Silently Milo bore Pascherette to the small room beyond the great
chamber, which had been her resting-place while not in attendance on
Dolores. And there, still shaking his head to her plea, though with
deepening trouble in his eyes, he left her, crying herself into a fitful
slumber.

Then with slaves dragged from the corners where they had cowered during
the fight, he entered the great chamber, and at Dolores's command set
them to carrying out the closed treasure-chests that stood in their old
places around the walls.

And the sight of the great chests actually going out brought fiery
jealousy back to the eyes of the three yachtsmen. Now Dolores
half-closed her own inscrutable eyes, and watched them, catlike,
cunning. Pearse sprang from the great chair and began pacing the floor
in a heat. Venner alone seemed to retain any vestige of control over
his feelings; and he rapidly lost his color and began to peer about him.

One chest went out, and the cries of the slaves could be heard as they
lowered it over the cliff. They returned for another, and now Dolores
leaped to her feet and followed them, flinging over her shoulder a smile
of invitation. Pearse answered instantly; the others paused. Then she
laughed like a siren and held out her hands to the hesitant ones, and
said softly and pleasantly:

"Have no fears, timid ones. Thy minds are indeed hard to fathom. I but
want to show thee how I am repaying thee for thy sufferings here. Come."

They followed her, and together they entered the rocky tunnel. At the
end of it the yellow sunlight blazed like a fire, in the circular
aperture was framed a picture of wonderful beauty. The blue sky, flecked
with fleecy cloudlets, filled the upper half of the circle; then the
sparkling sea of deeper blue lifted its dazzling whitecaps to the kiss
of the trades and formed a gem-like background for the brazen sands, the
glowing green-and-purple of the Point, and the dainty ivory-and-gold of
the white schooner.

It was all mellowed and diminished as seen through a glass at great
distance; and on the shore the men toiling to load a great
treasure-chest into a long-boat looked like tiny manikins posed about a
delicate model of marine life. The second chest yet stood on the
cliff-edge, slaves about it lashing double slings and tackles that led
from a boulder for lowering it down.

Dolores stepped back, permitting the three men to take in the view
without restriction. And she watched them again, her face enigmatic if
they glanced at her, breaking into an expression of nearing triumph when
they looked away, and left her free to scrutinize them. She saw John
Pearse step a pace behind the others, and his fingers clutched absently
at his rapier-hilt while the veins on his neck stood out and throbbed
like live things.

"One more chest, perhaps two, and I shall see who will be my man!" she
whispered to herself.

Then she left them without a word, and returned to the great chamber,
where she snatched up an immense rope of pearls and resumed her seat on
the edge of the table. There she sat, giving them no glance, when the
three men came back, hastily, uneasily, one behind the other, with
Tomlin bringing up the rear, scowling at Venner's back malevolently.

Idly now Dolores rolled her pearls on the table, and one by one she
crushed them with her dagger-hilt--crushed in one moment the wealth of
many a petty princeling, and still crushed gem after gem without so much
as a flicker of interest on her cool face. The three men glared at her,
and at each other, and the stress they were under could be felt like an
impending electric storm. Tomlin's teeth gritted together harshly, his
lips were dripping saliva, and he could stand it no longer. He stepped
suddenly before Dolores, seized her hands, and cried:

"Woman, you are mad! Do you know what those things are? They are pearls,
woman, pearls! Stop this crazy destruction, and in God's name let us go
before you madden us."

Dolores turned her cool gaze upon him, drew her hand away easily yet
without apparent effort, and crushed another pearl between her gleaming
teeth.

"Pearls?" she repeated, tossing away the shattered gem. "Pearls, yes,
friend. What of it? Do ye value these trifles, then? Pish! I have such
things as these, aye, one for every hair on thy hot head. But let ye
go--ha! That is in thy hands, my friend, thine and thy companions."

"Yes, we know your price!" gasped Venner hoarsely, staring full into her
eyes. "But what is to prevent us now, when we have you alone, and that
great giant is away, from binding you fast and sailing away with the
treasure you have already put in my vessel?"

"What can prevent?" she echoed, simulating surprise that such a question
should occur to any one. "Nothing shall prevent, my friend, if any of ye
think to try it. Have I not said my treasure is for the man who wins it.
Am I not waiting for the man able to take it, that I may go with him,
too? Here--" She suddenly flung down the pearls at Tomlin's feet,
glided close to Venner, and thrust her red lips up to him, her violet
eyes like brimming pools behind her drooping lashes. "Here, tie me, my
Rupert. Here are my hands; there my feet. Bind me well, and go if thou
canst. What, wilt thou not? There, I knew thee better than thou knowest
thyself."

She stepped back with a low laugh, and her arm brushed his cheek,
sending the hot blood surging to his temples. John Pearse crouched
toward Venner, as if waiting for him to lay a finger on Dolores at his
peril. She smiled at all three, and stepped over to the side of the
chamber, where she carelessly pointed out sacred vessels and altar
furnishings, gems of art and jewel-crusted lamps.

"Here, also, is a reason why ye will not go, my friends. Your eyes,
accustomed to these things in the great world outside, dare not ignore
their worth. And I tell ye that all the treasure now going to the vessel
could not purchase the thousandth part of my real treasure, which I will
not show, until I know my man." She glanced at Pearse as she spoke, and
saw rising greed in his eyes. He had seen the real treasure; he was ripe
for her hand. Milo and his slaves returned for another chest, and
Dolores waited until they had gone; then she glided swiftly toward the
passage, and turned at the door.

"I shall return in fifteen minutes, gentlemen," she said. "Then my man
must be ready, or I will drop the great rock at the entrance, and leave
ye all three caged here until ye die. For go I will, mated or mateless,
with all my treasure, ere the sun sinks into the western sea." And as
she left them she flashed a look of appeal at John Pearse.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE SLUMBERING SAVAGE.

Pearse followed her with his eyes until she vanished into the passage;
then with muttering lips and harshly working features he strode down the
chamber to the great tapestry behind which lay the powder store. The
suspicion had come to him that Dolores was fooling them all regarding
her real treasure; for he believed she had shown him everything, and if
those heavy chests contained but a tithe of the whole, life was certain
that the gems around the walls were not what she meant when she said she
had still a thousand times greater riches than the chests contained.

He tore aside the tapestry, and tried to see through the gloom of the
cavern. His eyes could not pierce the blackness, and he looked around
for a light, while Venner and Tomlin walked toward him with sudden
interest in their faces. Over the tall Hele clock a lantern hung; a
gaudy thing of beaten gold, in which an oil wick burned, gleaming out in
multicolored light through openings glazed with turquoise and sapphire,
ruby, and emerald. He took this down, and impatiently tore away the side
of it to secure a stronger light. Again he went to the powder store, and
now Venner and Tomlin were at his back, peering over his shoulder or
under his arms in curiosity as to his quest.

