"What would you have me say?" he cried, and his eyes blazed, while the scar on his forehead darkened with the gust of passion that swept over his strong features. "I might lie to you, and try to persuade you that we can exist here without food or water, whereas to-morrow, or next day at the utmost, will see most of us dead. But in a few hours you will realize what it means to be kept on this bare rock under a tropical sun. You can do one thing. Your party greatly outnumbers mine. Climb to the top-most pinnacle and signal to the island. You will soon be seen." He laughed with a savage irony that was not good to hear, but Coke caught at the suggestion. "Even that is better'n tearin' one another like mad dogs," he growled. "I know wot's comin'. I've seen it wonst." Hozier made for the exit, where Marcel stood, irresolute, apparently waiting for orders. "Where are you going?" demanded De Sylva. "To see what is becoming of the lifeboat." "Better not. You cannot help your friend, and the instant it becomes known to the troops that there is a living soul on the Grand-pere rock they will come in a steam launch and shoot everyone at sight." "Will that be the answer to our signal?" It was Iris who asked the question, and the Brazilian's voice softened again. "Yes," he said. "Why, then, do you advise us to seek our own destruction?" He bowed. His manner was almost humble. "It is the easier way," he murmured. "Is there no other?" "None--unless we attack two hundred soldiers with sticks, and stones, and three revolvers, and a sword." Hozier came back. He had merely stepped a pace or two into the sunlight. Through the northerly dip of the gulley he had seen the ship's boat whirled past an islet by the fierce current. Macfarlane was not visible. Perhaps that was better so. At any rate, the sight of the small craft vanishing behind one of the island barriers brought home with telling force the predicament of those who remained. Now that the sheer frenzy of the wreck had relaxed, Philip's head was like to split with the throbbing anguish of the blow he had received. But his mind was clearer. De Sylva's words, amplifying his own vague recollection of the scene on board the _Andromeda_, enabled him to construct a picture of events as they were. And his blood boiled when he thought of Iris, snatched many times from death, only to face it once more in the ravening form of starvation and thirst. "Attack!" he said hoarsely. "How is that possible? A deep and wide channel separates us from the main island." The Brazilian, who seemed to have argued himself into a state of stoic despair, gave a startling answer. "We have a boat, a sort of boat," he said quietly. "How many will it hold?" "Three, in a smooth sea, and with skilled handling. It nearly overturned when I and two others crossed from the island, a distance of three hundred yards."