Dolores, flinging herself down upon Craik Tomlin, seized his face between her hands and raised his head, placing her knee beneath it. She panted like an exhausted doe, yet the fire that leaped from her eyes gave the lie to her attitude of sorrowing humility. Her lips moved feverishly, but she could not or would not speak aloud. Tomlin's eyes were closed in agony, his teeth were clenched tightly upon his under lip; he gave no sign that he knew of her presence. And a sudden fury seized her at his irresponsiveness. She shook his head between her hands savagely.

"Wake! Speak!" she cried hoarsely. "Art indeed dead, at the moment of my triumph?"

Tomlin's eyelids flickered, and his lips strove to speak. One hand went weakly to his face, to grasp her fingers. And into her anxious ear he managed to whisper:

"Evil luck fought with me, Dolores. Yet I die content if you care."

"Care!" she echoed, shaking his fingers loose impatiently. "Care? Yes, this I care, bungler: I care because of all three of thee, thou alone wert covetous enough to obey my conditions. With thee alive, there was hope of thy friends' speedy death. With thee dead, which of the others will wipe his fellow from his path for me? Why, think ye, did I fawn on John Pearse? But to arouse in thee the demon of jealousy; why did I smile on Venner, and call him my Rupert? To steel thy arm against him. And for what?"

She suddenly laid his head down on the floor, leaned over him with her lips almost brushing his cheek, and whispered fiercely: "Speak! Canst live?"

Tomlin's face lost some of its pain. The thin lips straightened into the semblance of a faint smile. His glazing eyes opened slightly."I am done for," he whispered. "Dolores, kiss me again. I die for you."

The beautiful fury sprang to her feet, spurning him. She glared down at his chalky face in utter scorn.

"Kiss thee? Thou die for me? Pah! I kiss no carrion. A half-hundred men have died for me this day, I hope. I kiss him who lives for me and conquers, not the weakling who dies!"

Without deigning another glance at her victim, she turned away and went to meet Milo. He now entered with his slaves.

"Where are the two strangers?" she demanded harshly.

Milo returned her stare with a look of simple surprise. He had seen nothing of them, and had thought of them being yet with his mistress.

"I saw them not, Sultana," he replied.

"Saw them not, great clod!" she blazed at him, clenching her hands in rage. "Are they here, then?"

Milo looked around in bewilderment. In all her life Dolores had been his especial care; in her many moments of temper she had perhaps pained his devoted heart, but never had she used to him the tone she now used. It seemed to his simple soul that the foundations of his faith were being wrenched loose.

"I will find them, Sultana," he said quietly, and turned to leave by the tunnel.

"Stay here, thou blind fool!" she commanded him. "I will find them myself. Here is work more fitting for a slave. How many chests are going to the ship?"

"Three."

"And how many have ye yet empty here?"

"Three, lady."

"Then get them quickly. Until I return, bid thy fellows replace the treasure that is still in the powder store. And haste, for I will leave this place this day, though all the fiends say no."

She ran along the tunnel, and Milo set his men to their task. As he passed along to the powder chamber, a low moan arrested him, and he halted in sudden remorse for Pascherette, whom he now felt he had judged harshly. He left his fellows and went to the tiny alcove where the little octoroon lay, and his great heart leaped in response to the worship that shone in her dark eyes. He saw the dry and cracked lips, the flushed face, and fetched water and wine before he would speak to her. Then, with her small head and slender shoulders against his immense chest, he gave her drink, soothing her pain with soft speech and caressing hand.

Pascherette's wound was deep, and bleeding internally; a fever already burned in the tiny maid's veins. She peered up at him wistfully, all of her mischief, all her piquancy gone and replaced by a softened, humbled expression that wrung Milo's heart-strings.

"Will ye not kiss me now, Milo?" she whispered, with a pearly drop brimming from each eye, where laughter had so lately dwelt.

"Pascherette, thy fault was great," he answered, yet in his face was a look so forgiving, so excusing, that the girl shivered expectantly and closed her eyes with a happy sigh.

