THE PIRATES' BARBECUE.
A moment of ghastly hush prevailed, then the Grove shook from sward to
tree-tops--pandemonium broke loose and all were in turmoil.
No need now to wait for the verdict of the wax image; no further
shifting of brazen glances, or winking of knowing eyes. Shrill voices of
terrified blacks, hoarse bellowings of the hardiest rascals who had
ever kissed a dripping cutlas, the throaty roar of men who had played
willing lieutenants to the ringleader: all pealed up to high heaven for
the culprit to come forth and taste of the queen's justice rather than
wait for her vengeance.
"Rufe! Yellow Rufe!" they howled. They howled it until the forest echoed
with the word.
"Peace, Devilspawn!" cried Dolores, covering the crowd with an
all-embracing smile of utter scorn. "Think ye I need to hear the name?
Go, all of ye! Fill your swinish skins with liquor, and trouble me no
more this day. When I will that Yellow Rufe appear, here he shall be
drawn, whether he will or not. And in your carousal let this thought be
with ye: Ye are dogs and slaves of dogs; by my will ye live, at my word
ye die. The Red Chief is dead; I am your law, your queen, owner of your
bodies and souls! Let any of ye seek to imitate Yellow Rufe, and Milo
shall pick your limbs apart as if ye were flies. Go now; there is rum
broached, and wine; make a barbecue, and fill yourselves to bursting
like the vultures ye are!"
"Hello, lads, that's your sort!" roared a purple-faced ruffian with a
hang-lip. "A right proper gal is that. Give her a huzza and crack yer
pipes, lads!"
"Bravo, Hanglip!" bellowed another of the same kidney. Spotted Dog had
lost part of an ear, and the same knife had seamed his flabby jowl into
the likeness of a bloodhound's cheek; his deeply-pitted visage completed
the ensemble, and no other name would have fitted him as well. "Bravo,
old cutthroat! Let her play queens an' fairies, if she wants to. Here's
for th' jolly grog, lads. Hey, Stumpy, start a cheer for th' pretty
wench!"
So had the spell of the Grove left them immediately they smelled the
fleshpots. But Dolores still held the altar; and Stumpy, having a keener
memory perhaps than most of his fellows, took the warning that flashed
from her angry eyes. He shivered slightly as his gaze met hers, then,
hopping forward on his one good leg and club-foot, he swung a knotty
fist against Spotted Dog's creased jowl and growled:
"A turn wi' that poison tongue, Spotted Dog. All hands, too, hear me
talkin'. Here's a royal feast spread for us, an' th' spreader's queen o'
th' pirates! Don't ever ferget that, lads. I ain't hankerin' fer what
Rufe'll get. Away wi' you, now, an' I'll slit th' winepipe o' th' dog as
says disrespect to th' queen."
And so the rascals trooped down to their hut-village. Noisily,
profanely, full of horseplay and ear-burning jests; but never a voice
spoke any word that failed in its homage when Dolores was the theme.
Snugly settled around the great rock door, the pirates' village looked
out from a broad level platform over the darkening evening sea. In the
center, its rear abutting on the rock itself, stood the great council
hall and the dwelling of Dolores. In front of this black slaves busily
heaped a great bonfire; torches were thrust into iron rings on doorpost
and tree-trunk; noisy ruffians tramped into a cool cave in the rock and
trundled forth casks and horn cups; while Sancho, the Spaniard, bent
over a whetstone, giving his knife a final edge against the arrival of
the meat.
A venomous devil was this Sancho, and his contorted face, with the
missing eye covered by a black patch, worked demoniacally in the
gathering darkness with each leaping flame of the ignited torches. The
hand that clutched the knife was a thing of horror; two fingers and half
the thumb remained from some drunken brawl to serve the Spaniard in
future play for work or debauch; and the man, crouching low over his
stone, made a picture of incarnate hate that had no humor in it.
"Where's th' flesh?" screamed Sancho, looking up, his mutilated thumb
running creepily along the knife-edge.
"Whet your tusks, lads, here's the blessed manna!" squealed Caliban, a
hunchbacked terror, who kept his maimed carcass secure by virtue of his
viperish temper, coupled with an uncanny skill of the cutlas. "Milo's
our man! Huzza for Milo!"
Out from the trees stalked the giant Abyssinian, and the shadows and
torchlight distorted him to grotesque proportions. He walked as if his
weight was nothing; yet on his great shoulders he bore a half-grown ox,
its feet hobbled, its tongue hanging from its panting mouth. Straight to
the fire he stepped and cast his burden down, turning again without a
word and going back to the rock portals.
"Meat for men!" screamed Sancho, crouching again, knife in hand.
"For men!" echoed Caliban ferociously, and whipped his cutlas out.
"Stand clear!" he howled, and Sancho dodged aside. The little terror's
blade sang through the air with a wicked whistle; it curved high over
Sancho, then flashed down and plunged through the throat of the ox,
pinning the beast to the earth. And when he recovered his breath the
Spaniard swooped upon the prize, and his knife completed what the dwarf
had well begun.
Then began an orgy that must render description bald and colorless.
