For me in that moment the world seemed to end. I had plucked this girl from a placid, unruffled existence and plunged her into a vortex of adventure. Was she to leave her life, laid down for mine, in this desolate island while I, the author of all the mischief, was to escape unharmed?  
Lawless was at Clubfoot's throat, worrying him like a terrier with a rat. Then, of a sudden, Carstairs and Mackay were there, twisting together with a leathern thong those great hairy wrists, one of which dripped blood. I stood helpless, watching, as in a dream, Garth raise up his daughter and rock her still form in his arms. In her right hand she still clasped my automatic with which she had saved my life.
 
There was a shrill cry from the entrance of the hollow. With skirts flying Yvonne, Marjorie's French maid, darted in. "O, ma chérie! Ma chérie!" she moaned as with tears rolling down her face, she dropped to her knees by the girl's side. Now Garth was holding a flask to his daughter's lips. Presently to my unspeakable relief, she stirred slightly, then opened her eyes.
 
"I'm all right," she murmured, "quite all right really! Ah! Yvonne!"
 
And she closed her eyes again.
 
Garth stood up, a tall and commanding figure of a man in his spotless white drill, and looked at me, tatterdermalion that I was, with a four days' growth of beard and unkempt hair, my clothes torn and stained, my boots gashed almost to ribbons by those cruel rocks.
 
"Is she.... is she.... wounded?" I faltered.
 
The baronet shook his head and gulped.
 
"She's only fainted," he replied. "My poor, poor lass...."
 
Then, swallowing his feelings, he demanded fiercely:
 
"Where is this man Custrin?"
 
"Dead," I answered. "I shot him...."
 
What had happened in the forest had seemed natural enough. But, with the Naomi, civilisation had returned to Cock Island and my admission sounded horribly cold-blooded in my ears. As briefly as might be, but without concealing any salient fact, I told Garth the story of what had supervened after his departure with Carstairs. With ill-concealed impatience and with reddening cheeks he listened to my tale; but he grew too angry to hear me to the end. When I told him how I had come upon Marjorie in the room behind the galley he burst out in fury.
 
"So this is the end of your wild-goose chase! My little girl, alone and unprotected, in the hands of these savages! By God, Major Okewood, if any harm has come to her through your doing...."
 
"When I asked your help to get to Cock Island, Sir Alexander," I answered, "I had no means of knowing where this adventure would lead us. Nor had I any suspicion that I would, that I could, be followed. Otherwise I should never...."
 
He cut me short with an angry gesture of the hand.
 
"I don't want to hear any more. It is no thanks to you that my poor girl has not lost her life through your reckless folly. I had my doubts all along as to how far I could trust myself to your judgment. If I had any idea that you and that blackguardly doctor between you would have dragged my little girl into it...."
 
This was too much even from a distraught parent.
 
"It was none of my doing that Miss Garth came ashore," I retorted hotly. "And as for Custrin, it was you who unhesitatingly accepted him at face value. You even suggested that he should join our expedition...."
 
"But for you, Custrin would never have come on board. You'll not contest that, I suppose? I wish to Heaven the Naomi had never seen you...."
 
"I can only say how very deeply I regret the terrible experience Miss Garth had to undergo," I began.
 
But he only snorted.
 
"I don't want to hear any more from you!" he retorted and walked away.
 
I was keenly aware of the hostile atmosphere he radiated and it added to my utter sense of forlornness. But Lawless was speaking to me, as I stood dumbfounded, clapping me on the back, asking if I were all right.
 
"The gang's hooked it," he chuckled. "With the report of the Naomi's gun they must have just bolted off to their launch in Sturt Bay, way across the island, leaving their skipper to his fate. A dangerous man, that, major! We saw the launch.... it's a sea-going submarine chaser.... crossing the bar and making for the open sea. Sir Alexander was all for my going after 'em. But I told him it was no good with their start...."
 
Then he told me of the immense surprise which the appearance of the Naomi's launch had occasioned on board the yacht as she lay off Alcedo Rock.
 
"When the old man found that I had let Miss Garth ashore with the doctor," the captain continued, "I thought he was going out of his mind. He raged like a wild man. Whew! but it was hot work for a bit. He called me every name he could lay his tongue to and I'm damned if I know whether I'm in his service yet or know. I've been carpeted once or twice in my time and talked to rough but I never did see such a dido as Sir Alexander raised! And he's fighting mad with you, too....."
 
"I have the same impression myself!" I answered.
 
"We put about at once," Lawless resumed, "and ran for the island. Jock Mackay crammed on every ounce of steam he could raise. He had nightmare every night thinking of the coal-bill! We dropped anchor off the bar and took the launch ashore at once. As we came in through the lagoon, I caught through my glasses the flash of your heliograph from the cliffs in the centre of the island. So directly we landed we made for the high ground...."
 
"I hadn't a notion how to let you know where we were," said I, "until I thought of the mirror. It was rather a forlorn hope because, as you saw, things were getting a bit pressing when you arrived...."
 
Someone touched my elbow. Mackay stood there.
 
"Yon great Gairman is asking to speak with you!"
 
They had stretched Clubfoot out on his blankets beneath the tree. I hate to see a man trussed up anyway, and a queer sort of misguided pity stole into my heart as I looked down on Grundt, whom I had feared so greatly, strapped hand and foot.
 
At my approach he opened his eyes. They were still grim and fearless.
 
"If my men had come," he said truculently, "you would never have escaped. But they ran and left me,—von Hagel, a German officer, with the rest. Truly, I begin to think the sun has set on my unfortunate country!"
 
He checked and seemed to think.
 
"Young man, young man, that you had known me in my prime! But the foundations of my life have been knocked away. Okewood, I am getting old!"
 
The perspiration was damp on his brow. I could see the sweat glisten on the bristles of his iron-grey hair.
 
"In my day, in the years of Germany's greatness, I was all-puissant! I had but one master—the Emperor himself! No one—no one, do you understand?—not the Imperial Chancellor nor even the head of the Civil Cabinet, who was a greater man than he—dare give me—der Stelze, orders! Yet I had no official position! My name was in no Rang-Liste and I held no decorations. Der Stelze was not to be bought by those glittering crosses and stars with which so many of my fellow-countrymen loved to hang themselves! No, I was the secret power of the throne, the instrument of His Majesty. And, with this one exception, the highest in the land trembled at my name...."
 
His voice sounded tired; and it seemed to me that, of a sudden, he had, in truth, become an old man. His figure had relaxed; he appeared to have grown grosser of body than of yore; the flesh of his face was sagging and his cheeks had fallen in.
 
"This was to have been the last adventure," he resumed and stared at me defiantly, "the last of how many? Friends of my master told me of this hoard and delegated me to proceed to Central America to track it down. What they would have given me for my pains would have sufficed to............