Yet the kiss was not given. From the great chamber the angry voice of Dolores rang out.

"Milo! Where art thou, slave!"

And the giant tenderly laid Pascherette down again, and ran in answer.

"Sultana?"

"Blind, idle dolt! While thou art fondling that serpent of thine, thy mistress's affairs may go hang! Haste with the treasure, or feel my anger. While thy useless eyes were mooning on nothing, the strangers have escaped. They are even now getting sail on the white vessel. Carry the chests down to the Point as soon as ye may. I will stay them yet, and they shall learn the cost of flouting Dolores! Hasten, I tell ye!"

Milo winced at her address; his black eyes, usually holding the utter devotion of a noble dog, glittered with tiny sparks of resentment; yet the habit of years could not be lightly cast off, and he bowed low, even while Dolores had turned her back on him, and picked up a great empty chest to carry it to the powder store. Here in the flickering light of a pine splinter the slaves worked feverishly, their abject eyes sparkling with borrowed radiance from the riches they handled.

And while they worked, Dolores emerged from the tunnel, flashed one long glance of derision at the moving schooner, and sped down the cliff to stop her flight.

The Feu Follette was poorly enough manned with Peters and his four men. With the ready help of Venner and Pearse the getting of the anchor and the hoisting of the heavy fore and main sails was an arduous job, but it was accomplished under the tremendous urge of remembrance. None wished to have the experiences of the past days repeated; Peters was anxious to get his beautiful vessel into safer waters; the Feu Follette's owner and his guest were doubly anxious to drop those blue hills of ominous memory below the horizon forever. They gave scant attention to the three great iron-bound chests that stood between the guns along the waist; getting clear occupied every faculty.

The tide setting directly on the Point, with a breeze dead in from seaward, forced the schooner perilously close to the bar that had been her undoing before; but, with the lead going, Peters speedily found that his previous mishap must undoubtedly have been due to clever misleading. After touching lightly once, and getting deeper water at the next cast over the lee side, he understood the trick of the extended false Point and stood boldly along shore.

And as the schooner gathered steerage-way, hugging the Point closely, Dolores ran out along the sandy beach and plunged into the sea abreast the moving vessel.

"Here's that vixen woman, sir!" cried Peters angrily, looking toward Venner for instructions. Peters had the helm, and owner and guest stood against the companion, ready to lend a hand at the sheets, forward or aft.

Venner and Pearse stared at the swimmer, then turned and gazed searchingly at each other. In the face of each lingered a trace of the subjection they had fallen under; neither could quite so quickly forget the allurements of this woman. Her kisses had been as sweet as her fury had been terrible; and the absence of Craik Tomlin was an additional incentive to memory.

"Shall we take her away?" asked Venner, avoiding Pearse's eye as he put the question.

"Can't you make more sail, Peters?" was Pearse's reply.

Venner laughed softly, agreeably; and the next moment Dolores hailed them. She swam swiftly, with effortless ease, slipping through the sea like a sparkling nymph in her native element. But the schooner traveled fast, and, though she lost no ground, she gained but slowly. She hailed again.

"Rupert, my Rupert!" and finished the cry with a rippling laugh. "Art stealing my treasure and leaving me?"

"By Heavens, Pearse, I had forgotten these chests," said Venner uneasily. Pearse regarded him closely, fearing that Dolores's spell was yet powerful. He gripped Venner tightly by the arm, leaned nearer, and said:

"Venner, so long as that blood-polluted treasure is on your deck, so long will you be unable to settle your mind. Bid the hands pitch it into the sea, for God's sake!"

A lull in the wind slowed the schooner down, and Dolores gained a fathom. Her fair face was set toward them in a bewitching smile, and she waved a gleaming arm at them. Venner fought with himself in silence for a brief while, then with a shudder stepped to the wheel.

"Get the hands, Peters," he told the sailing-master, "and heave those chests overboard. Quickly! You shall lose nothing by this, but don't delay a moment!"