The speaker's cut-glass style of English left his hearers in no doubt as to what he had said. During the tense silence that reigned for a few seconds even some among the crew pricked their ears, while Hozier and Iris forgot other troubles in their new bewilderment. There were reasons why the drift of the stranger's words should be laid deeply to heart by three people present. Coke, at any rate, found himself nearer a state of pallid nervousness than ever before in the course of a variegated life. It was impossible that he should actually grow pale, but his brick-red features assumed a purple tint, and his fiery little eyes glinted. "Wot are you a-drivin' at, mister?" he growled at last, after trying vainly to expectorate and compromising the effort in a husky gargle. "Do you deny, then, that you acted like a madman? Do you say that you did not know quite well the risk you ran in bringing your vessel to the island in broad daylight?" Then Coke found his breath. "Risk!" he roared. "Risk in steamin' to an anchorage an' sendin' a boat ashore for water? There seems to be a lot of mad folk loose just now on Fernando Noronha, but I'm not one of 'em, an' that's as much as I can say for enny of you--damme if it ain't." Evidently the Portuguese was not accustomed to the direct form of conversation in vogue among British master mariners. He bent his piercing gaze on Coke's angry if somewhat flustered countenance, and there was a perceptible stiffening of voice and manner when he said: "Who are you, then? Who sent you here?" "I'm Captain James Coke, of the British ship _Andromeda_, that's 'oo _I_ am, an' I was sent 'ere, or leastways to the River Plate, by David Verity an' Co., of Liverpool." It must not be forgotten that Coke shared with his employer a certain unclassical freedom in the pronunciation of the ship's name; the long "e" apparently puzzled the other man. "_Andromeeda_?" he muttered. "Spell it!" "My godfather, this is an asylum for sure," grunted Coke, in a spasm of furious mirth. "A-n-d-r-o-m-e-d-a. Now you've got it. Ain't it up to Portygee standard? A-n-d-r-o-m-e-d-a! 'Ow's that for the bloomin' spellin' bee?" But Coke's humor made no appeal. The staring, brilliant eyes fixed on him did not relax their vigilance, nor did any trace of emotion exhibit itself in that calm voice.