Still
unable to concentrate her thoughts on more than one topic, and that to
the exclusion of all else, she asked the time. He told her. He
awaited some expression of surprise on her part, provided it were,
indeed, true that only twenty-five minutes had sped since the
_Andromeda_ was quietly preparing to drop anchor off South Point. But
she received his news without comment. She would have been equally
undisturbed if told it was midnight, and that the vessel had gone
ashore on the coast of China.
Just then the track turned sharply away from the sea. A dry
water-course cut deeply into the cliff where torrential rains had found
an upright layer of soft scoria imbedded in the mass of basalt. Their
guide was standing on the sky-line of the cleft, some forty feet above
them.
"Tell the others to make haste," he said. "This is the end of your
journey."
It did not strike either Hozier or the girl as being specially
remarkable that a man should meet them in this extraordinary place and
address them in good English. Iris, at any rate, gave no heed to this
most amazing fact. She merely observed for the first time that the
elderly stranger, while dressed in a beggar's rags, assumed an air of
command that was almost ludicrous.
"Who is he?" she asked, being rather breathless now after a steep climb.
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