The Pirate Woman

"Demand, again? Good Caliban"--she said softly, and smiled upon him--"thy training has been faulty. Come, I will answer thee."

"Ye answer us all, or none. I know thee too well to trust thee. Answer these men, who ask thy reason for keeping these three strangers to the detriment of thine own people. Sancho paid dearly for his sight of thy great chamber. Did the stranger who was in there with thee last night suffer, too?"

"That's the talk; answer!" shouted the crew, led by Caliban's band and supported less vociferously by the rest.

"Silence, then; I will answer!" cried Dolores, quivering with suppressed rage. She spoke again to Milo, then turned to face the mob, her head erect, her eyes ablaze.

She flashed a keen glance toward Pearse, who had sidled over to the band led by Stumpy, who seemed less accusative than the others; she nodded faintly, approvingly, and sought the others. Venner stood aloof, on the fringe of Hanglip's crowd; Tomlin stood almost by the side of Spotted Dog.

"I will answer. I see among ye men of troubled minds, who are not yet disposed to flout my authority. Thee, Caliban, I have forgiven before; yet here thou art, venturing again to confront me with demands. I will not reply to thee, nor to any one man or party. To ye all, my people, I have my answer. In one hour, in the grove, ye shall hear and be satisfied. That is my answer now. Come Milo."

She walked slowly and steadily straight through the midst of the muttering, grumbling mob, Milo at her back like a gargantuan shadow. And looking neither to one way or the other, meeting eyes that glared in her path with cold, dignified disdain, she proceeded through the camp, across the grove, and to the ledge behind the altar. Savage curses followed her; men jostled at her heels and dared Milo to prevent them; the giant, calm and cold as his mistress, moved forward like a human Juggernaut, laying a resistless hand upon a presuming shoulder here, flinging aside a leering ruffian there.

And as the mob thinned, and Dolores entered the cool glade, something in the situation which she had failed to realize before now struck her with force; she started at the thought, then uttered a low, rippling laugh of satisfaction. For Pascherette, in her cunning scheme of double-dealing, had played into her lady's hands to an extent unhoped for by Dolores.

"Milo, the wolves are ready to tear," she said. "And they shall tear--not me, but themselves! Didst note the three strangers? Even they shall help more than I had hoped." She stepped up behind the altar, and as she waited for Milo's assistance in climbing to the secret entrance to the great chamber she asked: "Thy blow-pipe, hast forgotten its use."