And, sensing their presence, he swung around upon them savagely,
muffling the cry that answered the message of his eyes. Flinging the
lantern down, he trampled it out, and with snarling teeth he faced them,
his rapier flickering from the sheath like a dart of lightning.

"Back!" he barked, and advanced one foot, falling into a guard. "This is
no concern of yours, Venner, nor yours, Tomlin. Back, I say!"

Tomlin stared into his furious face and laughed greedily. His keen eyes
had seen a vague, shadowy something in the cavern, that filled him with
the same passion which consumed Pearse.

"So you are the lucky one, eh, Pearse?" he chuckled, and his hand went
to his own rapier. He stepped back a pace, and, never taking his eyes
from Pearse, cried: "Venner, it's you and me against the devil and
Pearse! A pretty plot to fool us, indeed; but Pearse was too eager. Peep
into that hole, man, and see!"

Venner glared from one to the other, not yet inflamed as they were. But
what he saw in their faces convinced him that great stakes were up to
be played for, and he edged forward bent upon seeing for himself.

"Back!" screamed Pearse, presenting his rapier at Venner's breast.
Venner persisted, and the steel pricked him. Then, as Tomlin's weapon
rasped out, Venner's blood leaped to fighting-heat with his slight
wound, and in the next instant the three-sided duel was hotly in
progress.

Three-sided it became after the first exchanges. For Pearse, the most
skilled in fence, applied himself to Venner as his most dangerous foe,
and with the cunning of the serpent Craik Tomlin saw and seized his own
opportunity. Let Pearse and Venner kill each other, or let that end be
accomplished with his outside help, and there was the solution that
Dolores had demanded them to work out; one of them left, to be master of
the wealth of Croesus; to be the mate of a magnificent creature, who
could be goddess or she-devil at will.

With a satanic chuckle Tomlin drew back, leaving his friends to fight
themselves weary, his own rapier ever presented toward them, urging them
on with lashing tongue. And Venner flashed a look at him as Cæsar did at
Brutus, and suffered for his lapse in vigilance. For with the pounce of
a leopard Pearse was upon him, and his rapier grated over Venner's guard
and darted straight at his throat. But Venner's time had not come yet;
Tomlin flashed his own weapon in and parried the stroke for him, backing
away again with a murderous snarl.

"Not yet, my friends!" he cried. "You're too strong yet, Pearse. At him,
Venner; let me see you draw blood as he has, that I may see my own way
clearer."

From the other end of the great chamber Dolores watched the conflict
from the concealment of the velvet hangings over the door; and her hands
were clasped in ecstasy, her lips parted to the swift breathing that
agitated her breast; in her blazing eyes her wicked soul lurked, sending
out its evil aura to envelop the combatants and instil deeper hatred
into them.

The fight raged back and forth around the powder store; once a sudden
onslaught by Pearse forced Venner back to the great chair; Tomlin's
swift rush to keep close brought all three into a tumbled crash at the
dais, and the chair was overturned in a heap of flying draperies that
entangled their feet. And while Pearse and Venner struggled vainly to
maintain their footing, Tomlin began to accomplish his own dire ends.
Crouching, with his dark face full of evil passions, he drove his point
first at one, then at the other, stabbing through the involved silk and
skins.

In his furious haste to complete his murderous work, he sprang forward
carelessly, his foot became entangled, and he pitched face downward upon
his victims. Now Pearse seized the opening; but when he arose,
stumblingly, there was a different expression on his face, a
horror-stricken realization of Tomlin's treachery. Venner lay, still
unable to disentangle himself, but slightly hurt, and he, too, regarded
Tomlin with a look of sorrow and reawakening sanity.

"Up, murderer, and fight!" rasped Pearse, stepping astride Venner and
glaring down at Tomlin. "Venner, draw aside. Let me punish this
scoundrel we have called friend; then meet me if you wish."

Tomlin looked up with a snarl of baffled rage, expecting swift reprisal
for his treacherous attempt. Gone was the last vestige of civilization
from his face; greed of gold, jewel-hunger, blood-lust, all played about
his reddened eyes and cruel, down-drawn mouth. The primitive came
through the veneer of culture and showed him the man he really was. And
evil though his spirit had proved, in this final test his courage showed
up like that of the tiger. He leaned on one elbow, watching Pearse like
a cat, then slowly knelt and stood, keeping his point down. With the
bestial cunning that had overwhelmed him, he circled away from the
trappings and draperies of the chair that had brought him down, and
responded to Pearse's chivalrous waiting with a sneer.

"You had better have made sure while you had the chance, Pearse," he
grinned, showing his teeth wolfishly. "Venner can wait. There is no
treasure for three; Dolores is mine! Guard!"

With the word Tomlin made a savage attack without waiting for Pearse to
fall into guard. And Dolores came from her concealment, advanced
half-way down the chamber, and watched with a new intensity that was
not apparent while Venner was in the fight.

Pearse avoided his opponent's thrust at the expense of a pierced left
hand, which caught the other's point a hand-breadth from his breast.
Then the duel dropped to equality. Swift and silent they fought, silent
save for the rasp and screech of steel on steel, their feet padding
noiselessly on the deep-piled carpet. Venner drew aside and watched, his
eyes losing their hard glare, and some of his old expression returned to
his face. It was as if his resurging emotions were bringing back to him
the shame and remorse of a gentleman inveigled into performing a
despicable action. He, too, saw Dolores approaching; saw the tensity of
her expression; sensed some of the tremendous hopes that actuated her,
now that she saw the rapid culmination of all her plots and seductions.

She stood quite near to him now, leaning forward in an attitude of utter
anxiety. She saw nothing of Venner; her great, violet eyes were dusky
and full of yearning, her hands clutched at her breast. And all the
intensity of her gaze was fixed upon Tomlin. She responded to his
momentary success when he drove Pearse back with a savage assault, with
a panting little cry of joy; she fell back with widened eyes when a
counter-attack forced Tomlin almost upon her. And her lips opened in a
gasp when a vicious clash of steel told of a pressed onslaught, and
Pearse lunged heavily forward.

In the instant when Pearse followed his first plunge, Dolores stood in
uncertainty through which dawned jubilation. Then her face went white,
she seemed to lose all her splendid vitality; for her astounded eyes
fastened upon Pearse's rapier-point, protruding a foot from Tomlin's
back, and slowly the stricken man sagged away and fell at her feet,
clutching at the steel at his breast and snarling like a beast.

A hush fell over the great chamber. Then from a distance came the sound
of voices, voices of men down at the shore, ringing clear and sharp on
the still air, accentuating the deathly hush that clung around the
actors in the scene like a heavy mantle. It startled Dolores into
renewed life. She ran with feverish eagerness toward Tomlin, hurling
aside the others, and crouching upon the body in dry-eyed rage.

Venner sought to catch the eye of the victor, and saw in Pearse a
reflection of the feelings that had possessed himself. John Pearse
showed every sign of horror and awakened sanity that had marked his own
expression before the fatal fight had started. Their eyes met, and there
was no challenge in them. Both dropped their gaze involuntarily upon the
huddled figures at their feet; and it was Pearse, the man who had
precipitated the conflict at first, who nodded with his head a silent
invitation to withdraw. Venner stepped after him, softly and with bowed
shoulders, shuddering violently as he passed the expiring Tomlin.

