“Aye, ready!”
“Then watch—and heave!” she commanded; and with the suddenness of light the schooner swept around in a swift arc, the black shape of the flying sloop stood out against the angry sea crests, and the two vessels came together with a crash of timbers and a rattling of gear.
A distant rumbling of thunder succeeded a faint flash, and wind and rain came down with increased fury as if to balance the defection of the electric element. The darkness of Erebus fell upon the surging vessels, and men groped at the rails in a blind effort to make out a footing for boarding the sloop.
“Follow me; I want Yellow Rufe alive!” cried Dolores, leaving the wheel and springing to the bulwarks. Instinctively Peters stepped to the wheel, and as he passed his employer he leaned to whisper in his ear:
“Let them once leave these decks, sir, and we’ll up hellum and away!”
Venner’s eyes glittered at the prospect; but he could not see the faces of his friends; he could only hear Pearse’s low tones beside him, and the mumbled words indicated no great agreement in the scheme. Uncertain, his mind confused between desire to escape and desire to see more of Dolores and her hidden cave of wonders, Rupert Venner hesitated in his decision; and in the next moment it was out of his power to decide. For Rufe, in desperation now, met the boarders at the rail, backed by his half-dozen crazed adherents, and murderous steel glittered dully against the inky sky.
“Beat down his cringing curs, but leave me Rufe!” cried Dolores, opposing her own dagger to the sweep of the pirate’s cutlas. And as the schooner’s crew roared at Hanglip’s heels, storming over to the pitching sloop’s decks to pursue mercilessly the panic-stricken runaways, the girl pitted agility and splendid knife-craft against the terror-driven strength and wolfish fury of the trapped traitor.
“Hah! Thy black heart fails thee!” taunted Dolores, leaping down from the rail to the schooner’s streaming deck and thus avoiding a whistling stroke of Rufe’s cutlas. The pirate fell forward with the impetus of his blow, and stumbled in a heap at the girl’s nimble feet. “Up, man!” she cried, leaping back to permit him to rise. “What, art afraid of a woman? Here, then, I prick thee! Now wilt fight?” She darted her dagger swiftly downward, and the partially healed cross on Rufe’s cheek blazed red again.
“Woman or devil, I’ll see thy heart for that!” swore the pirate, and rose with a bound and hurled himself at the girl. She stepped aside agilely and laughed mockingly at him, while as he again stumbled with the swing of his avoided blow she darted close, and her knife ripped his sword-arm from wrist to elbow.
Mouthing crazily with fury, Rufe leaped backward until his shoulders struck the rigging, and, seizing his cutlas in his left hand, he poised it by the blade for a deadly javelin cast.
Now upon the scene flared a great blaze, and Stumpy’s scowling face appeared at the back of it. He, with readier wit than his fellows, had sought out a tar-pot and lamp; and at the moment his mistress stood defenseless before the impeding steel, the club-footed pirate poured lamp-oil into the tar, and cast the flaring wick on top of all.
A circle of light spread from wheel to foremast, with Yellow Rufe at the main rigging in the center of it. The light dazzled him for a second, and his throw was stayed. The three yachtsmen, huddled in their chains aft, stared in helpless amazement at the tableau; for such it became, when the fight stopped for a breath and every man’s passion-filled face was lighted by the red glare.
“Shoot him down!” shouted Pearse in horror.
And Venner and Tomlin strove for words without success. Venner was dumb and sick in face of Dolores’s peril. Yellow Rufe uttered a grim, Satanic growl of laughter, and drew back his arm for the cast. His plight was utterly desperate; he knew death waited for him with clutching talons, and with his last breath he would reap toll that should make his name a thing to recall with dread afterward.
“This for thy witch’s heart!” he howled, and his arm quivered. Then out of the shadows aloft, above the smoky flare, came down the tremendous shape of Milo, forgotten in his post at the masthead, but never taking his eyes from his Sultana.
Like a gorilla he slipped down the backstay with one hand; with the other hand he reached downward with a swift, sure clutch, and as Rufe’s wrist flexed to cast his javelin Milo’s hand gripped him by the neck from behind and swung him bodily off his feet, while the wide-flung cutlas flashed through the air and plunged with a hiss over the side.
