DOLORES RECEIVES HER DIADEM.
In a great canopied bed, taken from some rich looted Indiaman, Red Jabez
lay motionless as an effigy in stone. His tall, powerful body was
sharply outlined in coverings of silk and rare lace; the arms and crest
of a ducal house were worked into the pillows that supported his massive
head. His drawn, haggard face was surrounded and all but covered with a
great mane of vivid red hair; his silken shirt, wide open at the neck,
revealed a massive chest, whose tide of respiration had all but ceased
to run. Only his eyes, fierce yet, held token of lingering life; it was
as if the vital spark was concentrated into one final blaze of
tremendous brilliancy.
The fierce eyes moved swiftly at Dolores's entrance, and one might have
said a film of tenderness swept for an instant over the hard glint in
them. It was gone as swiftly as it came, and the stare settled
unwaveringly upon the stupefied girl. For stupefaction had gripped
Dolores in that first entry into the great chamber. Her wildest dreams,
and they had been at times fantastic, had never showed her anything
measurably approaching the scene that smote her eyes now. For the moment
death, Red Jabez, her destiny, everything melted into the visionary
beyond and left her capable of no volition.
The great bed stood in the center of a vast cavern; sides, roof, floor,
every inch of the rock itself bore proof of the handiwork of hundreds of
cunning craftsmen; but the furnishings filled Dolores's eyes to the
exclusion of all else. Divans and chairs, cabinets and tables carried
the mind far away to the realm of emperors and kings; vases from China
and Greece stood on stands of boule-work; a tall ebony-and-ivory
clock-case, in which ticked sonorously a masterpiece of Peter Hele,
stood between two gorgeous pieces of Gobelin tapestry. And around her
and above, Dolores's amazed eyes lighted upon gems of the painter's art
such as few collections might boast. The entire ceiling was covered with
a colossal "Battle of the Amazons," by Rubens, each figure thrown out in
startling distinctness, full of voluptuous life and action; the walls
were mantled by vast golden frames holding the best of Titian, Correggio
and Giorgione, Raphael and Ribera. And jewels flashed everywhere;
cunningly placed lamps, themselves encrusted with the reddest of rubies,
the subtlest of green emeralds, flooded walls and furnishings with a
soft yet searching light which seemed to be carefully calculated to
accentuate those things whose beauty demanded light, yet to leave the
eye unwearied.
"The hour has struck, my Sultana," said Milo anxiously, and Dolores
shook off the spell and approached the great bed. Red Jabez closed his
eyes as she leaned over him, and his lips now alone gave evidence of
life. The girl, reared among the wildest of desolate isolation, knowing
no softening ties of family, her impulses and emotions those of a
beautiful animal, and increasingly so because of her station among the
rabble that called the dying man chief, stared down at her terrible
parent without a trace of visible regret: rather in her eyes shone the
triumph of a victor about to enter upon a conquered kingdom. But the red
pirate was speaking, and she bent her ear to catch his words. It
required no physician's knowledge to perceive in his damp face all the
signs of imminent dissolution.
"Dolores, my traverse is run," whispered Jabez. The effort all but stole
his breath. He paused; then summoning all the tremendous will that had
dominated his frame when surging with strength, he told what he had to
say in short sentences, nursing the flickering spark to force his
speech. "Never leave here, girl. Let no man go, either. The world has
forgotten me and all of us; but memory is tenacious--it will revive at a
hint; every throat that pulses with hot life here--yes, my daughter,
even your fair throat--was measured years ago--a rope awaits every one.
But here--"
"Yes, father?" Dolores shivered in the pause; the silence chilled her.
The giant Abyssinian stood at the head of the bed, and now moistened the
dying lips with wine. Red Jabez strained convulsively, snatching at his
throat, and resumed with weaker voice.
