be seven o'clock. Even
the companionship of the uncouth skipper was preferable to this
brooding solitariness.

When Hozier was relieved, and summoned to a meal in the saloon with
Norrie and some of the ship's own officers, Iris was nowhere visible.
He went straight to her cabin, and knocked.

"Who is it?" she asked.

"I, Philip. Will you be on deck in a quarter of an hour?"

"No."

"But this time _I_ want to tell _you_ something."

"Philip, dear, I am weary. I must rest--and--I dare not meet you."

"Dare not?"

"I am afraid of myself. Please leave me."

He caught the sob in her voice, and it unmanned him; he stalked off,
raging. He remembered how the fiend, in Gounod's incomparable opera,
whispered in the lover's ear: "Thou fool, wait for night and the moon!"
and he was wroth with himself for the memory. While off duty he kept
strict watch and ward over the gangway in which Iris's cabin was
situated. It was useless; she remained hidden.

The _Unser Fritz_ was now heading southwest, and "reeling off her ten
knots an hour like clockwork," as Norrie put it. The Recife, that
enormous barrier reef which blockades hundreds of miles of the
Brazilian coast, caused no anxiety to Coke. He was well acquainted
with these waters, and he held on stoutly until the occulting light of
Maceio showed low over the sea straight ahead. It was then after
midnight, and the land was still ten miles distant, but the ship
promptly resumed her role of lame duck, lest a prowling gunboat met and
interrogated her.

As Coke had told Iris she might expect to be ashore about two o'clock,
she waited until half-past one ere coming on deck. Despite her
unalterable decision to abide by the hideous compact entered into with
her uncle and Bulmer, her first thought now was to find Hozier. Though
the sky was radiant with stars, a slight haze on the surface of the sea
shrouded the ship's decks and passages in an uncanny darkness. Coke's
orders forbade the display of any lights whatsoever, except those in
the engine-room and the three essential lamps carried externally. So
the _Unser Fritz_ was gloomy, and the plash of the sea against her worn
plates had an ominous sound, while the glittering white eye of the
lighthouse winked evilly across the black plain in front.

In a word Iris was thoroughly wretched, and not a little disturbed by
the near prospect of landing in a foreign country, which would probably
be plunged into civil war b