They reached the door together, and with the rocky tunnel open before
them, once more holding up to their eyes the picture of absolute beauty
of sea and sky and shore, they filled their lungs with fresh, wholesome
air, and shook off the last of the evil spell that had held them.

"In God's name, Pearse, let us fly from this hellish place!" whispered
Venner, dropping his rapier to the rocky floor with a clatter, and
thrusting his hand out in reconciliation.

"Yes, Venner, and pray Heaven we may forget!" replied Pearse fervently.
"But how shall we get away? The giant and his crew are yet at the
schooner."

"We must wait. They will return soon for more booty. Then we must seize
the chance. Is that somebody coming now?"

Milo's great shoulders reared above the cliff, and behind him came the
slaves. They came directly toward the great rock, and Pearse flattened
himself against the wall in the shadow of the portals, pressing Venner
back also with a hand across his chest.

"Hush! Hide here. Let them enter, and we'll make one leap for the
shore."

The giant swung into the passage, his black eyes blazing with some
emotion that the hidden pair could not fathom. It was something on the
border of fear, but of what? Fear and Milo was a combination hard of
reconciliation. The slaves at his heels followed dumbly, slaves in
thought and action; if their dulled brains ever awoke, it was but to
the call of animal appetites; they were incapable of devotion such as
Milo's, and as incapable of shock should their obedience fail reward.
They passed into the great chamber, and a throaty cry of alarm burst
from the giant at the sight of his Sultana prone on the floor.

"Now!" whispered Pearse, taking the lead. "Swift and silent!"

Like ghosts they ran from the tunnel, glanced around once as they
reached the cliff path, then leaped down the declivity. That swift
glance showed them the camp deserted except for the wondering women, who
wandered idly among the empty huts, ever looking toward the forest
wherein had vanished all their men, waiting with bovine patience for any
one to settle their uncertainty for them.

And the forest was yet very still. The Feu Follette lay at a single
anchor, heading in the light breeze fair to seaward; a few heads showed
above her rail, and the stops had been cast off from her snowy sails. At
her gangway a single boat lay, the painter made fast on deck; on the
foreshore the other two long-boats were drawn up on the sand, planks
running up to their sides in readiness for the embarkation of yet more
treasure.

Venner and Pearse raced down the steep path, using little precaution,
sending showers of stones and clods flying before them. And Peters, the
schooner's sailing-master, saw them coming, and his voice rang out
calling for hands to man the boat. Two men answered and entered the boat
as the two fugitives reached the shore and ran along the Point. Pearse
counted the minutes at their disposal, and saw the futility of waiting
for that boat. He clutched eagerly at Venner's arm, and panted in his
ear:

"Tell them to hold on! Let them get the schooner ready for swift
departure. Come, we must swim for it."

Venner hesitated but a second. Then his hail went hurtling over the
still haven, and the two seamen scrambled out of the boat again.

"Swim it is, Pearse," he said, leading the way down to deep water. "Swim
it is, and may the ever-cleansing sea wash out of us the last traces of
insanity."

Together they plunged into the blue sea and swam swiftly out to the
schooner.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE FLIGHT OF THE FEU FOLLETTE.

Dolores, flinging herself down upon Craik Tomlin, seized his face
between her hands and raised his head, placing her knee beneath it. She
panted like an exhausted doe, yet the fire that leaped from her eyes
gave the lie to her attitude of sorrowing humility. Her lips moved
feverishly, but she could not or would not speak aloud. Tomlin's eyes
were closed in agony, his teeth were clenched tightly upon his under
lip; he gave no sign that he knew of her presence. And a sudden fury
seized her at his irresponsiveness. She shook his head between her hands
savagely.

"Wake! Speak!" she cried hoarsely. "Art indeed dead, at the moment of my
triumph?"

Tomlin's eyelids flickered, and his lips strove to speak. One hand went
weakly to his face, to grasp her fingers. And into her anxious ear he
managed to whisper:

"Evil luck fought with me, Dolores. Yet I die content if you care."

"Care!" she echoed, shaking his fingers loose impatiently. "Care? Yes,
this I care, bungler: I care because of all three of thee, thou alone
wert covetous enough to obey my conditions. With thee alive, there was
hope of thy friends' speedy death. With thee dead, which of the others
will wipe his fellow from his path for me? Why, think ye, did I fawn on
John Pearse? But to arouse in thee the demon of jealousy; why did I
smile on Venner, and call him my Rupert? To steel thy arm against him.
And for what?"

She suddenly laid his head down on the floor, leaned over him with her
lips almost brushing his cheek, and whispered fiercely: "Speak! Canst
live?"

Tomlin's face lost some of its pain. The thin lips straightened into the
semblance of a faint smile. His glazing eyes opened slightly.

"I am done for," he whispered. "Dolores, kiss me again. I die for you."

The beautiful fury sprang to her feet, spurning him. She glared down at
his chalky face in utter scorn.

"Kiss thee? Thou die for me? Pah! I kiss no carrion. A half-hundred men
have died for me this day, I hope. I kiss him who lives for me and
conquers, not the weakling who dies!"

Without deigning another glance at her victim, she turned away and went
to meet Milo. He now entered with his slaves.

"Where are the two strangers?" she demanded harshly.

Milo returned her stare with a look of simple surprise. He had seen
nothing of them, and had thought of them being yet with his mistress.

"I saw them not, Sultana," he replied.

"Saw them not, great clod!" she blazed at him, clenching her hands in
rage. "Are they here, then?"

Milo looked around in bewilderment. In all her life Dolores had been his
especial care; in her many moments of temper she had perhaps pained his
devoted heart, but never had she used to him the tone she now used. It
seemed to his simple soul that the foundations of his faith were being
wrenched loose.

"I will find them, Sultana," he said quietly, and turned to leave by the
tunnel.

"Stay here, thou blind fool!" she commanded him. "I will find them
myself. Here is work more fitting for a slave. How many chests are going
to the ship?"

"Three."

"And how many have ye yet empty here?"

"Three, lady."

"Then get them quickly. Until I return, bid thy fellows replace the
treasure that is still in the powder store. And haste, for I will leave
this place this day, though all the fiends say no."

She ran along the tunnel, and Milo set his men to their task. As he
passed along to the powder chamber, a low moan arrested him, and he
halted in sudden remorse for Pascherette, whom he now felt he had judged
harshly. He left his fellows and went to the tiny alcove where the
little octoroon lay, and his great heart leaped in response to the
worship that shone in her dark eyes. He saw the dry and cracked lips,
the flushed face, and fetched water and wine before he would speak to
her. Then, with her small head and slender shoulders against his immense
chest, he gave her drink, soothing her pain with soft speech and
caressing hand.