"Here I have been king; here you are queen; all these things you see,
and many more, are yours; life and death are in your hands to give or
withhold. Keep the steel hand, though you wear the glove, Dolores. You
have learned power; with the greater power you take from this chamber,
and with Milo, let nothing, no man, stir your fears. Keep this chamber
as I have kept it; it is your strength; when danger threatens to beat
you down, here you will find--"
The fluttering whisper ceased. The old pirate lay rigid. Dolores, having
heard so much, yet so little, hovered over the bed in an ecstasy of
unsatisfied hunger for more; Milo stood by, a magnificent statue in
living bronze, his eyes set in a steady blaze on the face of his master.
Once more the blue lips moved. Dolores darted down with eager ear, her
hands clasped as if in supplication.
"Milo--tell," came the whisper, and with it went up the soul of Red
Jabez to face a tribunal more dread than any earthly judge his body had
eluded. And the tall clock ticked his knell.
Dolores flung herself down on the bed, patting the dead face with
nervous fingers; but she was dry-eyed, no filial despair raised tumult
in her breast, her pleading was for the impossible--for the dead lips to
speak--and when she was refused her plea, she sprang from the couch in a
paroxysm of royal fury:
"Now, by the powers of evil, he shall lie uncoffined until those
secretive lips read me the riddle they have half told!" she cried,
pacing between bed and wall with uplifted arms and hard, glittering
eyes. She suddenly paused in her wild walk, turned swiftly, and reached
the bedside with the same subtle, gliding sweep that had carried her
before Yellow Rufe; it was a characteristic movement with her--a
compound of the gliding dart of the tiger-shark and the silent-footed
pounce of its jungle brother. Milo roused from his dejection and sprang
from his knees with amazing promptitude, but he had yet to round the
bed-foot when the splendid fury stood panting over the corpse.
"Speak!" she cried, shaking the coverlet savagely. Milo, with horror in
his shining face, gently removed her hand, then stood before her with
bowed head, his cavernous chest heaving wildly.
"Fool! Leave me!" she snapped, and struck the slave with all her savage
force on the cheek. Milo's face turned gray for a flashing instant, then
the doglike devotion that filled his heart shone through his eyes, and
he knelt at the furious girl's feet, his head to the ground. In a moment
he stood up and, laying a hand reverently upon Dolores's shaking
shoulders, he gazed deep into her eyes. She shivered again at the
uncanny hint of volcanic might effused by the giant--volcanic, yet
quiescent for the moment. His lips opened to speak; and she sprang to
the reaction. Now a fresh fury seized her at the slave's temerity; she
flung off his hand, and snatched forth her dagger.
"Strike, Sultana," said Milo simply. He drew aside the strap of his
leathern tunic, baring his heart. "Strike, but first suffer thy slave to
release thee from this tomb."
"Release? Tomb? What talk is this?" gasped Dolores, her dagger held
poised aloft, her lips quivering.
"A tomb it is if thy servant falls, Sultana. None save I can open the
great door. Close it? Yes, any might close it. Come, I will lead thee
out of this awful presence; then at the gate thou shalt send Milo to his
master who loved him."
Slowly Dolores slipped her dagger into the sheath, and her face was
bowed in confusion. All her life, the giant slave had tended her,
guarded her steps and her sleep, taught her the exercises that had made
her feared by all the turbulent crew outside; and she was now permitted
the saving grace of remembrance. She gave him her hand, and allowed him
to place it upon his head, always his favorite means of expression when
she followed an outburst of rage with contrition; and in softer tone she
begged for an answer to the riddle that had been left with her.
"Come, Sultana," Milo said, once more laying a hand on her shoulder,
this time without resentment from her. "Thy father, the Red Chief, left
much to be told; I will tell thee all, but not now. Patience, princess,"
he pleaded, catching the warning glint in her eyes, "dost thou hear
nothing? Listen attentively--no, not in here, outside--bend thy ear to
this tapestry; 'tis before a cunning sounding stone through which voices
may well be heard on the cliffside. Listen."
Dolores listened with bad grace, for she regarded this as a subterfuge
of the giant's, and resentment was very ready to rise in her again. But
in a moment her indifference vanished; she grew alert; her body tensed,
and her limbs quivered; the glitter of a queen in righteous anger
lighted her eyes, and she raised an unnecessary hand to impress silence
upon the slave.