“I thank thee again, Milo,” said Dolores, slipping her dagger into the sheath and looking on at Rufe’s struggles with the unconcern of one far apart from the actual conflict. “I wished to take him alive; yet had almost been forced to cut too deeply. Bring the villain to me. And, Caliban, get more flares, lanterns, lights, and make us a theater of justice here.”
She stepped aft, saw Peters at the wheel, and smiled as she realized how her boarding of the sloop might have resulted.
“Hah, but it would have availed thee nothing!” she smiled at Venner. “I read thy heart as I read the stars, friend. Watch how completely Yellow Rufe pays his debt to me. He has fled me through forest and mountain; through a sea of howling storm; yet he pays. And thus all men pay who think to flout Dolores. Keep thy eyes wide, friends, and watch.”
Yellow Rufe was brought before her, and his swarthy face was pallid in the red light. There was something of the splendid beast about this fellow, too; a quality that showed even when he faced certain death and no merciful one. He had run, and when overtaken he had fought; and now he must pay.
“Hanglip, to the wheel here!” Dolores commanded. “Six of you bring back the sloop. The rest attend me! Bring the schooner to her course, northwest, Hanglip; and, Spotted Dog, rig me a whip at the foregaff-end. Yellow Rufe, pray or curse while ye may. Thy course is run. There is nothing left to say. Ten minutes remain to thee.”
The doomed pirate stood in silence while the preparations were being made; but when Spotted Dog brought down the end of the rope he had rove through the block at the end of the gaff, and stood grinning anticipatively before Dolores, Rufe’s tongue came loose, and he burst into a torrent of futile, raving blasphemy.
“Take the rope end forward, and pass it around the bows, so that the rope passes beneath the keel,” Dolores ordered, and every eager villain in the band knew now what fate awaited Rufe. The schooner, not being square-rigged, was badly fitted for the operation of keel-hauling; but Dolores’s inventive brain had devised a refinement of even that refinement of torture. She waited for the rope end, and when Spotted Dog brought it aft, on the weather side, passing clear from the gaff to leeward, under the keel and up to windward, she stood aside so that the yachtsmen could witness all.
“Tie his hands, Milo!” she said. It was carried out, in spite of Rufe’s fierce fight against it. “Now place the noose about his throat tightly.” That, too, was done, and now the rope led from Rufe’s neck, over the weather rail, under the schooner, and up to the gaff. Three men stood by the hauling part of the rope, and at a gesture from the girl six others joined them. On every face was a little doubt, for none saw exactly what was coming, least of all Rufe.
“Now release him!” said Dolores quietly, and Rufe was left standing alone, his hands tied, but his feet unfettered. He glared around as if he saw a slim chance yet for life; the hope died the next moment, for Dolores signed to the men at the rope, they began hauling, and the terror leaped into Rufe’s eyes afresh.
For a moment Venner and his friends saw what they imagined to be a piece of grim jesting; but they, as well as Rufe, speedily saw there was no jest in this. For as the rope tightened, and other roaring ruffians ran joyously to take a pull at it, Rufe was drawn irresistibly toward the weather rail with a choking drag on his throat. He seized the rail, and strained with his every sinew to fight that deadly peril; the rope only tightened more; it was either go or strangle for him; fight as he might, he was forced to climb on the rail, to aid in his own funeral.
The yachtsmen turned dizzy with the awfu
lness of the man’s end; but they could not take their fascinated eyes from the scene. They saw Rufe topple over the rail with a choking curse, and saw the rope pull him under the vessel; they saw the rope quiver to the pirates’ lusty pull as the victim was battered against the keel. And they saw the terrible figure leap from the sea to leeward and fly to the gaff-end as the men ran away with the rope to a roaring chorus. But they saw no more. Their eyes refused to look at a repetition of that horror. And Dolores, watching them keenly, came to them, after giving final orders regarding Yellow Rufe’s body, took their chains in her hand, and said:
“When again the thought comes to leave me, gentlemen, think well upon what I have showed thee. Now come below. I owe thee some refreshment after a night of storm. ’Twill be approaching dawn ere the schooner can beat back to my haven. Come. I will serve thee with supper.”
CHAPTER XV.