Pascherette's wound was deep, and bleeding internally; a fever already
burned in the tiny maid's veins. She peered up at him wistfully, all of
her mischief, all her piquancy gone and replaced by a softened, humbled
expression that wrung Milo's heart-strings.

"Will ye not kiss me now, Milo?" she whispered, with a pearly drop
brimming from each eye, where laughter had so lately dwelt.

"Pascherette, thy fault was great," he answered, yet in his face was a
look so forgiving, so excusing, that the girl shivered expectantly and
closed her eyes with a happy sigh.

Yet the kiss was not given. From the great chamber the angry voice of
Dolores rang out.

"Milo! Where art thou, slave!"

And the giant tenderly laid Pascherette down again, and ran in answer.

"Sultana?"

"Blind, idle dolt! While thou art fondling that serpent of thine, thy
mistress's affairs may go hang! Haste with the treasure, or feel my
anger. While thy useless eyes were mooning on nothing, the strangers
have escaped. They are even now getting sail on the white vessel. Carry
the chests down to the Point as soon as ye may. I will stay them yet,
and they shall learn the cost of flouting Dolores! Hasten, I tell ye!"

Milo winced at her address; his black eyes, usually holding the utter
devotion of a noble dog, glittered with tiny sparks of resentment; yet
the habit of years could not be lightly cast off, and he bowed low, even
while Dolores had turned her back on him, and picked up a great empty
chest to carry it to the powder store. Here in the flickering light of a
pine splinter the slaves worked feverishly, their abject eyes sparkling
with borrowed radiance from the riches they handled.

And while they worked, Dolores emerged from the tunnel, flashed one long
glance of derision at the moving schooner, and sped down the cliff to
stop her flight.

The Feu Follette was poorly enough manned with Peters and his four men.
With the ready help of Venner and Pearse the getting of the anchor and
the hoisting of the heavy fore and main sails was an arduous job, but it
was accomplished under the tremendous urge of remembrance. None wished
to have the experiences of the past days repeated; Peters was anxious to
get his beautiful vessel into safer waters; the Feu Follette's owner and
his guest were doubly anxious to drop those blue hills of ominous memory
below the horizon forever. They gave scant attention to the three great
iron-bound chests that stood between the guns along the waist; getting
clear occupied every faculty.

The tide setting directly on the Point, with a breeze dead in from
seaward, forced the schooner perilously close to the bar that had been
her undoing before; but, with the lead going, Peters speedily found that
his previous mishap must undoubtedly have been due to clever misleading.
After touching lightly once, and getting deeper water at the next cast
over the lee side, he understood the trick of the extended false Point
and stood boldly along shore.

And as the schooner gathered steerage-way, hugging the Point closely,
Dolores ran out along the sandy beach and plunged into the sea abreast
the moving vessel.

"Here's that vixen woman, sir!" cried Peters angrily, looking toward
Venner for instructions. Peters had the helm, and owner and guest stood
against the companion, ready to lend a hand at the sheets, forward or
aft.

Venner and Pearse stared at the swimmer, then turned and gazed
searchingly at each other. In the face of each lingered a trace of the
subjection they had fallen under; neither could quite so quickly forget
the allurements of this woman. Her kisses had been as sweet as her fury
had been terrible; and the absence of Craik Tomlin was an additional
incentive to memory.

"Shall we take her away?" asked Venner, avoiding Pearse's eye as he put
the question.

"Can't you make more sail, Peters?" was Pearse's reply.

Venner laughed softly, agreeably; and the next moment Dolores hailed
them. She swam swiftly, with effortless ease, slipping through the sea
like a sparkling nymph in her native element. But the schooner traveled
fast, and, though she lost no ground, she gained but slowly. She hailed
again.

"Rupert, my Rupert!" and finished the cry with a rippling laugh. "Art
stealing my treasure and leaving me?"

"By Heavens, Pearse, I had forgotten these chests," said Venner
uneasily. Pearse regarded him closely, fearing that Dolores's spell was
yet powerful. He gripped Venner tightly by the arm, leaned nearer, and
said:

"Venner, so long as that blood-polluted treasure is on your deck, so
long will you be unable to settle your mind. Bid the hands pitch it into
the sea, for God's sake!"

A lull in the wind slowed the schooner down, and Dolores gained a
fathom. Her fair face was set toward them in a bewitching smile, and she
waved a gleaming arm at them. Venner fought with himself in silence for
a brief while, then with a shudder stepped to the wheel.

"Get the hands, Peters," he told the sailing-master, "and heave those
chests overboard. Quickly! You shall lose nothing by this, but don't
delay a moment!"

CHAPTER XXIII.

STUMPY FIRES THE MAGAZINE.

Milo and his slaves worked frenziedly at their task, his suddenly bitter
spirit flogging them to unremitting haste. In the giant's troubled face
the smoldering spark of resentment had grown to an incipient blaze that
required but a breath to burst into angry flame.

One great chest was filled with the choicest of the gems in the powder
store; it was set aside in the entrance beside the tapestry, and another
box was opened before the powder-kegs. Little Pascherette had ceased
moaning, but from time to time a choking sob sounded from her alcove
that increased the hard brilliancy of the light in Milo's eyes. The
great chamber was silent as a mausoleum in the intervals between the
clashing and tinkling of gold and stones in the chest; from the outside,
by way of the rock tunnel, came only the sigh and murmur of the crooning
breeze, the softened plash of the tide on the shore, the scream of
wheeling seabirds. All sound of the schooner had departed; there was no
human note in the whole region.

Then, as the second chest was almost full, and Milo pulled the third and
last along in readiness, from the secret gallery behind the Grove came
the shouts and oaths of men, weary, footsore men, but men with animal
appetites whetted by the day of bloody conflict. They could be heard at
the great door in the painting of the "Sleeping Venus"; not knowing its
secret their way was barred. But Stumpy's hoarse roar could be heard
calling them back to the ledge, and there was a note of menace in his
tired tones. And mingling with his voice was the voice of a woman of the
camp, raised in shrill complaint. Milo stepped to the picture and
listened.

"I tell ye the fiend has tricked ye, Stumpy!" the woman cried.

"Tricked me? Have a care how ye talk that way, woman!" Stumpy's voice
replied warningly.

"Aye, tricked ye and me and all of us! Even now--come to the cliff, and
I'll show ye."

The scrambling of heavy feet could be heard in the gallery as men rushed
out in answer. How many men Milo could not determine; but fewer than had
followed Stumpy into the forest in chase of their broken foes. The
slaves at the treasure-chests paused in their work, alarm on their
shining faces, looking ever toward Milo for instructions.

Milo ran back through the great chamber and out by the tunnel to the
cliff, peering around for Stumpy and hoping to see the schooner putting
back.

