Pearse followed her with his eyes until she vanished into the passage; then with muttering lips and harshly working features he strode down the chamber to the great tapestry behind which lay the powder store. The suspicion had come to him that Dolores was fooling them all regarding her real treasure; for he believed she had shown him everything, and if those heavy chests contained but a tithe of the whole, life was certain that the gems around the walls were not what she meant when she said she had still a thousand times greater riches than the chests contained.

He tore aside the tapestry, and tried to see through the gloom of the cavern. His eyes could not pierce the blackness, and he looked around for a light, while Venner and Tomlin walked toward him with sudden interest in their faces. Over the tall Hele clock a lantern hung; a gaudy thing of beaten gold, in which an oil wick burned, gleaming out in multicolored light through openings glazed with turquoise and sapphire, ruby, and emerald. He took this down, and impatiently tore away the side of it to secure a stronger light. Again he went to the powder store, and now Venner and Tomlin were at his back, peering over his shoulder or under his arms in curiosity as to his quest.

And, sensing their presence, he swung around upon them savagely, muffling the cry that answered the message of his eyes. Flinging the lantern down, he trampled it out, and with snarling teeth he faced them, his rapier flickering from the sheath like a dart of lightning.

"Back!" he barked, and advanced one foot, falling into a guard. "This is no concern of yours, Venner, nor yours, Tomlin. Back, I say!"

Tomlin stared into his furious face and laughed greedily. His keen eyes had seen a vague, shadowy something in the cavern, that filled him with the same passion which consumed Pearse.

"So you are the lucky one, eh, Pearse?" he chuckled, and his hand went to his own rapier. He stepped back a pace, and, never taking his eyes from Pearse, cried: "Venner, it's you and me against the devil and Pearse! A pretty plot to fool us, indeed; but Pearse was too eager. Peep into that hole, man, and see!"

Venner glared from one to the other, not yet inflamed as they were. But what he saw in their faces convinced him that great stakes were up to be played for, and he edged forward bent upon seeing for himself.

"Back!" screamed Pearse, presenting his rapier at Venner's breast. Venner persisted, and the steel pricked him. Then, as Tomlin's weapon rasped out, Venner's blood leaped to fighting-heat with his slight wound, and in the next instant the three-sided duel was hotly in progress.

Three-sided it became after the first exchanges. For Pearse, the most skilled in fence, applied himself to Venner as his most dangerous foe, and with the cunning of the serpent Craik Tomlin saw and seized his own opportunity. Let Pearse and Venner kill each other, or let that end be accomplished with his outside help, and there was the solution that Dolores had demanded them to work out; one of them left, to be master of the wealth of Croesus; to be the mate of a magnificent creature, who could be goddess or she-devil at will.

With a satanic chuckle Tomlin drew back, leaving his friends to fight themselves weary, his own rapier ever presented toward them, urging them on with lashing tongue. And Venner flashed a look at him as CÆsar did at Brutus, and suffered for his lapse in vigilance. For with the pounce of a leopard Pearse was upon him, and his rapier grated over Venner's guard and darted straight at his throat. But Venner's time had not come yet; Tomlin flashed his own weapon in and parried the stroke for him, backing away again with a murderous snarl.

"Not yet, my friends!" he cried. "You're too strong yet, Pearse. At him, Venner; let me see you draw blood as he has, that I may see my own way clearer."

From the other end of the great chamber Dolores watched the conflict from the concealment of the velvet hangings over the door; and her hands were clasped in ecstasy, her lips parted to the swift breathing that agitated her breast; in her blazing eyes her wicked soul lurked, sending out its evil aura to envelop the combatants and instil deeper hatred into them.

The fight raged back and forth around the powder store; once a sudden onslaught by Pearse forced Venner back to the great chair; Tomlin's swift rush to keep close brought all three into a tumbled crash at the dais, and the chair was overturned in a heap of flying draperies that entangled their feet. And while Pearse and Venner struggled vainly to maintain their footing, Tomlin began to accomplish his own dire ends. Crouching, with his dark face full of evil passions, he drove his point first at one, then at the other, stabbing through the involved silk and skins.

In his furious haste to complete his murderous work, he sprang forward carelessly, his foot became entangled, and he pitched face downward upon his victims. Now Pearse seized the opening; but when he arose, stumblingly, there was a different expression on his face, a horror-stricken realization of Tomlin's treachery. Venner lay, still unable to disentangle himself, but slightly hurt, and he, too, regarded Tomlin with a look of sorrow and reawakening sanity.

"Up, murderer, and fight!" rasped Pearse, stepping astride Venner and glaring down at Tomlin. "Venner, draw aside. Let me punish this scoundrel we have called friend; then meet me if you wish."

Tomlin looked up with a snarl of baffled rage, expecting swift reprisal for his treacherous attempt. Gone was the last vestige of civilization from his face; greed of gold, jewel-hunger, blood-lust, all played about his reddened eyes and cruel, down-drawn mouth. The primitive came through the veneer of culture and showed him the man he really was. And evil though his spirit had proved, in this final test his courage showed up like that of the tiger. He leaned on one elbow, watching Pearse like a cat, then slowly knelt and stood, keeping his point down. With the bestial cunning that had overwhelmed him, he circled away from the trappings and draperies of the chair that had brought him down, and responded to Pearse's chivalrous waiting with a sneer.

"You had better have made sure while you had the chance, Pearse," he grinned, showing his teeth wolfishly. "Venner can wait. There is no treasure for three; Dolores is mine! Guard!"