"Hast hear this before now?" she demanded in a vibrant whisper.
"Since thou entered, Sultana. It could be nothing but rebellion; yet was
I loath to burden my chief with this trouble in his hour of passage. But
I know now that it has risen to heights which demand swift action;
therefore I have made thee aware of it."
"'Tis that villain Rufe again!" muttered Dolores, still pressing her ear
against the tapestry. The murmur of a hundred voices came clearly to
her, and above all sounded the high-raised shout of one who harangued
the rest. At periods the murmuring became a howl, and the triumphant
note in it left scant room for doubt as to the nature of the address.
The girl, faced with the responsibility of decided action, no longer
able to depend on the wisdom and terrible power of Red Jabez, stepped
from the wall with panting heart and parted lips, but with no trace of
fear. Uncertainty moved her; uncertainty as to the resources of the
great chamber, whose mysteries had scarcely begun to unfold for her ere
the curtain was dropped again. Her stout spirit decided for her.
"Come, lead me out, Milo," she ordered, drawing herself royally erect
and slipping her dagger around nearer her hand. "We must cool that
rabble before the fire spreads further. Take a weapon, open the door,
and follow me."
"It is the decision of a fit daughter of my chief," replied Milo, his
great frame expanding to the bounding energy that surged through him.
Unknown to her, his eyes had never left Dolores while she was making her
decision; now joy and ardor suffused and transfigured him. Slave he was,
yet it was he who looked the royal part in that instant.
"Wait but a breath," he said, and reached in two gigantic strides a
massive oaken chest heavily fastened with wrought iron. Lifting the lid
with reverence, he took out a plain gold circlet and returned to
Dolores.
"Thy father bade me make this and keep it until thou wast my Sultana,
indeed," he said. He raised the heavy, dull-gold band, and placed it
upon Dolores's brow with the courtly homage of a born noble. It fitted
to perfection--as indeed it should, since the loving fingers that had
fashioned it had crept around the girl's sleeping head many times to
that end--and feminine vanity would not permit Dolores to ignore the
fit. She stepped over to a long gilt-framed mirror, and her beautiful
face grew dark and her violet eyes dusky at the glorious reflection that
gazed out at her.
"It is well, Milo; I thank thee," she smiled. "Now to scatter the rats
that gnaw at my walls. Lead out quickly."
Milo entered the passage, raising the plated door and letting it fall
after them. He disdained to carry a weapon; but Dolores was content, for
she had witnessed what those huge hands could do. As they approached the
great stone at the entrance, the sounds outside rang through the
corridor, and the sharp reverberations that accompanied them at
intervals told of an assault on the rock itself with pikes, crowbars, or
other smaller rocks. Milo stooped to the sill of the rock, and placed
his hands beneath it.
"Stand away," he whispered, and strained his arms. "Let thy servant go
out and silence this clamor--"
"Open quickly!" she interrupted him, imperiously. "It is not for the
slave to precede the sovereign. Peace, and open."
Her hand was on her dagger, her head was raised proudly; every inch and
line of her figure irradiated splendid strength and surety; Milo heaved
at the rock, and smiled blissfully. This was indeed how he had dreamed
of his Sultana when she should come into her own.
He heaved steadily, and the great rock rose from one side, rolling up
and up until it balanced on the ledge; but Milo knew there was some
agency at work that hindered the raising of it; never before had it been
a task to bring sweat to his brow, and now he dripped from every pore.
The rock refused to balance without his hand upon it, and he dared not
take his shoulder away to look over the top lest it fall and crush him.
He cast an appealing look toward Dolores, who was impatiently waiting
for him to stand clear, and she stepped past him to the outside. She was
greeted with a roar of derision that echoed far down to the sea.
"Peace, dogs of the devil!" she cried with one hand upraised. A roaring
guffaw answered her. Then a burly ruffian, one-eyed and marked by a
great cutlas-scar that ran from his chin across his broken nose and
ended somewhere among the roots of his hair, stepped forward with a
smirk of confidence, and made a mock curtsy.