Without Dolores he was at a loss; yet he was not ready to leave his
charge to be gazed upon by untried eyes. His breast swelled nigh to
bursting at sight of the schooner. The Feu Follette was but half a mile
away in a straight line from the cliff; she had been tacking against a
light breeze and flood tide around the Point, and while she had sailed
several miles through the water, she had but just gained past the face
of the cliff. And far from returning, she sailed farther and farther
away as he watched, nursed with such skill of sheet and helm as proved
to Milo's seamanly eye that her people would never return of their free
will. And what of Dolores? His condor's vision picked her out as soon as
the schooner. Her gleaming arms and shoulders swept rhythmically over
and over, cleaving the sea easily and smoothly, her lustrous hair
streaming behind her, and the sun glinting brightly from the gold
circlet around her head. She was gaining foot by foot, and Milo keenly
scrutinized the schooner for signs of surrender. There were none. At the
schooner's rail three heads were visible; but Milo knew neither belonged
to Venner nor Pearse. That persuaded him that the schooner was unlikely
to come back. And the even, tireless manner in which Dolores swam
convinced him that she would follow to the end. Yet he would not utterly
believe she had deserted him. He glared around for the men whose voices
he heard now, raised in anger in chorus with the voices of the woman and
her companions. Stumpy stepped out from the grove path with but four men
behind him; and they were in sore plight. Stumpy himself dangled an idly
swinging sleeve that was stained dark-red to the shoulder. A red sear
across his nose and cheek rendered him a demoniacal figure through the
powder, smoke and sweat. And his mates were tattered and cut, their
shirts bore red splashes to a man; their grimed faces and fiery eyes
held the passions of blooded men who see their reward flying from them.

"I tell ye she's gone for good!" cried the woman who had brought the
news to Stumpy. "See, she's almost there, and three chests of treasure
have gone in that vessel! Her swimming after it is but a part of her
cuteness. Now d'ye believe, fools!"

The crippled, battle-scarred pirate glared to seaward with red-rimmed
eyes in which flames of revenge started into life. His twisted, warped
life had been spent in fighting and trickery; to-day his work had
culminated in a brave stand for what he thought to be straight and
right; reward he expected, but he had earned it with blood and sweat,
hoping at the last that some of his earlier transgressions might be
atoned for in his loyalty to his mistress.

He hurled aside the persistent women, who sought some reassuring word
from him, and mouthing rather than speaking a call to his men to follow,
he plunged again into the grove path and stumbled toward the ledge
entrance. Here he clambered painfully to the gallery, cursing to himself
bitterly, never looking back to see if his men followed, intent only
upon one absorbing thing. Revenge was beyond him, since there were left
no subjects for his revenge. He had never seen the great stone at the
chamber portals left rolled aside; could not even now imagine such a
situation. No, if Dolores were gone in truth, and with her the strangers
and the treasure, then it was certain, he thought, that the great
chamber was sealed forever. And he would see into its mysteries, even
though they proved barren now. He knew the way; Dolores had shown him.

Feverishly hunting for a flint, he tore some threads from his shirt and
frayed them into tow. Then with his cutlas he struck a spark and ignited
his threads, carefully nursing the tiny flame until he could find a dry
stick. This lasted him until a pine torch was found, and then he crawled
along the gallery in search of the powder train. That, he knew, for she
had told him, would burst the rock asunder anyhow; and that would be
enough, for he had guessed shrewdly that the gallery was connected with
the great chamber by some secret egress.

And who knew? Might not Dolores have taken in her haste but part of her
vast store? Stumpy knew as well as Red Jabez the tremendous wealth that
had been deposited in that chamber of mysteries; for he had been with
the red chief from the beginning; he had seen with his own eyes the
riches of a hundred ships taken in there, and never a thing come out.

"She can't have bagged the lot," he muttered, fanning his torch into a
red flare. "But she'll pay for deserting Stumpy, or Stumpy's a liar!"

He found the powder train, and the moisture had dried from it, leaving
only a little line of dry, quick-igniting powder. He was not sure just
where the magazine was; not sure how long the train would burn before
the explosion. So down he clambered again, searching at the great altar
for the water-vessels he knew should be there. Then, with a jar of
water, he returned to his train, and swiftly swept up the dry powder and
moistened it a little, making a rough slow match of it.

"Now we'll see the sights!" he growled, and went to the end of the
gallery and flung his torch into the train.

He watched it for a moment, to be sure that it would burn, then stepped
down from the ledge and drew back a safe distance to watch the upheaval.
To what extent the mine was intended to destroy he had no idea. He
simply knew that Dolores had pointed it out to him as a means of defense
should the gallery be carried in the attack. He supposed, therefore,
that it would shatter the gallery. Doing that, it must surely dislodge
or loosen rock enough for him to break into the great chamber with aid.

The thought recalled his men to his mind, and he saw for the first time
that they had not followed him. He started down the path toward the
camp, shouting to them by name, eager to give them an inkling of the
treat in store. But his hail was answered by another, and down the path
a woman appeared running, her hair flying, and tremendous excitement in
every line of her face.

"Stumpy! Stumpy!" she sobbed and cried in hysterical intoxication. "Oh,
Stumpy, the great chamber is open, and it's full of gold and treasure!"

CHAPTER XXIV.

MILO CROSSES THE BAR.

Milo watched Stumpy disappear down the grove path, and heard him call to
his men to follow. Then he regarded the receding yacht intently for a
moment, and the last vestige of noble devotion went from his face and
gave place to a great and absorbing bitterness. In that instant, the
foundations, pillars, and capitals of his soul shook and tottered; his
universe changed from a thing of golden beauty and heavenly splendor to
a shameful mockery of truth and faith.

In that moment his thoughts flew back to little Pascherette, and his
great heart yearned toward her. False she had proved, but to what? To
whom? He asked himself these things as he slowly walked back along the
tunnel, not yet knowing what he would do. He answered his own question.
Pascherette had proven false to falsity; she had schemed against the
schemer; and, in the other tray of the balance she had done these things
for love of him, out of a deep and all-powerful ambition to place him,
Milo the slave, in the high place of the wanton ingrate who had deserted
her people. And the thought hurt him now; he had not yet yielded her the
kiss she craved. Even now the little gold-tinted one might be cold in
death, denied that small consolation because of his obstinate heart.

He ran along the tunnel and burst through the great chamber, cursing the
idle slaves into silence when they cried their helpless queries at him.
And straight to Pascherette he sped, to fling himself down by her side
and seize her tiny, moist hand in frantic appeal.

"Pascherette!" he whispered with a dry sob. "Little golden one, speak to
thy Milo. Speak, and forgive!"

The octoroon gave no sign of life, and the giant dropped her hand and
gently raised her pallid face. His lips sought hers in a passionate
kiss, long and yearning; and slowly her eyelids fluttered and opened.
The dark eyes were misty, yet that longed-for kiss had brought back her
fleeting spirit to recognize her man. She closed her tired eyes again,
with a little sign, and the small, pale lips formed the words: "I am
content, Milo, my god."

The giant bowed his head over her silent face, and his black eyes
searched for a returning flicker of vitality. It was gone forever.
Pascherette was dead; and Milo laid her head down gently, and drew back
to stare at her with growing rebellion and horror. What gods could there
be to use him thus? He leaped to his feet with arms flung upward.

