The Pirate Woman

Milo appeared to them; carrying his sobbing burden, and the interruption brought a blaze of fury to Dolores's face. She went pale, and her hands clenched and opened nervously.

"Well, slave?" she cried, and Milo started. Never had she used that tone to him.

"Sultana, I thought thou wert alone," he replied, haltingly. "I have brought Pascherette to thee for forgiveness."

"I forgive? Pish! What care I for thy chit? Take her where ye will, and trouble me not with such trash. Out, now! Let me not see her face again, and I care not what ye do with her. But haste. I have work for thee and a score of slaves. Bring them here quickly!"

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.