"Queen o' the pirates, we salute ye!" he said. Then threw away all
pretense, and swore a ripping curse to the destination of his soul.
"Come, my girl," he shouted, "the game's played to a finish. Th' old
buck is dead, an' we want some o' them pretties he hid away inside.
You're a nice gal, I don't deny, and we ain't going to harm ye if ye
don't hinder us; but we ain't playin' kings an' queens no more. Come
now, let the big feller take us in, and say no more about it, for have
our fling, we will."
The mob had edged nearer, until now they surged around the entrance so
close to Dolores that she felt the breath of the leaders. She noticed
with sharp wonderment that Yellow Rufe was not among the foremost; but
she was given no time to surmise, for the mob pressed on until she was
forced either to risk an advance or give ground. A little shock rippled
through her when she turned swiftly to see how Milo fared, and found him
gone. The mob saw it, too, and seethed about her with hungry faces.
"Come on, lads!" they howled. "Milo's gone inside to open up the loot
for us." A grimy hand snatched at the girl's tunic, and in a flash the
entrance was choked with fiercely striving shapes.
With a gasping cry of fury Dolores struck aside the bold hand, and with
a panther-spring she was upon him. One slender, brown hand, strong as a
steel claw, gripped his throat; the other hand gripped a glittering
dagger that swept like the arrow of fate to his heart and dropped him a
log at her feet. Just for a breath the crowd paused in awe; then
hoarsely growling they packed forward again, and Dolores found herself
fighting desperately against men maddened into steel-armed wolves,
thirsty for her blood in payment for that split. She more than held her
own by sheer skill and suppleness for a space; but assailed from all
sides save the back she speedily felt her limbs growing heavy and
awkward, and a cutlas sang above her bent head when her foot had failed,
leaving her without guard or avoidance.
Then she knew that she had been permitted to win her spurs. For the
threatening cutlas was caught in mid air by a huge bare hand, wrenched
from its owner's grasp, and returned point first into the assailant's
breast. And Milo's deep voice rang in her ear:
"Step into the passage, Sultana, and swiftly. Have a care for the body
on the floor, but tarry not. To pause is to die!"
She felt herself drawn inside, the battle seemed to leave her isolated,
the passage was as still as a cloister after the turmoil outside, and
she stumbled along in the dim red glow, barely avoiding tripping over a
body on the floor which a glance showed her to be a corpse. This was the
man who had tried to crush back the rock door on Milo.
Dolores spurned the body with her foot, and abruptly turned back, in a
rage to think that she had permitted the giant slave to order her into
skulking security. She halted as swiftly as she had turned; for in the
aperture at the end of the passage the huge form of Milo stood, both
hands raised, and in them a cask was poised. A queer, spluttering sound
at first puzzled Dolores; then she made out a short, hanging fuse
depending from the cask, and it spluttered as it dwindled, flinging
sparks around the giant's bowed head until the point of fire seemed
ready to disappear in the bung-hole.
"Treasure for dogs!" roared Milo. "Divide it among thee!" The great rock
thudded down as the cask hurtled out into the mob; the next instant the
cavern shook and quivered to a terrific explosion; a moment after the
earth might have been dead for all sound in the passage; yet another
moment and the outer world rang with cries and shrieks, curses and
entreaties, and Milo bowed low to his mistress and said:
"Now if my Sultana deems fit, it is time to show this scum of the earth
their sovereign."
"Wait, Milo," replied Dolores, shuddering slightly at sight of him. The
giant was streaked and splashed with blood; for in those moments when he
stood defenseless before casting his infernal machine, a dozen cutlases
and knives had sought his life.
"Pardon thy slave," he returned, sensing her meaning. "I will go thus.
'Twere not good that these dogs should know their wounds can hurt. Such
scratches are nothing. They are paid for in full."
"It is well. Lead out again, good Milo, and fear not for me. With thou
beside me I am armed in proof."
Again they emerged into the air, but now a deathly silence received
them. Silence broken only by the rustling of garments, as a withered old
crone shambled forward and cast herself at Dolores's feet.