Casks were broached by knocking out the heads; long horns of cattle were
filled to slopping over with rare wine or powerful rum; and then up
leaped Hanglip on to an unbroached cask, cup in hand, and bellowed a
toast that set the trees, the sea, the skies clamoring with rasping
applause.
"The next vessel as heaves in sight, lads! May her sails be silk, her
masts be gold, and her great cabin full o' rum, with a pretty wench
sittin' atop o' every keg!"
From the fire came the odor of roasting meat, and the black night came
down outside, making of the small circle where the pirates sprawled a
blotch of infernal light, peopled with infernal shapes. But a sprinkling
of faces a shade less evil leavened the mass; for to the feast came
trooping the women of the camp: of a kidney with the men--yet women,
with women's beguilements and softnesses.
Dolores sat alone in the great chamber, careless of the noise outside,
her beautiful face dark with somber passion. Beside her chair Milo had
placed her treasure chests; hers now, through the death of the terrible
old corsair who had amassed them. Idly she had heaped the table with a
glittering collection of gems that an empress might well have found
interest in; but Dolores frowned as at so much dross, for her thoughts
were far away. The filmiest of lace and silken shawls, jeweled
slippers, gossamer-gold head dresses, pearls and rubies from India and
Persia--all lay in confusion at her hand, and aroused no spark of joy in
her breast. From time to time her brooding eyes flashed and fastened
upon a priceless Rembrandt "Laughing Cavalier" on the wall opposite;
they flashed again when her gaze shifted to a colossal Rubens "Rape of
the Sabines"; her face lighted for an instant when her fingers in
groping closed upon a cobwebby golden net, scintillating with cunningly
wrought jeweled insects caught in the meshes, which had once graced the
all-powerful head of Pompadour.
"Where such things are, are better!" she whispered vehemently, clenching
her strong, slender hands fiercely. "Where such are fashioned and worn
there are people worthy my power. My people! Pah!" she burst out
passionately. "My people? Dogs! Cattle! Brutes without souls! There--"
she flung a hand impetuously toward the "Laughing Cavalier"--"there is
the pirate who should call me queen! There"--with a gesture toward
Rubens's great canvas--"are men that I would command. Here, I must stay,
why? Because a dead man willed it so. May I wither eternally if I make
not my own laws. Milo!"
She clapped her hands, and in a moment the giant was before her,
reverent awe in every line of his huge body.
"Sultana?"
"Are my beasts well fed?"
"They eat like crocodiles, guzzle like swine, Sultana."
"See that the liquor flows freely, Milo. And a word in thy ear. We shall
go from here as quickly as the fates will send a ship. Let no sail pass
henceforth."
"Lady, that may not be--"
"Silence! Give me no may not! When I, Dolores, will to go, who shall
stay me?"
"Death lies beyond the horizon for thee as for all of us, Sultana.
Pirate the Red Chief was last of the band; every man who calls thee
queen is under sentence of death; the pillage of a hundred ships lies
here. Here is safety. The Red Chief's law--"
"Peace! I am the law! Seek me that ship--and quickly. Shall I live among
such carrion, when the world is peopled with such as those?" she cried
with a sweeping gesture toward a life-size "Three Graces," by Correggio,
epitomizing feminine grace indeed.
"Thou art fairer, Sultana," replied the giant simply; and the girl
flushed warmly for all her moody dissatisfaction. She smiled kindly upon
the slave, and said more softly: "Thy devotion pleases me, Milo. Yet is
my will unchanged. Seek me that ship. I will go from here. Stay, if thou
wilt, or art afraid."
"Lady," returned the giant, "when the Red Chief, thy father, took me
from the slave ship he gave me liberty--liberty to serve him. He has
gone; my care is now the queen, his daughter. Going or staying, Milo
remains thy bodyguard. Pardon if I offended thee; thy father desired
what I have told thee. But the ship. This evening, at sundown, a sail
leaped in sight beyond the Tongue."
"This evening! And ye said no word of it?" cried Dolores, blazing with
fresh anger. She leaned forward in her chair as if crouching for a
spring.
"It passed as swiftly as it appeared, Sultana. No other eye save mine
saw it; the men know nothing--"
"It is well, Milo. I had forgotten thy eyes were twice as keen as any
other man's. Keep that condor's vision of thine bent to seaward, and
tell no man of what comes into view. Bring me the news; I shall know how
to keep my rascals in hand. Now go and send to me a woman to serve me: a
young woman, nimble and deft; give the old woman to the cooks for
scullery drudge."
"A woman here, Sultana?"
"Here! What bee buzzes in thy great head now?" The giant again looked
grave; the girl's impatience surged anew.
"Sultana, don't forget that, save thee and me, servant of the great
chamber, none may enter here and go alive?"
"Now by the fiend, enough!" blazed the girl. "Again, I am the law! Wilt
have it imprinted on thy great body with my whip?"
Milo made a low obeisance, departed without further speech, and in a few
moments ushered in from the bacchanalian revels a maid for his
mistress.
"Pascherette will serve thee well, Sultana," he said, leading the girl
forward. He saw approval in Dolores's face and departed, his luminous
black eyes unwontedly soft and limpid.