"Hah, gods of earth and sea, witness Milo's penitence!" he said
hoarsely. "To Dolores I have given the worship that belonged to ye and
ye have taken terrible atonement. Pity me!"

He paced the small alcove nervously, seeking light where no light was.
Then the harsh shouts of Stumpy's men resounded through the chamber, and
he stepped outside in alarm. For it was not yet possible for him to
discard the usage of years which forbade intrusion in that secret place.
He saw Stumpy's four men standing open-mouthed in the doorway beneath
the yellow lantern, gazing ludicrously at the magnificence of the
furnishings. The slaves at the powder store stood where he had left
them, idle and aimless, but with an open chest at their feet. This now
attracted the pirates' attention, and with a stamp and a shout they
roared through the great chamber, their faces awork with newly aroused
avarice.

Just for one second Milo pondered staying them. But his soul had soured;
he uttered a grunt of scornful disgust, and waved a hand at them,
muttering:

"Revel, ye dogs! Plunge thy hands deep. 'Tis all thine, and the fiend's
blessing go with it!"

He returned to his dead Pascherette and knelt beside her, patting her
cold hands and speaking to her softly and tenderly. Out in the chamber
the pirates had hurled aside the slaves, and, flinging open the chests,
were glaring with wolfish eyes and dripping jaws at the bewildering mass
of treasure revealed.

Their noise irritated Milo. He went out again to stop them. And he saw a
pirate snatch up a glittering tiara and place it on his head with a
roaring oath. He saw another snatch the bauble off; and in a breath the
pirates were at each other's throats; cutlases flashed and a savage
fight began at the moment the women stole in to see the mysterious
place, and one of their number ran to bring Stumpy.

The giant glowered at the snarling men as at some repulsive beasts,
horrified that they should thus desecrate the quiet of his Pascherette's
death-bed. He was not the Milo of old now. His memory had flown back
through the years to the time when he was a youth of position and great
promise in his own land; when, instead of being the cast-off servant of
a beautiful ingrate, he numbered his own servants by hundreds. And a
great dignity stole into his ennobled face. He softly picked up the dead
girl, and advanced toward the rock tunnel.

Stumpy met him at the door, and the crippled pirate's eyes burned with
the newborn lust of loot. Stumpy made as if to stay the giant with
questions; but he saw the snarling fight at the end of the chamber and
caught the glitter of jewels. With the stumbling speed of a charging,
wounded bull, he rushed in to join battle.

Running women brushed against Milo in the passage; all the camp's living
people had caught the fever. The giant strode on, until he stood in the
rugged rock portals and gazed once more over the sea. The schooner had
moved but slightly since he last looked at her; he could see Dolores's
head still advancing, and very near to the vessel now. The breeze had
lulled, perhaps preceding a shift of wind; and the visible people on the
deck of the Feu Follette appeared to be running back and forth in
indecision.

At Milo's right hand the great rock sat on its ledge, ready to fall at a
touch, and his brooding eyes flashed to it with terrible meaning.
Inside, the great chamber resounded with the clash of steel, the shouts
of furious human beasts, and the shrill cries of women urging them on;
for there must be victors, even to such a sordid fight, and to the
victors, spoils. Where victors and spoils are, there harpy women await
them.

Milo gazed long and passionately into the face of his dead; then he laid
her softly down outside the rock and arose with a fierce light
irradiating his face.

"Dogs, who would thus break the sleep of my beloved, I give ye good for
evil!" he muttered. "Treasure ye crave: treasure I give ye, and none may
take it from ye!"

He turned, put his hand upon the great rock and started it from its bed.
And as he moved the mass, the mountain rocked and crashed with the
thunder of the bursting powder-magazine.

Down came the great rock, pinning Milo beneath it, threatening in its
final fall to crush him and the body of his love. His great arms shot
out and up, every muscle on his colossal frame stood out like ropes, his
back cracked with the tremendous strain. He stiffened his knees, bit
into his lip until the blood gushed; and a groan burst from his breast
as he felt his stout knees stagger.

His bulging eyes glared ahead over the sea; into the air flew a thousand
fragments of shattered rock; they fell and thrashed the sea into foam a
mile from shore. Rocks fell upon his already overwhelming burden; his
knees bent, and the blood trickled from his nostrils. And with his fast
ebbing breath he breathed his valedictory, fixing his stony eyes upon
Pascherette as upon his deity.

"Gods of my fathers, receive my spirit into thy halls. Let thy swift
justice overtake the cause of this upheaval; and receive with my spirit
the spirit of the one who loved me." He fell to one knee, and a great
sob shook him. The rock was falling in a shower about him; it rang and
crashed on the gigantic stone that was crushing him. He bent his gaze in
anguish afresh on the dead girl, now almost buried under stone and
earth, and murmured: "Pascherette, I come! I see beyond the blue ocean
and the golden horizon the throne of my gods. Come, golden one, let us
go. There will our faithfulness meet just reward!"

He pitched forward upon the dead girl, and the great rock crashed down,
building them a tomb grand as the eternal hills.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE TOLL OF THE GODS.

Venner's order to heave the treasure-chests overboard was not given
without a pang of regret. It was scarcely obeyed without threats; for
the sailing master had been bitten by the treasure fever before his
owner and guest came on board. Had they not appeared when they did, the
schooner had gone without them, and Peters had already seen a golden
vista ahead of him. He hesitated now, and Venner left the wheel vacant
to urge him.

"Over with it, I say! At once! Here, Pearse, lend a hand here, man,
before that witch's great eyes mesmerize us again. See, she smiles yet,
and comes nearer."

Reluctantly the seamen raised one iron-bound chest to the rail and
poised it there. From the water astern rang Dolores's throaty laugh,
even and full breathing, as if she had not swam a fraction of the
half-mile she had covered.

"Foolish Rupert!" she cried, never relaxing her stroke. "Why waste the
fruits of thy pains? Hast looked inside then? Nay, take me on board, and
let us look together. Thou wilt not see Dolores drown, I swear. Then
look once more into my eyes, my Rupert!"

She laughed again mockingly, alluringly, and Pearse turned away with a
shudder, not daring to cast a glance in the direction of Venner.

"Throw the stuff over, I say!" cried Venner hoarsely, and gave the chest
a push that sent it into the rippling sea with a thunderous splash. And
again that mocking laugh rang out astern; it was nearer, and Dolores's
beautiful face was turned up to them with triumph in every feature. She
had seen the struggle going on in her two intended victims; if she could
but gain to within whispering distance of either of them, surely she
would never let them escape her.

"Come, take me on board, my Rupert. I have a secret to tell thee, but
thee alone!" she cried, and spurted swiftly, gaining abreast of the
main-chains.

But the eyes of Venner and Pearse were fixed in astonishment upon the
tall cliff they had left; their eyes stared amazedly, and they stood
like statues, hearing none of her seductive words.

