“No, Iris, that was not the reason,” said her lover, and the older men felt that more than idle fancy inspired the astounding intelligence that they had just heard.  “Your love was more to me than all the gold in the world.  I had won you.  I meant to keep you, but I refused to buy you.”

He turned to her father.  His pent-up emotion mastered him, and he spoke as one who could no longer restrain his feelings.

“I have had no chance to thank you for the words you uttered at the moment we quitted the ship.  Yet I will treasure them while life lasts.  You gave Iris to me when I was poor, disgraced, an outcast from my family and my profession.  And I know why you did this thing.  It was because you valued her happiness more than riches or reputation.  I am sorry now I did not explain matters earlier.  It would have saved you much needless suffering.  But the sorrow has sped like an evil dream, and you will perhaps not regret it, for your action today binds me to you with hoops of steel.  And you, too, uncle.  You traveled thousands of miles to help and comfort me in my anguish.  Were I as bad as I was painted, your kind old heart still pitied me; you were prepared to pluck me from the depths of despair and degradation.  Why should I hate Lord Ventnor?  What man could have served me as he did?  He has given me Iris.  He gained for me at her father’s hands a concession such as mortal has seldom wrested from black-browed fate.  He brought my uncle to my side in the hour of my adversity.  Hate him!  I would have his statue carved in marble, and set on high to tell all who passed how good may spring out of evil—­how God’s wisdom can manifest itself by putting even the creeping and crawling things of the earth to some useful purpose.”

“Dash it all, lad,” vociferated the elder Anstruther, “what ails thee?  I never heard you talk like this before!”

The old gentleman’s amazement was so comical that further tension was out of the question.

Robert, in calmer mood, informed them of the manner in which he hit upon the mine.  The story sounded like wildest romance—­this finding of a volcanic dyke guarded by the bones of “J.S.” and the poison-filled quarry—­but the production of the ore samples changed wonder into certainty.

Next day a government metallurgist estimated the value of the contents of the two oil-tins at about L500, yet the specimens brought from the island were not by any means the richest available.

And now there is not much more to tell of Rainbow Island and its castaways.  On the day that Captain Robert Anstruther’s name appeared in the Gazette, reinstating him to his rank and regiment, Iris and he were married in the English Church at Hong Kong, for it was his wife’s wish that the place which witnessed his ignominy should also witness his triumph.

A good-natured admiral decided that the urgent requirements of the British Navy should bring H.M.S. Orient to the island before the date fixed for the ceremony.  Lieutenant Playdon officiated as best man, whilst the Orient was left so scandalously short-handed for many hours that a hostile vessel, at least twice her size, might have ventured to attack her.