The Pirate Woman Part 6

Abruptly Dolores's guests swung around to follow the direction of the old woman's arm, and the girl darted a look of fury at the scene. Out from the point poured Yellow Rufe and a horde of strange mulattos and blacks, and shots crackled from the schooner's rails. On the little bay two boats filled with Sancho and his men pulled frantically toward the fight, and the haven rang with howls of gleeful antic.i.p.ation. Venner uttered a smoking oath, and clutched Tomlin and Pea.r.s.e by the arms.

"Come fellows!" he cried. "This is treachery!"

"Treachery? Ye wrong me, sirs!" Dolores's soft voice halted them. They stared at her, and she gave them back look for look until she saw the blood surge back to their faces and their eyes lose their hardness. Then she laughed, low and sweet, and waved them back.

"Wait. I shall preserve thy ship, and give thee back an eye for an eye if thy men are harmed. Trust me, will ye not?" She paused a moment to thrill them with her eyes; they stayed. They she sped down the cliff like a deer.

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 VII.

THE ATTACK ON THE FEU FOLLETTE.

By means of the floating blind the Point had been carried out across the narrow channel until its edge rested on the bar; and the schooner lay with a heavy list broadside on to the hard sand. Yellow Rufe and his followers, runaways from the pirates' camp, maroons banished from their homes for crimes against their fellows, rebellious slaves, and what not, splashed through the shallow water and stormed the Feu Follette by way of the jib-boom and head-rigging, while Sancho urged his boats on toward the vessel's quarters.

Dolores, uncertain yet as to Sancho's motives, but in no uncertainty as to Rufe's, paused but to look around for Milo as she leaped down the cliff. The giant was even then engaged in thwarting an inclination on the part of the yachtsmen to follow Dolores, for, her spell gone for the moment, Venner felt all an owner's solicitude for his property. But Milo had been well schooled; he knew how to play upon little weaknesses; Pascherette had told him, if he had not seen for himself, how amorousness and cupidity formed the key-note of character in the visitors; and now he used the knowledge to the fullest extent. The little octoroon appeared as Dolores watched; she had hastily attired herself in dry clothes, a single garment more filmy and daring than that she had worn to swim aboard the schooner, and from her mistress's store had borrowed jewels that transformed her into a beautiful little golden b.u.t.terfly.

Dolores saw all this in a flash; she saw Pascherette take capable charge of the three men, led them away from the cliff, and then Milo advanced to the steep path. Turning swiftly to resume her career, Dolores uttered a shrill, piercing cry that the giant understood perfectly, and she plunged into the sea as he bounded down the slope to her support.

The schooner's crew were already hard pressed; but they fought like men, led courageously by Peters, the sailing master. As Dolores cleft the sparkling water, speeding out to them like a gorgeous sprite of the waves, men tugged at gun-tackles to swing a piece around to rake their own decks, for Yellow Rufe and his ruffians had swept the forecastle clear of defenders. And Dolores reached the vessel, climbed over the low-listing rail nimbly as a jungle cat, at the instant when Sancho's boats hooked on to the main-chains and took the crew in the rear.

The pirate queen stood for a single long breath to grasp the scene in its entirety. Panting slightly from her exertions, her blazing eyes and heaving breast rendered her a figure of bewildering and awful loveliness; and the Feu Follette's men paused in the fight out of sheer amazement.

Sancho's gaze fell on her the moment his evil head topped the rail, and into his eyes crept an expression of detected insubordination. He sought Yellow Rufe, but Dolores had seen all she needed to apprise her that this was a concerted attempt to flout her authority. Then Rufe's hoa.r.s.e roar went up, and the tide of struggling men surged anew, and Sancho, plucking up heart, rejoined with a scream.

"Into the sea with the dogs!" he cried. "'Tis such a craft as Jabez would love to see ye carry."

The fight rolled aft, and Dolores was left standing alone by the midship shot-rack. She singled out a few of her men by name, and commanded them to rally to her side; then, seizing a cutlas from the deck, she glided tigerishly to the main companionway, down which the pirates were now driving the beaten crew, and the men she had picked out were shorn of all indecision as Milo leaped on board with a bull-throated shout and gained her side.

"Sancho! Rufe! Have done with this play!" she cried, placing herself in front of the blood-hungry horde. "Dogs, fall back! Have ye no memory that ye forget how Dolores strikes?"

Milo had picked up a handspike, and with it across his breast he bore back the scowling rascals, smiling the while himself with quiet contempt. But one, hardier than the rest, ran to the skylight, dashed in the gla.s.s with his boot, and cried with outflung arm:

"A plague upon her and her strokes. See yonder, lads--her cunning trick--our sloop comes back empty-handed, as she well knew it would--and here lies to your hands work that the Red Chief had reveled in. Down with her and the big bull! Below is loot fit for bold fellows."

Without moving from where he stood, Milo pivoted around, the heavy handspike--six feet of true ash--rigid as a bar of iron, took the overbold pirate at the base of the skull and spilled his brains into the breach he had made. Growling with fury, a man from Sancho's crew sprang to avenge the stroke with steel, and his blade creased down Milo's st.u.r.dy ribs before the giant had recovered from his own swing. And with the hissing slit of ripping skin Milo's debt was paid for him. Dolores, agile as a panther, reached the pirate with her cutlas pointed, and the steel hilt rang against his breast-bone.

But in the momentary pause in her vigilance, a score of Rufe's ruffians burst past her and poured below into the saloon, where renewed sounds of combat told of the ferreting out of the beaten crew.