"What do ye see?" she demanded, frowning up at them.

A score of sharp splashes in the water around the schooner startled her.
She suspected they were hurling missiles at her, and one struck her
arm. She turned swiftly and her face darkened with fury. Then more small
objects fell about her, and one struck her arm. She turned swiftly on
her side to seek the source, and in her ears boomed the tremendous crash
of Stumpy's explosion, rolling far over the sea, reverberating from the
shores and making the air quiver like a solid thing.

A great mass of rock hurtled overhead, missed the schooner by scant
feet, and Venner shouted in horror:

"Throw her a line, Pearse! Here, quickly, before she is crushed by such
a rock as that one!"

The sea was shattered into foam for fathoms around, and every face on
the Feu Follette stared over the rail in helpless astonishment. But on
the face of Dolores glowed a smile of triumph. She feared nothing of
earth or heaven; among the flying rocks she swam on toward the schooner,
smiling up at them, waiting for the rope that meant victory to her.

And in the brief space before the rope hurtled out, down from the
heavens plunged a high-flung piece of granite fair upon Dolores. She
seemed to sense its shadow, and in the moment it struck her she half
sank, breaking its force. But it followed her down. The mass struck
between her gleaming shoulders, and she flung up her arms in despair,
turning over and over with the impact, then floating unconscious close
by the side of the white schooner that had been her goal.

"God! Get her aboard!" gasped Pearse. "She's done for. Yet we cannot
leave her there for the sharks, like a beast!"

Venner and Peters were already trying with boat-hooks to catch Dolores's
tunic. Pearse threw a line over the girl and drew her nearer and the
hooks took hold. They drew her up the side with a care that amounted to
reverence, for in her unconsciousness she was more beautiful than ever,
her fine features molded in dead white, traced with fine blue veins; the
grace of her form was that of a lovely sculpture now, lacking vitality,
but possessing every line of perfection. The blow that had overtaken her
had failed in its terrible threat to crush her.

"Lay her in the companionway on the lounge," said Venner. He ran to the
saloon and brought up wine. He bathed her temples and wrists with the
liquor, and forced some between her blue lips. And Pearse chafed her
hands and patted them, gazing down at her in silent awe.

"Venner," he whispered, when her eyes refused to open, "we must let this
settle the score against her. It's a terrible end for such a creature."

"For my part, Pearse, I would give all I have just to see those great
violet eyes laugh at me again; to hear that mocking laugh from her
maddening lips. God, will she never awake?"

Astern of the schooner the sun was slowly descending to the western
sea-rim, and as the course was resumed after picking up Dolores, the
Point and the cliff gradually drew out across the path of the sun, until
the outlines of the rock and trees stood out black and sharp. On the
cliff-top a heavy pall of greasy smoke hung low about the shattered
pirates' camp; from fissures high up the frowning side spirals of smoke
testified to the wide-spread destruction that followed the blast.

They looked at the terrific devastation, and again at its nearer victim.
And as they gazed down at her, Dolores's lips trembled in a faint smile,
her great eyes opened wide, looking directly and fearlessly back at
them.

"I thank ye, my friends; I knew you would take me," she whispered, and
the two men turned away with a shudder. As she had lived, Dolores was
now meeting her inevitable end, bold and indomitable.

"Where are you hurt?" inquired Venner lamely. "Let me do something to
ease you."

"Ease?" she laughed as of old, but her teeth clenched upon her lower lip
immediately, with the pain it caused. "I shall ask ye to ease me
presently, good friends. Grim Death has me by the throat already. But
carry me outside. I am stifling in here. Let me see the ocean and the
sky at least in my passage. And I have something to tell ye also."

On the gratings around the stern, abaft the wheel, they laid her on soft
cushions. She drank greedily of the wine and water they offered her;
she quivered with eagerness to unburden her mind before her thirst was
quenched forever. She motioned them, to bend over her, and began to
speak in, husky whispers.

"That chest, thou cast it overboard. Dost know what was in it?"

Both shook their heads. None had seen inside the chests after they came
from the great chamber.

"I'll tell ye, then, for the peace of your souls and the tranquillity of
your voyage. Lest thy men be seized with a desire for treasure that
shall work ye mischief, have them open the other two chests. Quickly,
for I am faint."

Venner went to the chests himself and flung back the lids, which were
bolted on the outside and not locked. He stared for a moment,
unbelievingly, then nodded to Pearse. Pearse stared, too, in amazement,
and one after the other the sailors were called to see. They saw two
great strong-boxes filled to the brim with iron chains, broken cutlases,
rusty bilboes, and rock; a fool's treasure in truth.

"'Twas a trick to set my rascals at odds," Dolores told them when they
returned to her. "To thee, Pearse, I showed my treasure, and I fear that
blast has buried it beneath a mountain. Milo was to take it out. I
cannot believe it can have been taken away ere that powder blew it to
fragments. It was still in the powder store."

"Yes, I know," said Pearse quietly. "It was that which precipitated the
fight between us three that killed poor Tomlin."

"Well, if thou still art hungry for treasure, my friends, there is my
store buried where thou knowest, and I shrewdly fear but few of my
people are left. But I am slipping. Stand aside, that I may close my
eyes on the place I called home."

Dolores ceased speaking and lay, scarcely stirred by her faint
respiration, gazing over the schooner's stern at the sinking sun. The
golden disk was turning to red and across its darkened face the cliff
and Point stood out in sharp silhouette, which grew larger as the great
glowing sun was distorted and enlarged by the refraction near the
horizon. The breeze had changed, and now blew with gentle strength out
of the west, a fair wind for their homeward course, and the strands of
Dolores's glorious hair blew about her face like tendrils about an
orchid of unearthly beauty.

Presently she stirred again, and now she summoned all her remaining
vitality to raise herself on an elbow. Pearse and Venner leaned closer,
sensing the end in the tremendous brilliancy of her wide, dry eyes.

She spoke softly, yet with a thrilling note of yearning that choked her
hearers with harsh sobs.

"Father, I come," she whispered. "If I have failed in obeying thy
commands, I ask forgiveness, for I am but a woman. A woman with
instincts and yearnings, born of the mother I never knew. Thy very
treasures that were to appease me put the yearning more strongly in my
brain. Thy teachings showed me a world of beasts and savagery; thy
treasures gave me dreams of a world peopled by such as I would be. My
mother's blood forced me to seek this other, better world; thy blood
forced me to seek it wrongfully."

She paused, and gathered her fleeting breath.

Then, sitting suddenly upright, she flung both arms out to the setting
sun now lipping the sea, and cried:

"Gods I know not. Yet must there be such, else had I never known the
devotion of a Milo! Wherever ye be, brave Milo, living or dead, commend
me to thy own gods and forgive me for my ingratitude." She seized Venner
and Pearse by the arms as she fell back, and whispered: "In pity,
friends, set my feet toward the west, and launch my poor body down the
sun path as it sinks into the blue Caribbean that was my only home."

