The Pirate Woman Part 9

"By the G.o.ds!" he swore hoa.r.s.ely, "show me what I have to do. Wonderful, wonderful Dolores!"

"Patience," she smiled, resting her head on his breast. "First tell me thy name. What shall thy Dolores call thee?"

"I am Rupert. Call me slave!"

"Rupert. It is a name to love. Slave? Nay, it is I who shall be slave to thee. But patience again, Rupert. When we two go from here, there can be no other to share our secret; none save the slaves that I shall place in thy ship to replace thy dead crew. Thy friends may not go. They must not live to see thee go!"

Venner shivered, and drew back, holding her at arms' length and staring at her in horror.

"What are you saying, Dolores?" he gasped. "My friends are to die?"

"Yes, and by thy hand, my Rupert. For how else may I know thou are worthy to be mate to a queen?"

"Now, by Heaven! Witch, siren, whatever you are, my madness has pa.s.sed!"

he cried. "Not for the key to a paradise peopled with such as you would I do this!" He stepped aside, picked up her dagger, and glared at her with steely eyes.

Dolores laughed at him: a low, throaty little laugh that went clear to his brain and set it on fire again. Yet, nerving himself against her, he stood erect, dagger in hand, and met the blaze of her dusky eyes bravely. He shivered violently when her rich voice thrilled his tingling ears.

"Hah, my Rupert, thou'rt not yet tamed. Let me show thee thy master!"

With the words she reached him with her subtle, tigerish glide, swiftly, startlingly, and with the dart of a cobra her hand gripped his which held the dagger. Her warm body again pressed closely to him, her red lips, parted still, almost touched his cheek; her hair smothered him with its fragrance; and while his senses swam her supple muscles tensed to living steel wire, her grip tightened and twisted at his wrist, and the dagger was wrenched from his fingers. Then leaping back, laughing mockingly now, Dolores slipped the dagger into the sheath, s.n.a.t.c.hed up the chains from the floor, and flew upon him with a deadly pounce that bore him back to the wall.

Aroused from his numbness, Rupert Venner fought back furiously, humiliated, and ashamed. Whether he would or not, he forgot all his chivalry, and strove to meet this appalling woman with strength against strength; but in Dolores he met a thing of wire and whipcord where moments before had been a creature of warm softnesses; a being of feline agility, and devilish skill that reflected the devilish skill of her teacher, Milo. The chain-links tinkled and clashed against their swaying bodies, but she never let them fall; they hung from her girdle; her hands were free; and she had both his wrists in a grip that outrivaled the irons. Laughing, ever laughing, her hot breath playing over his face, she placed one foot behind one of his, surged toward him heavily, and, when his arms would have involuntarily gone out to preserve his footing, she subtly twisted them back and up from the elbows, until she rested against his chest with her bare arms tightly about his body.

Now her head, with the gold circlet about the brows, pressed hard against his chin. Her hair was in his mouth, tendrils of it stung his eyes, but the gold band numbed his flesh and bruised the bone. Upward, ever upward, she forced his chin until his neck was cracking with the strain and he choked for breath. Then she suddenly relaxed. Her arms left him, her wickedly lovely face once more smiled into his starting eyes, and she took the chain from her girdle with leisurely swiftness, falling to her knees at his feet.

"There, my friend, thou art back in thy place!" she said, snapping on his ankle irons. "Spend the night in thought, good Rupert. To-morrow I shall come to thee again for thy decision. Now, pleasant dreams, my--lover!" she whispered, suddenly slipping her arms about his neck again and pulling his head hard against her panting breast. She softly kissed his hair, then pressed back his head and kissed his lips long and pa.s.sionately.

"Good night, beloved!" she said, and pa.s.sed out of the room, leaving behind the echoes of a rippling little laugh that set Venner's blood to leaping.

CHAPTER XI.

PASCHERETTE UNVEILS HER PURPOSE.

Milo and Pascherette stood outside the rock portals of the great chamber after their dismissal by Dolores, and the giant's face wore a look of perplexity which was not reflected in the little octoroon. If her task was difficult, Pascherette seemed not in the least disturbed; rather in her sharp eyes lurked something of bravado at having escaped her mistress's anger so easily. And this expression perplexed Milo.

"Art sure of thyself, Pascherette?" asked the giant, ill at ease for his little companion.

"Why not?" she laughed, peering up at his troubled face impudently.

"Thinkest thou Pascherette is a fool?"

"No, thou art not a fool," replied Milo slowly. He laid a heavy hand on her shoulder, turned her around to face the faint light remaining, and gazed hard into her bright eyes. "Thou art not a fool, little one. But Sancho--is it so simple to find him?"

"Big, childish Milo!" she cried with a laugh that had no joy in it.

"Dost think I feared that verdict of Dolores? No. I fear her whip only.

