The man looked at her steadily for a little while.  Then he moved the revolver out of harm’s way to a spot where she must see it instantly, pulled his sou’wester well over his eyes and walked off quietly.

They were flung ashore on the north-west side of the island.  Except for the cove formed by the coral reef, with its mysterious palm-tree growing apparently in the midst of the waves, the shape of the coast was roughly that of the concave side of a bow, the two visible extremities being about three-quarters of a mile apart.

He guessed, by the way in which the sea raced past these points, that the land did not extend beyond them.  Behind him, it rose steeply to a considerable height, 150 or 200 feet.  In the center was the tallest hill, which seemed to end abruptly towards the south-west.  On the north-east side it was connected with a rocky promontory by a ridge of easy grade.  The sailor turned to the south-west, as offering the most likely direction for rapid survey.

He followed the line of vegetation; there the ground was firm and level.  There was no suggestion of the mariner’s roll in his steady gait.  Alter his clothing, change the heavy boots into spurred Wellingtons, and he would be the beau ideal of a cavalry soldier, the order of Melchisedec in the profession of arms.

He was not surprised to find that the hill terminated in a sheer wall of rock, which stood out, ominous and massive, from the wealth of verdure clothing the remainder of the ridge.  Facing the precipice, and separated from it by a strip of ground not twenty feet above the sea-level in the highest part, was another rock-built eminence, quite bare of trees, blackened by the weather and scarred in a manner that attested the attacks of lightning.

He whistled softly.  “By Jove!” he said.  “Volcanic, and highly mineralized.”

The intervening belt was sparsely dotted with trees, casuarinas, poon, and other woods he did not know, resembling ebony and cedar.  A number of stumps showed that the axe had been at work, but not recently.  He passed into the cleft and climbed a tree that offered easy access.  As he expected, after rising a few feet from the ground, his eyes encountered the solemn blue line of the sea, not half a mile distant.

He descended and commenced a systematic search.  Men had been here.  Was there a house?  Would he suddenly encounter some hermit Malay or Chinaman?

At the foot of the main cliff was a cluster of fruit-bearing trees, plantains, areca-nuts, and cocoa-palms.  A couple of cinchonas caught his eye.  In one spot the undergrowth was rank and vividly green.  The cassava, or tapioca plant, reared its high, passion-flower leaves above the grass, and some sago-palms thrust aloft their thick-stemmed trunks.

“Here is a change of menu, at any rate,” he communed.

Breaking a thick branch off a poon tree he whittled away the minor stems.  A strong stick was needful to explore that leafy fastness thoroughly.