She relaxed with a little shivering sigh, the glorious eyes closed with
a tired tremor, and the spirit of Dolores the beautiful, the wicked, the
tempestuous, winged its way down the mysterious paths of the dark
unknown.

"Come," said Venner, suddenly shaking off his abstraction, "time is all
too short if we are to render her this last small service."

"How shall we do it?" asked Pearse doubtfully.

"We shall send her down her chosen path in a boat. Peters will load the
dingey with ballast, while you and I will lay Dolores out as well as we
may. Bring me that grating, Pearse. We will speed her in the dress she
loved. Her soul would sicken at a suffocating winding sheet. Hurry, for
the sun is half gone!"

Swiftly they worked, these men who had cause to remember the departed
siren without great love, and they placed her, secured to a grating,
across the thwarts of the dingey, to which the grating was in turn
secured. Then, all prepared, Peters sprang into the boat, bored a score
of auger-holes in the bottom, and as the great red sun set fierce and
blazing behind the black profile of the cliff, the filling boat was set
adrift, straight down the path of the luminary, bound ever westward,
until the sea gods claimed it and its passenger for their own.

"Farewell, place of ill-luck!" cried Pearce, as the schooner bore away
before the rising evening breeze. "May I never set my eyes on such evil
shores again."

"Then you will not come back to seek the treasure?" asked Venner, with a
shadowy flicker of a smile.

"Not for a thousand times the treasure that lies there!" cried Pearse
vehemently. "And I have seen it! The horror of this will haunt me until
my dying day. I only hope God will look kindly upon that poor woman,
that's all."

"I hope so, too," rejoined Venner thoughtfully. "With a white woman's
opportunities, what a woman she could have been."

But the gods are inscrutable. Only the warm mantle of the setting sun
gave a hint that Dolores might be even now entering into a place of
eternal rest, where her sins of ignorance and untutored instincts would
not count too heavily against her. The sea is very benign to its elect;
a calm sea in the setting sun received Dolores in arms of infinite
benignity.

(The end.)

[Transcriber's Note: The following typographical errors present in the
original edition have been corrected. In Chapter V, "inscrutaable" was
changed to "inscrutable"; in Chapter X, "Let me show thee they master"
was changed to "Let me show thee thy master"; in Chapter XVII, "could
not enchance your worth" was changed to "could not enhance your worth";
in Chapter XVIII, "shaking his first at Milo" was changed to "shaking
his fist at Milo"; and in Chapter XXI, "protruding a foot for Tomlin's
back" was changed to "protruding a foot from Tomlin's back".]

[Transcriber's Note: The following summary originally appeared at the
beginning of the serial's second installment.]

PRECEDING CHAPTERS BRIEFLY RETOLD

Within his mysterious stronghold, "The Cave of Terrible Things," on the
Maroon coast of Jamaica, washed by the waters of the Caribbean Sea, Red
Jabez, Sultan of Pirates, had just died.

Dolores, his daughter, "a splendidly lithe, glowing creature of beauty
and passion," "a royal woman conscious of mental and physical
perfection," succeeded her father as tyrant over the motley crew of
Spaniard and Briton, Creole and mulatto, Carib and octoroon, and
coal-black negroes.

Milo, the giant Abyssinian, who knew no fear and no law save the will of
this capricious creature, served Dolores as body-guard and chief.

Pascherette, "a gleaming, gold-tinted creature, a miniature model of
Aphrodite," beloved of Milo, was her maid and attendant.

Moved to mutiny by Rufe, the Spaniard, the pirates had risen in revolt
to loot the rich treasure of the dead Sultan's cave; but supported by
Milo, Dolores had cowed them, no less by her dagger than her threats.

But discontent rode the soul of the Sultana. She longed for other lands,
other people. With Milo's aid she determined to capture the first sail
that passed her shore, and escape.

When Rupert Venner and his guests, Craik Tomlin and John Pearce, aboard
the Venner yacht, Feu Follette, passed that way, they were easily
induced to go ashore.

In the midst of a reception accorded them by Dolores, the party beheld
Yellow Rufe and a band of mulattoes and blacks making for the schooner,
from whose rail shots crackled.

Venner raised a cry of treachery and called, "Come, fellows!" But the
woman held him as much by her eyes as by her promise: "I shall preserve
thy ship, and give thee back an eye for an eye, if thy men are harmed."

Then she sprang down the cliff like a deer.

[Transcriber's Note: The following summary originally appeared at the
beginning of the serial's third installment. The summary at the
beginning of the serial's fourth installment, if one was present, was
not available when preparing this electronic edition.]

PRECEDING CHAPTERS BRIEFLY RETOLD

On the death of Red Jabez, Dolores, "a glowing creature of beauty and
passion," took over her father's rule of the pirates of the Maroon coast
of Jamaica.

With the help of her faithful slave, Milo, the Abyssinian giant, she
crushed a rising insurrection among her riffraff subjects, whose
cupidity had been played upon by Rufe, the Spaniard.

But Dolores was herself the victim of discontent. Loathing her outlaw
subjects and the island, she determined to seize the first boat that
passed her way, and escape with her jewels and her gold.

When the pleasure yacht, Feu Follette, came that way, she sent Milo and
her maid, Pascherette, to decoy Rupert Venner and his guests, Craik
Tomlin and John Pearse, to the island.

In the midst of her reception to her captive-guests, she beheld Rufe and
a band of insurgent blacks and mulattoes attacking the crew of the
schooner, while Sancho, whom she had despatched to care for the vessel
while in the harbor, was joining in the attack.

Then she rushed over the cliff and into the water, and boarded the boat,
followed by her loyal Milo.

After a long and bloody struggle, the woman's ruse of firing the ship
with a keg of powder won the day, and Rufe and Sancho fled into the
wilderness, while from the schooner's topmast flew the Sultana's own
flag.

Demanding that the traitors, Rufe and Sancho, be rounded up, Dolores
threw her three guests into chains, while she accused Pascherette of
abetting the treason of Sancho.

Then Dolores turned to Venner with the offer of her love if he would
sail away with her, having first despatched his friends. When the man,
whose soul was racked with passion for the beautiful black panther,
recoiled from her condition, she left him in his chains.

Next she dealt with Sancho, whom Pascherette had lured back to the
woman's mercy; and Sancho emerged from Dolores's presence a driveling
imbecile.

When Milo beheld at this moment the fleeing form of Yellow Rufe, made
distinguishable by vivid lightning, Dolores determined to complete her
punishments.

The Spaniard was making good his escape when Milo took up the pursuit in
the little sailboat. Dolores and her crew would follow, by the light of
his flares, in the schooner.

With the untamed soul of a woman who had never known defeat, Dolores
drove her crew and defied the wind and the waves, and the Feu Follette
was liberated from the mud and swung to the gale as the cry rang out:
"There's the flare--and she's burnin' steady!"

End of Project Gutenberg's The Pirate Woman, by Aylward Edward Dingle