My flesh creeps even now at thought of my poor shoulders hadst thou not appeared in time. Sancho? Pah! I can find him easily enough."

"Then, child, was there nothing in thy traffic with him save what I heard from thy lips?"

Pascherette looked down, tapping the sand with her tiny foot, and her breast fluttered in agitation. Then she slipped her hand into his, looked up shyly yet ardently into his eyes, and replied swift and low:

"Milo, my love for thee must be my defense. I did have traffic with Sancho, to the end that we--thee and me--might use him to our advantage.

Wait!" she cried, when he would have spoken, "hear me. Canst not see Dolores's cunning intention? She goes from here, carrying her treasure; what will she do with thee, once safely away? Will she carry thee always with her, to be marked because of thy great stature? No, Milo, thy life will pay for her desertion of her people, and she will laugh at thy pa.s.sing. And why should it be? Here, thou and I can rule these cattle as she never could. With Sancho's deserters, and Rufe's followers, I can give thee a band that will force the treasure from her greedy grasp, and make of her what she has made of thee and me--a slave!"

"Girl!" Milo's deep voice vibrated with pa.s.sionate horror. "Cease thy treason, or I crush thy wicked heart in these two hands. Dolores is mistress of my soul--my body is but the slave of that."

"Pish!" retorted Pascherette, contemptuously. "She has thee dazzled, Milo. Say, dost thou not love me?" she demanded, standing tiptoe and thrusting her piquant little face under his gaze. "Look in my eyes, and then tell me another woman owns thy soul!"

"Yes, I love thee," replied Milo, with simple earnestness. "I love thee; yet will I kill thee ere Dolores suffers ill through thy scheming. Have done with this talk. I hate thee for it!"

"Love--and hate!" she laughed metallically. "Loving me, still thou hast room to love another better. Hate and love! Thou great fool, it cannot be!"

"Pascherette, I love thee. Thou'rt entangled in my heart-strings. When I hate thee, it is because of that love, which will not brook treason in thee. Again, I love thee, golden girl; but, forget it not, I worship Dolores as I worship my G.o.ds!"

"Then wilt thou not seek her power for thyself?" whispered the girl subduedly, awed for the moment by his tremendous and solemn earnestness.

"Little one, bring Sancho as she bade thee. He has merited punishment.

Yet tell him the Sultana will be just. His punishment will but fit the fault. Afterward we two will talk together, and I shall teach thee loyalty. Go now, bring thy man to the council hall. I shall await thee.

Stay, I shall come with thee, for the woods are dark, and a storm threatens."

"I go alone, Milo. He will fly from thee. Have no fear for me; the woods are safe, and the storm is in thy great head only."

The girl turned, kissed her hand airily, and ran into the gloom of the forest. And as she went she laughed again harshly and muttered: "The great clod! His worship overtops his love. But I shall make love overtop worship yet, my giant! Such a man--a slave? Not for a thousand Doloreses! Wait, Milo; wait, my mistress!"

The evening breeze had strengthened as darkness fell, and its breath was hot and sultry. As Pascherette plunged deeper into the woods, the heavy boom of the seas along sh.o.r.e died away and gave place to the softer, more vibrant hum and murmur of the great trees. The track, little more than a line of flattened underbrush, vanished before she had gone fifty yards; but the little octoroon was no stranger to nocturnal rambles, her keen eyes, and, keener still, her sense of direction, led her unerringly through the shades toward the rearward spur of the granite cliff.

Creepers and hanging mosses brushed her face and limbs; alone she might have ignored them; but there was a quality in the sighing and rustling about her that seemed to give voices to the ghostly fingers that touched her, and to support her courage as well as to warn Sancho of her coming, she thrilled forth a merry little s.n.a.t.c.h of song:

"Ho! for the Jolly Roger lads; Ho! for the decks red-streaming.

A pirate's la.s.s is a well-lov'd la.s.s, And there's gold through the red a gleaming!

"Ho! for a cask in the fire's red glow; Ho! for the heaps of plunder.

There are showers of pearls for the pirates' girls-- The rain from the corsair's thunder!"

At the end of her song Pascherette halted, listened, then called softly:

"Sancho! Thy Pascherette calls!"

Silence prevailed for several moments, and she called again, fearing that her voice had gone astray amid the increasing confusion of the trees. Then came a lull in the wind, the lull that always punctuated the gathering of such tropical storms as now threatened; and in the hush she heard voices--uncertain, disputing. Then Sancho growled, close to her ear:

"Art alone, jade?"

"Oh, Sancho!" she cried, darting into the gloom to the sound of his voice and flinging her arms about him. "I have feared for thee, my Sancho. Now I fear no more, for all is well."

"Well?" the pirate growled suspiciously. "Hast left thy hot-blood mistress, then?"