When I have a few minutes to spare I will affix a legal notice on the wall in front of our cave." Playdon bowed silently.

There was something in the speaker's manner that puzzled him.

He detailed a small guard to accompany Robert and Iris, who now walked towards the beach, and asked Mir Jan to pilot him as suggested by Anstruther.
The boat was yet many yards from shore when Iris ran forward and stretched out her arms to the man who was staring at her with wistful despair.
"Father! Father!" she cried.

"Don't you know me ?" Sir Arthur Deane was looking at the two strange figures on the sands, and each moment his heart sank lower.

This island held his final hope.
During many weary weeks, since the day when a kindly Admiral placed the cruiser _Orient_ at his disposal, he had scoured the China Sea, the coasts of Borneo and Java, for some tidings of the ill-fated _Sirdar_.
He met naught save blank nothingness, the silence of the great ocean mausoleum.