Wadakimba, viewing all this from afar, had scuttled off to his hut.  Later he had ventured back to the scene of the tragedy.  He had picked up Farquharson’s scorched helmet, which had been blown off to some distance, and he also exhibited a pair of binoculars washed down by the tide of lava, scarred and twisted by the heat, from which the lenses had melted away.

I translated for Miss Stanleigh briefly, while she stood turning over in her hands the twisted and blackened binoculars, which were still warm.  She heard me through without question or comment, and when I proposed that we get back to the Sylph at once, mindful of her aunt’s distressed nerves, she assented with a nod.  She seemed to have lost the power of speech.  In a daze she followed as I led the way back through the forest.

* * * * *

Major Stanleigh and his wife deferred their departure for England until their niece should be properly married to Joyce.  At Eleanor’s wish, it was a very simple affair, and as Joyce’s bride she was as eager to be off to his rubber-plantation in Malduna as he was to set her up there as mistress of his household.  I had agreed to give them passage on the Sylph, since the next sailing of the mail-boat would have necessitated a further fortnight’s delay.

Mrs. Stanleigh, with visions of seeing England again, and profoundly grateful to a benevolent Providence that had not only brought “this dreadful business of Eleanor’s” to a happy termination, but had averted Lakalatcha’s baptism of fire from descending upon her own head, thanked me profusely and a little tearfully.  It was during the general chorus of farewells at the last moment before the Sylph cast off.  Her last appeal, cried after us from the wharf where she stood frantically waving a wet handkerchief, was that I should give Muloa a wide berth.

It brought a laugh from Joyce.  He had discovered the good lady’s extreme perturbation in regard to Lakalatcha, and had promptly declared for spending a day there with his bride.  It was an exceptional opportunity to witness the volcano in its active mood.  Each time that Joyce had essayed this teasing pleasantry, which never failed to draw Mrs. Stanleigh’s protests, I observed that his wife remained silent.  I assumed that she had decided to keep her own counsel in regard to the trip she had made there.

“I’m trusting you not to take Eleanor near that dreadful island, Mr. Barnaby,” was the admonition shouted across the widening gap of water.

It was a quite unnecessary appeal, for Joyce, who was presently sitting with his wife in a sheltered quarter of the deck, had not the slightest interest in the smoking cone which was as yet a mere smudge upon the horizon.  Eleanor, with one hand in Joyce’s possession, at times watched it with a seemingly vast apathy until some ardent word from Joyce would draw her eyes back to his and she would lift to him a smile that was like a caress.  The look of weariness and balked purpose that had once marked her expression had vanished.  In the week since she had married Joyce she seemed to have grown younger and to be again standing on the very threshold of life with girlish eagerness.  She hung on Joyce’s every word, communing with him hour after hour, utterly content, indifferent to all the world about her.