Iris, at any rate, gave no heed to this most amazing fact.

She merely observed for the first time that the elderly stranger, while dressed in a beggar's rags, assumed an air of command that was almost ludicrous.
"Who is he ?" she asked, being rather breathless now after a steep climb.
"I don't know," said Hozier.
"How absurd!" she gasped.

"I--I think I'm dreaming.

Why--have we--come here ?" She heard a coarse chuckle from Coke, not far below.
"Let 'im cough it up," the skipper was saying.

"It'll do 'im good.
I've seen 'im blind many a time, but 'ow any man could dope 'isself in that shape in less'n two minutes!---- Well, it fair gives me the go-by!" Two minutes! Hozier listened, and he was recovering his wits far more rapidly than Iris.