when the aftermath of the gale was chill
and searching--and the possession of this outer wrap made easy the
temporary discarding of a skirt and blouse.

Unhappily, she answered in French some simple query of the dapper
officer's. Thenceforth, to her great bewilderment and Hozier's
manifest annoyance, he pestered her with compliments and inquiries. To
avoid both, she expressed a longing for sleep. It seemed to her
excited imagination that she would never be able to sleep again, yet
her limbs were scarcely composed in comfort on a litter of coarse grass
and parched seaweed than her eyes closed in the drowsiness of sheer
exhaustion. This respite was altogether helpful. She had slept but
little during the gale, and its tremendous climax had surprised her
vitality at a low ebb.

When she awoke, the ravine was in shadow and the interior of the cave
was dark. Her first conscious sensation was that of almost intolerable
thirst. Her lips were blistered, her tongue and palate sore, and she
asked herself in alarm what new evil was afflicting her, until she
remembered the drenching she had received and the amount of salt-laden
air that had passed into her lungs. Nevertheless, she cried
involuntarily for water, and again she was offered wine. She managed
to smile in a strained fashion at this malicious humor of fortune. By
a freak of memory she called to mind the somewhat similar predicament
of the crew of a storm-tossed ship that she had once read about. They
ran short of water, but the vessel carried hundreds of cases of bottled
stout. During three long weeks of boating against the wind those
wretched men were compelled to drink stout morning, noon, and night,
and never did temperance argument apply with greater force to the
seafaring community than toward the end of that enforced regimen of
malt liquor.

Hozier, who had aroused her by touching her shoulder, fancied he saw
the gleam of merriment in her face.

"What is amusing you?" he asked.

She told him, though she spoke with difficulty.

"It is not quite so bad as that," he said. "If there is no hitch in
our plans, we should be on th