ad deviated with a sharpness that was not to be brought
back into parallel grooves simply because he had traveled many thousands
of miles to find her.

So Dickey contented himself by listening to Coke's Homeric account of the
_Andromeda's_ wrecking, and if he interposed an occasional question, and
thus drew the girl's sweet voice into the talk, it was invariably germane
to the strange history of the ship and her human freight.

Coke's narrative was picturesque and lurid. At times, he called himself
to order; at times, both Iris and Carmela affected not to have heard him.
But Carmela's interest never flagged. Nor did Bulmer's. As the yarn
progressed--for Watts and Schmidt and Norrie had joined them, and the
whole party was seated in an inner room where an impromptu meal was
provided--both the woman of Brazil and the man of Lancashire seized on
the same unspoken _motif_. Every incident centered in the striking
personality of Philip Hozier. From the instant the second shell struck
the winch, and laid him apparently dead on the forecastle, to the very
hour of this coming together at Las Flores, Hozier held the stage. It
was he who took Iris on his shoulders and brought her to safety through
the spume of the wrathful sea, he who carried her to the hut, he who
crossed Fernando Noronha alone to protect her.

Coke was impartial. He would have minimized his own singular bravery in
running up the ship's signals had not Iris given him a breathing-space
while she enthralled the others with her description. Otherwise, Coke
skipped no line of his epic.

"You'll rec'lect," he wheezed, in a voice that rasped like a file,
"you'll rec'lect, Mr. Verity, as I said to you that Hozier was good
enough to take charge of the bridge of a battleship. By--well, any 'ow,
if I'd said the Channel Fleet I shouldn't 'ave bin talkin' through me
'at. Look at 'im now. 'E's the on'y reel live man Dom Wot's-'is-name
'as got. Sink me! if it wasn't for the folks at 'ome, an' the fac' that
the _Andromeeda's_ skipper ought to keep clear of politics in this
crimson country, I'd 'ave a cut in at the game meself."

It might be hoped that Carmela's mood would soften when she discovered
her rival's hapless love, but that would be expecting something which her
bursting southern heart could not give. A volcano pours forth lava, not
water. It scorches, not heals. Iris, willing or not, had sapped her
Salvador's allegiance. Carmela wanted to see those