“’Her Angel’s face
  As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright,
  And made a sunshine in the shady place.’

“Those lines are surely appropriate.  They come from the Faerie Queene.”

“They are very nice, but please wash quickly.  The eggs will be hard.”

“Eggs!”

“Yes; I made a collection among the trees.  I tasted one of a lot that looked good.  It was first-rate.”

He had not the moral courage to begin the day with a rebuke.  She was irrepressible, but she really must not do these things.  He smothered a sigh in the improvised basin which was placed ready for him.

Miss Deane had prepared a capital meal.  Of course the ham and biscuits still bulked large in the bill of fare, but there were boiled eggs, fried bananas and an elderly cocoanut.  These things, supplemented by clear cold water, were not so bad for a couple of castaways, hundreds of miles from everywhere.

For the life of him the man could not refrain from displaying the conversational art in which he excelled.  Their talk dealt with Italy, Egypt, India.  He spoke with the ease of culture and enthusiasm.  Once he slipped into anecdote a propos of the helplessness of British soldiers in any matter outside the scope of the King’s Regulations.

“I remember,” he said, “seeing a cavalry subaltern and the members of an escort sitting, half starved, on a number of bags piled up in the Suakin desert.  And what do you think were in the bags?”

“I don’t know,” said Iris, keenly alert for deductions.

“Biscuits!  They thought the bags contained patent fodder until I enlightened them.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to pounce on him with the comment:  “Then you have been an officer in the army.”  But she forbore.  She had guessed this earlier.  Yet the mischievous light in her eyes defied control.  He was warned in time and pulled himself up short.

“You read my face like a book,” she cried, with a delightful little moue.

“No printed page was ever so—­legible.”

He was going to say “fascinating,” but checked the impulse.  He went on with brisk affectation—­

“Now, Miss Deane, we have gossiped too long.  I am a laggard this morning; but before starting work, I have a few serious remarks to make.”

“More digs?” she inquired saucily.

“I repudiate ‘digs.’  In the first place, you must not make any more experiments in the matter of food.  The eggs were a wonderful effort, but, flattered by success, you may poison yourself.”

“Secondly?”

“You must never pass out of my sight without carrying a revolver, not so much for defence, but as a signal.  Did you take one when you went bird’s-nesting?”

“No.  Why?”

There was a troubled look in his eyes when he answered—­

“It is best to tell you at once that before help reaches us we may be visited by cruel and blood-thirsty savages.  I would not even mention this if it were a remote contingency.  As matters stand, you ought to know that such a thing may happen.  Let us trust in God’s goodness that assistance may come soon.  The island has seemingly been deserted for many months, and therein lies our best chance of escape.  But I am obliged to warn you lest you should be taken unawares.”