[Illustration]

She ran to fetch a glowing stick to enable him to relight his pipe.

“Why do you give me such nasty little digs?” she asked.  “You need not have stopped smoking just because I stood close to you.”

“Really, Miss Deane—­”

“There, don’t protest.  I like the smell of that tobacco.  I thought sailors invariably smoked rank, black stuff which they call thick twist.”

“I am a beginner, as a sailor.  After a few more years before the mast I may hope to reach perfection.”

Their eyes exchanged a quaintly pleasant challenge.  Thus the man—­“She is determined to learn something of my past, but she will not succeed.”

And the woman—­“The wretch!  He is close as an oyster.  But I will make him open his mouth, see if I don’t.”

She reverted to the piece of tin.  “It looks quite mysterious, like the things you read of in stories of pirates and buried treasure.”

“Yes,” he admitted.  “It is unquestionably a plan, a guidance, given to a person not previously acquainted with the island but cognizant of some fact connected with it.  Unfortunately none of the buccaneers I can bring to mind frequented these seas.  The poor beggar who left it here must have had some other motive than searching for a cache.”

“Did he dig the cave and the well, I wonder?”

“Probably the former, but not the well.  No man could do it unaided.”

“Why do you assume he was alone?”

He strolled towards the fire to kick a stray log.  “It is only idle speculation at the best, Miss Deane,” he replied.  “Would you like to help me to drag some timber up from the beach?  If we get a few big planks we can build a fire that will last for hours.  We want some extra clothes, too, and it will soon be dark.”

The request for co-operation gratified her.  She complied eagerly, and without much exertion they hauled a respectable load of firewood to their new camping-ground.  They also brought a number of coats to serve as coverings.  Then Jenks tackled the lamp.  Between the rust and the soreness of his index finger it was a most difficult operation to open it.

Before the sun went down he succeeded, and made a wick by unraveling a few strands of wool from his jersey.  When night fell, with the suddenness of the tropics, Iris was able to illuminate her small domain.

They were both utterly tired and ready to drop with fatigue.  The girl said “Good night,” but instantly reappeared from behind the tarpaulin.

“Am I to keep the lamp alight?” she inquired.

“Please yourself, Miss Deane.  Better not, perhaps.  It will only burn four or five hours, any way.”

Soon the light vanished, and he lay down, his pipe between his teeth, close to the cave’s entrance.  Weary though he was, he could not sleep forthwith.  His mind was occupied with the signs on the canister head.

“32 divided by 1; an ‘X’ and a dot,” he repeated several times.  “What do they signify?”