THE FIRES OF THE FLESH.
In the schooner’s saloon the atmosphere was peaceful by contrast with the hurly-burly outside; yet even here the steep slant of the deck, the shrill, protesting squeal of working frames and beams, the sullen thud and swish of racing seas along the vessel’s skin, kept the storm ever in mind: the dizzy plunge of the bows into great gray seas, with its accompanying rise of the stern and the hollow jar and thump of the rudder-post in its port, kept the interior humming with sound as from a distant organ.
Again chained to the mainmast, the three yachtsmen stood gloomily regarding Dolores, whose capable, battle-wise fingers now performed a task more in keeping with her sex and charm. Under the great swing-lamp in the skylight she leaned over the table, mixing wine in low, stout cups, spreading a silver salver with food from the pantry. And a thrilling picture she made in the soft glow of the lamp. The beautiful face was warm with color; the scarlet lips were slightly opened in a brilliant smile; intent upon her task, she swayed with superb grace to the tremendous lurches of the driving schooner, ignoring all outside affairs.
Her preparations completed, she placed tray and cups at the end of the table nearest the mainmast, turned around the deep armchair which had been the owner’s own, and sat down, offering a cup and the tray with a little laugh of satisfaction.
“Come, friend Rupert,” she said, thrilling Venner again with her vibrant voice, “thou shalt be first. Eat—and drink. See, for thee I do this.” She raised the cup to her lips, and kissed the brim, fixing her fathomless eyes full on Venner as she did so.
He struggled with his feelings for a moment, and hated himself heartily for even debating his attitude. But he fell, as he had done before, dazzled by her witchery. His eyes blazed, his blood leaped, and he took the cup with a mumbled attempt at thanks. Dolores smiled at his confusion, and in that smile was the allure of a Circe.
Venner’s expression became less tense as he noted the faces of his fellows; for in their eyes he read jealousy, rank and stark, and it warmed him to the marrow. In the next instant his warmth rose to fever heat, and malice twisted his features; Dolores had taken another cup, and now she offered it to Pearse, with a smile yet more gracious than before.
“My silent friend, here’s to thee, too,” she murmured. His cup she kissed twice, and presented it carefully so that the place she kissed was against his lips. “Drink. I have sweetened it.”
As Venner’s brows darkened, so did John Pearse conquer his first flush of self-contempt and put on a smile that irradiated his usually serious face. And Tomlin brightened, too, waiting in what patience he could muster for his turn, which must come next. To him Dolores turned, cup in hand, and rising at the same time gave him his wine with a brief: “Here, drink, too. I must leave thee a while.”
She forced the cup into Tomlin’s trembling fingers, gave him never a glance, but went out of the saloon on her errand.
When he realized she was gone, Craik Tomlin dashed down the wine like a petulant boy, and cursed deeply and fiercely. And not until then did Venner and Pearse awake to the true artistry of the woman; for here, instead of making of Tomlin a raging foe, willing to plot with all the power of his alert brain for their ultimate release, she had aroused a demon of black jealousy in him which promised to set all three by the ears.
Restricted as their movements were, they were forced to nurse whatever feelings Dolores had implanted in them in full sight of each other. And Tomlin left no doubt as to his feelings. At the farthest scope of his chain he flung himself down on the slanting floor and crouched there with dull-glowing eyes bent loweringly upon his friends. Venner laughed awkwardly, and glanced at Pearse; the laugh died away and left a silence between them that was vividly accentuated by the manifold voices of the laboring vessel. For in the swift meeting of eyes, John Pearse and Venner, host and guest, friends to that moment, saw in each other an established rival, a potential foe. Involuntarily they drew apart; and when Dolores returned from the deck she found them spread out like star rays, having nothing in common except a common center.
She gave no sign that she noticed them; but her heavy, fringed lids drooped over eyes brimming with gratification. As she stepped from the stairs the schooner swung upright, the deck overhead thundered to the slamming of booms as she came about, and then the cabin sloped the other way, rolling the scattered wine-cups noisily across the floor. Neither man looked up; but Tomlin’s cup rolled so that it struck his foot, and he gave voice to a deep oath, terrible in its uncalled-for savagery. Then Dolores gave them outward notice for the first time.