"Milo, follow me!" cried Dolores, springing down the stairs herself, careless whether her wavering half-dozen followed or stayed. Her whole soul was sickened with the fear that this vessel, the long-wished-for means of her release from what had become a hateful bondage, was in danger of destruction at the red hands of Rufe's undisciplined dogs. And swiftly approaching on the freshening evening breeze her sloop grew momentarily clearer to the eye; it was easy to fancy she could hear the howls of disappointed rage pealing up from her deck; it needed no second sight to determine the side those humiliated pirates would take, when they hove alongside another prey which promised at least a taste of coveted loot.

In the brief time since the pirates' entry the schooner's saloon had become a place of desolation. All the magnificence of unrestricted cost was there; and all the beauty of artistic selection; and over all was the mark of the beast--blood and torn hangings, corpses and splintered panels, chaos and sulfur smoke as the pillage started. Dolores sought out through the smoke a breathing man in the uniform of the yacht, and swiftly placed her lips to his ear, her mind made up to a terrible expedient to save this vessel for herself.

"Tell me quickly--where is the magazine?"

The man opened his agonized eyes, saw that splendid blazing face close to his own, and shook his head loyally. He would give his master's enemies no a.s.sistance.

"Speak, fool!" she hissed, shaking him. They were alone by the great table-leg on the red-stained carpet. "I would defeat these sharks! Where is the powder?"

The man looked into her eyes again, and she smiled at him. It was enough. He weakly pointed to a stout door on the starboard side, forward of the sailing master's stateroom door, beyond which the sound of axes already resounded. The owner's and guests' quarters were filled to overflowing with ravenous wolves tearing and ripping in a frenzy of pillage. At the after-end of the saloon a pirate stood over a great cask, issuing jugs of liquor to such of his fellows as found time amid the riot to drink. Milo gripped his handspike, waiting for a command that should send him like awful Fate into the thick of the murderous mob.

"Milo! Bring me a powder-keg from that magazine!" Dolores said, still crouching low and hidden beneath the smoke-pall. The giant entered the room, shattering the lock with a lunge of his shoulder, and returned bearing an unopened keg of cannon powder.

"Place it upon the table." Then the girl rose to her feet with eyes glittering coldly and lips pressed to a tight line. "Find me a lighted brand--swiftly!" she said, and when the giant s.n.a.t.c.hed up a splinter of dry wood, lighting it at the steward's brazier in the little pantry off the saloon, she swept majestically aft to suddenly confront the roaring ruffian at the wine cask.

"Milo, hurl this liquor cask away!"

Milo picked up the heavy barrel as a man might pick up a cushion, heaved it above his head, and flung it like a cannon-shot at the door, behind which rang the greatest noise, while the pirate, whose care the wine had been, gaped like a stranded fish.

"Now this dog!"

The man followed his cask before his mouth closed from his astonishment; but as he flew his leathern lungs performed their office and warned the pillagers of peril. Out from cabins and storerooms poured the rascals, gorged with fine wines and delicate foods seized in their pillaging; steamy with blood not yet dried on their b.e.s.t.i.a.l faces. And when the great saloon was full, Dolores raised her torch above her head and blazed out at them:

"In five short breaths this vessel carries all thy black souls to h.e.l.l!

Skulking rats, swim while the breath is in you!"

The torch came down, Milo smashed in the head of the keg, revealing the terrible contents, and as if in grim jest he s.n.a.t.c.hed up a sprinkling of the powder and flicked some grains into the flare of the torch. If there had been any doubt as to the deadly earnestness of Dolores, there could be none now, for sparks crackled and spit in fearful nearness to that open keg. Men stampeded for the stairs, hurling each other down in their frenzy; but Yellow Rufe and Sancho lingered. Theirs had been the gravest fault; if they fled, it must be only to do penance some other day; if they forced Dolores's hand, at least she and that scornful giant must die the death also. They stood their ground, staring defiantly into her expressionless face.

Dolores spoke no word more. Milo stood like a bronze figure of Doom at her side, his n.o.ble face expressionless as hers. Between them stood that keg of terrible possibilities. The girl lowered the torch until the flame all but licked the wood of the keg; a dropping piece of charred wood fell audibly against the side. Sancho's breath caught painfully; Yellow Rufe's bloodshot eyes wavered. Still they held on.

"Milo, I give thee freedom!" said Dolores in a low, distinct voice that carried to their ears like the sound of a silver bell. "Farewell, faithful friend!"

The torch swept around, fanning to a blaze in the eddying air, then darted toward the keg. And with a yell that echoed on deck and far out over the sea, Yellow Rufe and Sancho turned and fled, fighting with each other, as had their less bold fellows, for the precious air of safety.

Dolores laughed contemptuously, flung the torch aside and bade Milo trample it out, then she, too, ascended to the deck to view her victory.

The sea was dotted with swimming men, the beach was full of running men, terrified men made the cliff resound with their cries. Then, sure that the schooner was free of foes, Dolores looked toward the sloop, now within hail of the schooner and coming fast with sail and sweeps, while her crew stared over the low bulwarks in puzzlement as to the reason for the hasty exodus from the strange craft.

"Here, Milo, is fresh fare of trouble. Hast brought my own flag?"

"Here, Sultana," replied Milo, taking a carefully folded silken banner from a pocket in his leathern tunic.

"Hoist it, then, at the main! Perhaps Hanglip and Caliban, Stumpy and the rest of my brave jackals, will forego their expected meal at sight of it. And send forth a shout for slaves; this vessel must be cleansed and her people's wounds attended to."