The Pirate Woman Part 19

"Here, friend, are muskets and pistols. Load them while I pa.s.s them out.

We shall see how hungry for our blood these wolves are."

She showed him the store of arms, in a small cave next to the powder store, and musket powder and bullets were also there. As he loaded the weapons, she pa.s.sed them out in armfuls, then gave Stumpy a flask of powder for priming, and told him to hold out until Milo could bring up other resources as yet unknown.

"And," she said, leading Stumpy inside for a moment, "here you see a powder-train. There, on the floor. Now hear me, my faithful one, should thy foes still beat thee back, bring all thy men along this pa.s.sage, but before ye come, touch a fire to this train. I shall await thee at the end, Stumpy, and together we shall see these dogs destroyed."

She called Milo, gave him a command, and then took Pea.r.s.e with her into the great chamber. Here she answered his questioning glance with a soft smile, and seated him in the great chair.

"Thy sword has done n.o.bly, good John," she said, laying her hand on his head. "The peril is over now. Rest. In a little while Milo will have that which will fill these hungry dogs to the gullet. Rest here. I'll soon be with thee." She leaned down, laid her lips lightly on his face, and whispered: "And be of good cheer; the end is in sight for thee and me."

She left him sitting there, wrapped in his confused thoughts. Then she flew to help Milo with his new engine of war which was to decide the day. From a corner of the apartment the giant dragged a bra.s.s culverin, mounted on a swivel, stolen from the p.o.o.p-rail of some tall Indiaman in years gone by. This was charged with powder, and Milo searched for effective missiles for it. He brought a handful of musket b.a.l.l.s to Dolores; she shook her head decidedly after a moment's thought and objected: "Those round pellets are too merciful for such cattle. What do they want? Treasure! Give them treasure, good Milo--their fill of it."

As she spoke she ran swiftly into the treasure chamber and seized handfuls of gold chains, while at her command Milo followed her with great gold coins in his huge hands. These they rammed into the cannon, until links of gold fell from the muzzle; then Dolores regarded the terrible thing with a mirthless laugh and bade Milo get to work with it.

"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 h.e.l.l-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 ma.s.s 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 ma.s.s. 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 sh.o.r.e abreast of her.

They stood in the entrance to the great chamber, sensing some of the awe that filled the mysterious place, peering into the gloom where the ruby lights now failed to cast their glow in the broader light of day entering the open aperture. Dolores led them in with a gesture and a smile, and they reached the ma.s.sive plated sliding door and stood beneath the yellow lantern, gazing in speechless wonder at the richness of that barrier. And while they waited, mystified and uneasy, from beyond the mountain came the crash of Milo's gun, and the tremendous discharge reverberated through and through the rock, making the pa.s.sage where they stood rumble and quake as if the mountain were about to fall.

Their faces went white, and Dolores gave them a rea.s.suring clasp of the hand while she pressed the side-post of the door and started the pulley and weight mechanism that would give them entry.

"Welcome, friends. Enter," she smiled, standing aside to permit them to pa.s.s. And Rupert Vernier and Craik Tomlin, forgetting their gloomy thoughts regarding each other, entered the great chamber, and were brought to a sudden halt at the sight of John Pea.r.s.e sitting at his ease through the strife in the high chair of state.

TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK. Don't forget this magazine is issued weekly, and that you will get the continuation of this story without waiting a month.

The Pirate Woman

by Captain Dingle

Author of "The Coolie Ship," "Steward of the Westward," etc.

This story began in the All-Story Weekly for November 2.

CHAPTER XX.

DOLORES DEMANDS A DECISION.

Milo let loose his infernal blast, and the smashing report was followed by a hush as of death. Then through the blinding and choking powder-reek came the groans and shrieks of the mutilated wretches whose evil fate had placed them in the path of the horribly despatched treasure. The eye could not penetrate the smoke that filled the narrow rock pa.s.sage; Stumpy and his men were blackened and smeared with smoke and sweat, demoniacal to the ultimate degree; and these were the men Milo hurled forth now to make the _debacle_ complete.

"Out upon them!" he cried, urging Stumpy to the ledge. "Leave not one of these dogs alive, Stumpy, and thy fortune is made. Thy Sultana will reward thee magnificently. Out with ye!"

Stumpy hitched his poor clubfoot along in brave haste, and flourished his cutlas in a hand that dripped red. For once in his stormy life the crippled pirate felt something of the glow that pervaded the heart of devoted Milo: for a moment he felt he was redeeming himself by enlisting his undoubted courage in a worthy cause.

"At 'em, lads!" he roared, leaping down through the smoke. "Dolores, Dolores! Give 'em h.e.l.l, bullies!"

He stumbled and fell, his crippled foot playing him false. He sprang up with a curse of pain, bit hard on his lip, and plunged into the huddled remnants of the attackers, his roaring bullies at his heels. His onslaught was the one thing needed to put terror into the hearts of the survivors of Milo's blast. Coming through the leek like so many devils, Stumpy and his crew put their foes to flight and followed eagerly, hungrily; the forest rang and echoed with the clash of action and the smashing of underbrush in panicky flight.

Now Milo, his duty to his Sultana performed, thought of Pascherette. The little octoroon lay where she had fallen, a pitiful little huddled heap; never once had her pain-dulled eyes left the giant, or the place where he might appear. And now she saw him coming toward her, not as a ministering angel, but like a figure of wrath, swinging his great broad-ax in one hand as easily as another man might swing a cutlas. She shivered as he stood over her, accusing.

"Milo!" she panted, gazing up at his magnificent height in plaintive supplication.

"Serpent!" he replied, and the utter contempt in his voice went to her heart like a sword-thrust. "Hast a G.o.d to pray to before I send thy false soul adrift?"

"I have but one G.o.d, Milo; to Him I should not pray."

She fixed her burning gaze upon him, and in her pained eyes blazed all the tremendous love that actuated her small being.

"A G.o.d thou canst not pray to, traitor? Art afraid, then?"

"Not afraid, Milo," she whispered, and her eyelids drooped. "I cannot pray to one who looks down upon me as thou dost."

"I?" The giant's expression changed to frowning displeasure rather than anger. "I?" he repeated.

"Thee, my heart. Thou'rt my G.o.d, my all. For thee I have done this thing. For thee, who even now canst not see where lies the falsity.

Milo"--her weak voice sank to a low murmur--"I beg thy forgiveness. My love for thee caused me to sin. My life is to pay the supreme price. Let me die at least in thy forgiveness."

"Forgive? Forgive thee, who worked for the destruction of the being I worship? Rather shall I speed thy soul!"

Pascherette struggled to a kneeling position, crossed her tiny hands on her panting breast, and looked full into his eyes as a wounded hart looks at the hunter. Her lip quivered, her small, gold-tinted face, once so piquant and full of allure, had taken on a gray hue from her pain, but there was no hiding the great, overwhelming love for the giant that gleamed in her eyes.

"Milo," she said, and the word was a caress, "Milo, if thou must, strike swiftly. Yet again I ask, forgive."

The giant slowly lowered his great ax, and his honest heart answered the pitiful plea. His deep chest swelled and throbbed; into his face crept the look that had been there on that day when he told Pascherette he loved her--loved her, yet worshiped Dolores as his G.o.ds. Letting the ax fall to his elbow by the thong at the haft, he stooped and tenderly picked up the girl, carrying her as a child carries a doll; yet his face was averted from Pascherette's pa.s.sionate lips that sought to kiss him.

"Not yet can I forgive thee," he said. "Be content that I shall not kill thee, girl. Perhaps, if thy acts have failed in their end, I may forgive thee; not yet."