With a low, pleasant laugh, she stepped quickly to Tomlin’s side, laid a hand on his sullen head, and forced him to look up at her.
“I owe thee something, friend,” she smiled, and Tomlin flushed hotly under her close regard. “I treated thee badly in my haste. Come”—she went to the sideboard, filled another cup with wine, and came back, kneeling before Tomlin in the attitude of a slave while her big eyes blazed full into his.
“Drink, for I like thee best,” she whispered, sipping the wine and putting the brim, warm from her lips, to his.
And Tomlin drank deeply, greedily, trembling under her close proximity. He felt her hand take his chain, heard the tinkle of links, and knew, without seeing, that she had unlocked his fetters and he was free.
“Now sit here with me, and thou shalt tell me about thy world, my friend, the world thou shalt take me to.”
Her soft, thrilling voice set Tomlin’s blood leaping; and as she spoke she led him to Venner’s great chair and sat him down in it. Then, facing at the length of the table her other two captives, she stood behind the big chair, her arms on the top, leaning low to Tomlin’s ear, her lips almost brushing his cheek.
And she whispered to him musically, seductively; her jeweled fingers played with his hair; the soft, warm skin of her arms slid over his neck and face; when, in a frenzy, he reached impulsively for her hand and gripped it, she laughed yet more deliciously and permitted him to hold it.
“Why must you seek another world, Dolores?” Tomlin said hoarsely. “Here you are queen. Out in the greater world you can be no more. Stay, and let me stay with you.”
“And would my paltry possessions pay thee for renouncing thy people, thy home?” she asked.
“Home? People? God! I renounce Heaven itself if you say yes!”
“We shall see, my friend,” Dolores sighed, and Tomlin felt her tremble slightly. “My chief desire is to leave behind me this life of herder to human beasts. To go into the world whence comes such as thee, Tomlin; to live among the people who can make such as these”—she indicated the rich furnishing of the saloon, the sideboard silver and plate, the stained glass of the skylight.
“All these things I have, and more—nay, but thy treasures are nothing compared with what I shall show thee in the great chamber—yet must I keep them hidden because of the beasts that call me Sultana! Where they came from, these treasures, must be men like thee, Tomlin, women like the painted women of my gallery, people with the art to make these things instead of the brute power to steal them. And there I will go, and thou
art to be my guide.”
“Then, in Heaven’s name, let us go now!” cried Tomlin, trying to rise. She laughed in his ear again, and her soft, warm arms pressed him back in the chair with a power that amazed him. “We shall go, in good season,” she whispered. “But—” The rest was murmured so faintly, yet so tremendously audible to his superheated brain, that he drew back and stared up at her with an awful expression of mingled unbelief and horror distorting his face.
“Do you know what you say?” he gasped, and shot an apprehensive glance toward Venner and Pearse.
“Surely, my friend,” she crooned. “Thyself alone, of those who came in this ship, may return. If I am desirable, see to it that I can be pleased with thee.” Dolores stood up, bent upon him a dazzling smile, leaned as if to kiss his lips, then with a tinkling little ripple of mirth blew a kiss instead and ran up the companion-stairs to the deck.
Tomlin stood glaring after her as if fascinated. His face, deeply flushed a moment before, had gone deathly white; his profile, turned under the lamp toward his companions, showed deeply puckered brows over stony eyes, lips parted as if to utter a cry of horror. And Venner, fuming inwardly, had seen enough to recall some of his badly scattered wits. He called Tomlin by name hoarsely, softly, and exclaimed when he looked around:
“Tomlin, shall we three be ruined body and soul by that sorceress? Come, help us out of these chains, and we will make a bid for liberty. We can reach Peters and such men as are left, by way of the alleyway to the forecastle; I know where weapons are to be got, and we’ll put our fate on the cast. Come. Pearse is of a like mind, eh, Pearse?”
Pearse did not reply at once, and Tomlin saved him the trouble; for, recovering himself with a shudder, he put a hand on the companion-rail and started up the stairs with a laugh of contempt.
“I have no concern with your troubles, Venner,” he said. “As for liberty, I am free as air. I believe patience is the medicine you need.”
The Pirate Story Megapack: 25 Classic and Modern Tales Page 87