With the word Tomlin made a savage attack without waiting for Pearse to fall into guard. And Dolores came from her concealment, advanced half-way down the chamber, and watched with a new intensity that was not apparent while Venner was in the fight.

Pearse avoided his opponent's thrust at the expense of a pierced left hand, which caught the other's point a hand-breadth from his breast. Then the duel dropped to equality. Swift and silent they fought, silent save for the rasp and screech of steel on steel, their feet padding noiselessly on the deep-piled carpet. Venner drew aside and watched, his eyes losing their hard glare, and some of his old expression returned to his face. It was as if his resurging emotions were bringing back to him the shame and remorse of a gentleman inveigled into performing a despicable action. He, too, saw Dolores approaching; saw the tensity of her expression; sensed some of the tremendous hopes that actuated her, now that she saw the rapid culmination of all her plots and seductions.

She stood quite near to him now, leaning forward in an attitude of utter anxiety. She saw nothing of Venner; her great, violet eyes were dusky and full of yearning, her hands clutched at her breast. And all the intensity of her gaze was fixed upon Tomlin. She responded to his momentary success when he drove Pearse back with a savage assault, with a panting little cry of joy; she fell back with widened eyes when a counter-attack forced Tomlin almost upon her. And her lips opened in a gasp when a vicious clash of steel told of a pressed onslaught, and Pearse lunged heavily forward.

In the instant when Pearse followed his first plunge, Dolores stood in uncertainty through which dawned jubilation. Then her face went white, she seemed to lose all her splendid vitality; for her astounded eyes fastened upon Pearse's rapier-point, protruding a foot from Tomlin's back, and slowly the stricken man sagged away and fell at her feet, clutching at the steel at his breast and snarling like a beast.

A hush fell over the great chamber. Then from a distance came the sound of voices, voices of men down at the shore, ringing clear and sharp on the still air, accentuating the deathly hush that clung around the actors in the scene like a heavy mantle. It startled Dolores into renewed life. She ran with feverish eagerness toward Tomlin, hurling aside the others, and crouching upon the body in dry-eyed rage.

Venner sought to catch the eye of the victor, and saw in Pearse a reflection of the feelings that had possessed himself. John Pearse showed every sign of horror and awakened sanity that had marked his own expression before the fatal fight had started. Their eyes met, and there was no challenge in them. Both dropped their gaze involuntarily upon the huddled figures at their feet; and it was Pearse, the man who had precipitated the conflict at first, who nodded with his head a silent invitation to withdraw. Venner stepped after him, softly and with bowed shoulders, shuddering violently as he passed the expiring Tomlin.

They reached the door together, and with the rocky tunnel open before them, once more holding up to their eyes the picture of absolute beauty of sea and sky and shore, they filled their lungs with fresh, wholesome air, and shook off the last of the evil spell that had held them.

"In God's name, Pearse, let us fly from this hellish place!" whispered Venner, dropping his rapier to the rocky floor with a clatter, and thrusting his hand out in reconciliation.

"Yes, Venner, and pray Heaven we may forget!" replied Pearse fervently. "But how shall we get away? The giant and his crew are yet at the schooner."

"We must wait. They will return soon for more booty. Then we must seize the chance. Is that somebody coming now?"

Milo's great shoulders reared above the cliff, and behind him came the slaves. They came directly toward the great rock, and Pearse flattened himself against the wall in the shadow of the portals, pressing Venner back also with a hand across his chest.

"Hush! Hide here. Let them enter, and we'll make one leap for the shore."

The giant swung into the passage, his black eyes blazing with some emotion that the hidden pair could not fathom. It was something on the border of fear, but of what? Fear and Milo was a combination hard of reconciliation. The slaves at his heels followed dumbly, slaves in thought and action; if their dulled brains ever awoke, it was but to the call of animal appetites; they were incapable of devotion such as Milo's, and as incapable of shock should their obedience fail reward. They passed into the great chamber, and a throaty cry of alarm burst from the giant at the sight of his Sultana prone on the floor.

"Now!" whispered Pearse, taking the lead. "Swift and silent!"

Like ghosts they ran from the tunnel, glanced around once as they reached the cliff path, then leaped down the declivity. That swift glance showed them the camp deserted except for the wondering women, who wandered idly among the empty huts, ever looking toward the forest wherein had vanished all their men, waiting with bovine patience for any one to settle their uncertainty for them.

And the forest was yet very still. The Feu Follette lay at a single anchor, heading in the light breeze fair to seaward; a few heads showed above her rail, and the stops had been cast off from her snowy sails. At her gangway a single boat lay, the painter made fast on deck; on the foreshore the other two long-boats were drawn up on the sand, planks running up to their sides in readiness for the embarkation of yet more treasure.

Venner and Pearse raced down the steep path, using little precaution, sending showers of stones and clods flying before them. And Peters, the schooner's sailing-master, saw them coming, and his voice rang out calling for hands to man the boat. Two men answered and entered the boat as the two fugitives reached the shore and ran along the Point. Pearse counted the minutes at their disposal, and saw the futility of waiting for that boat. He clutched eagerly at Venner's arm, and panted in his ear:

"Tell them to hold on! Let them get the schooner ready for swift departure. Come, we must swim for it."

Venner hesitated but a second. Then his hail went hurtling over the still haven, and the two seamen scrambled out of the boat again.

"Swim it is, Pearse," he said, leading the way down to deep water. "Swim it is, and may the ever-cleansing sea wash out of us the last traces of insanity."

Together they plunged into the blue sea and swam swiftly out to the schooner.