Part 6 (1/2)
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 s.h.i.+p, 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 s.h.i.+p,” ”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 mids.h.i.+p 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.