So Dickey contented himself by listening to Coke's Homeric account of the _Andromeda's_ wrecking, and if he interposed an occasional question, and thus drew the girl's sweet voice into the talk, it was invariably germane to the strange history of the ship and her human freight.
Coke's narrative was picturesque and lurid. At times, he called himself to order; at times, both Iris and Carmela affected not to have heard him. But Carmela's interest never flagged. Nor did Bulmer's. As the yarn progressed--for Watts and Schmidt and Norrie had joined them, and the whole party was seated in an inner room where an impromptu meal was provided--both the woman of Brazil and the man of Lancashire seized on the same unspoken _motif_. Every incident centered in the striking personality of Philip Hozier. From the instant the second shell struck the winch, and laid him apparently dead on the forecastle, to the very hour of this coming together at Las Flores, Hozier held the stage. It was he who took Iris on his shoulders and brought her to safety through the spume of the wrathful sea, he who carried her to the hut, he who crossed Fernando Noronha alone to protect her.
Coke was impartial. He would have minimized his own singular bravery in running up the ship's signals had not Iris given him a breathing-space while she enthralled the others with her description. Otherwise, Coke skipped no line of his epic.
"You'll rec'lect," he wheezed, in a voice that rasped like a file, "you'll rec'lect, Mr. Verity, as I said to you that Hozier was good enough to take charge of the bridge of a battleship. By--well, any 'ow, if I'd said the Channel Fleet I shouldn't 'ave bin talkin' through me 'at. Look at 'im now. 'E's the on'y reel live man Dom Wot's-'is-name 'as got. Sink me! if it wasn't for the folks at 'ome, an' the fac' that the _Andromeeda's_ skipper ought to keep clear of politics in this crimson country, I'd 'ave a cut in at the game meself."
It might be hoped that Carmela's mood would soften when she discovered her rival's hapless love, but that would be expecting something which her bursting southern heart could not give. A volcano pours forth lava, not water. It scorches, not heals. Iris, willing or not, had sapped her Salvador's allegiance. Carmela wanted to see those curved lips writhing in pain, those brown eyes dimmed, that smooth brow wrung with the grief that knows no remedy.