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."
Tomlin reached the deck with tingling ears, for even Pearse came out of
his reverie to curse him. But curses or benedictions counted nothing at
that moment. In every patch of light he saw Dolores's devilishly lovely
face; in every swing of the vessel he saw her consummate grace; he was a
thirsty man seeking a spring, knowing full well that a draft must kill
him. He stood alone outside the companionway, wondering at the absence
of people, at the absence of Dolores. A solitary man stood at the wheel;
and, looking around for others, Tomlin noticed vaguely that the black
storm was broken, that watery stars were winking down, and that almost
in the zenith a gibbous moon leaned like a brimming dipper of
quicksilver, ready to drop from the inky cloud that had but just
uncovered it.
Then voices reached his ears from forward, voices full of wondering
anger, and he stepped out clear of the deck-house and peered ahead on
the windward side. There, two miles away, the land loomed black and
forbidding; and high up, on a crest, a great red blaze leaped and
swirled against the flying clouds.
As he stood, Dolores ran aft, ignoring him utterly in her haste. Her men
grouped themselves along the waist of the schooner, waiting for
commands. The Feu Follette was already doing her best; that is, the best
under such sail as was safe to carry. But there, to windward, and yet
two miles distant, some part of the pirate village was burning, and none
might say yet what part it was.
The one thing certain was that it could not be the great chamber. That
was of rock; it might be destroyed by an explosion; never by fire. So
there was a ring of exultation in Dolores's tone when she sent the hail
along:
"Loose both topsails and set them! Caliban, thou small villain, out and
loose the outer jib. Main-sheet here! Oh, haul, bullies! Flat--more
yet--so, belay!"
Then the girl flung the man from the wheel, seized the spokes herself,
and began to nurse the schooner to windward with truly superhuman art.
Closer yet she brought the graceful craft; closer, until the luffs
trembled and the seas burst fair upon the stem and volleyed stinging
spray the full length of her. And as she drew nearer, the blaze seemed
to diminish and blaze afresh as if fire-fighters were there indeed, but
lacking weapons to fight with.
"Is it the treasure-house?" Tomlin asked anxiously, stepping beside the
girl. She stood in deep shadow; the dim radiance from the lighted
binnacle touched her face, breast, and arms with soft light, and her
eyes, as they flashed swiftly toward the man, glittered with some subtle
quality that sent a shiver running down his spine.
"Treasure-house?" she repeated, and her voice was no longer soft and
alluring; it was metallic and menacing. For the second time, first in
Venner, now in Tomlin, she had seen the true source of their
fascination. "No, it is not the treasure-house. It is the council hall,
where thou wert lodged." She snatched her gaze from the compass and
fixed him with the cold, unwinking stare of a snake. "Where thou wert
lodged, my friend who would renounce all for me. Where, had I cared to,
I might have left two of ye, taking with me to safety only the one whose
brains are not afire with soulless gold and jewels."
Tomlin grew hot and uneasy. "My brain is on fire with your beauty,
Dolores," he returned, trying to force her gaze to meet his again.
"Prove it to me, then," she replied shortly, and waved him away,
devoting her attention now to making the anchorage, already close to.