The Pirate Woman

"Bid thy men fall back into the gallery as if beaten," she said. "And when the vile bodies of those howling wolves fill the opening, deliver the treasure to them, and may their souls be shattered with their bodies! And that none may remain to repeat this day's mischief, when they break and fly loose, Stumpy and his dogs shall harry them and pursue them into the depths of the forest. Let the maroons finish what we so well begin. See thy gun does not harm the-- Wait," she cried, "hold thy artillery until ye see me across the Grove! I shall give thee a sign, then loose thy hell-blast."

Leaving Milo, she ran again through the great chamber and out by the rock door, which was rolled aside and standing open. Then around the mass of the mountain and skirting the grove, past the prostrate Pascherette she sped, casting a glance of bitter hate at the sorely wounded octoroon, but never halting until she reached a point of the underbrush immediately behind the spot where Venner and Tomlin still ranged back and forth uneasily watching the fight.

She rustled the foliage noisily, and the two men swung around in alarm. She thrust her head through the leafy screen, and showed them her face full of tender solicitude. Her great dark eyes were very soft; her scarlet lips were parted in a rosy smile. Venner glared at her, then flashed a glance of reawakening distrust at Tomlin, who returned it tenfold.

"Peace, good friends," she said, softly, laying a finger on her lips and nodding toward the raging battle. "Come with me. Both of ye. The day goes badly with me, and I would undo much that I have done toward ye. Come quickly, and with caution."

A momentary distrust for her made them hesitate; then she whispered intensely: "Haste. This is your opportunity."

Venner first shook off his moodiness and followed her into the brush; and Tomlin was close behind him. When she had them in covert, she stepped out once more, waited to catch Milo's eye at the ledge, then gave him the sign. And the defenders fell back as if suddenly broken and beaten. She waited still, until the attackers swarmed over their own dead, stamping over her altar, and gained the entrance, where they crowded in a milling, roaring mass. Then she glided back to the underbrush and said tersely: "Come!"

Venner and Tomlin walked on either side of her, not caring to meet each other's eye, for their subjection to Dolores's spell was complete whenever in close proximity to her. Hurriedly she led them around the cliff to the great entrance, beyond which they had never stepped. And they went full of tremendous hopes and suspicions, in which the hope predominated; they failed even to cast a look at their schooner, then lying free at anchor, with a few men visible on her decks. Three of the pirates' long boats lay on the shore abreast of her.