<h3 class="newchapter2">DOLORES FLOATS THE FEU FOLLETTE.</h3>
<p>"Hell's breath!" screamed Caliban, as the cry rang out. "Have ye devils
in the Grove, mistress?" Hanglip and Spotted Dog, too, cringed<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[Pg 484]</SPAN></span> back in
fright. Stumpy concealed his uneasiness, yet his eyes searched Dolores's
face questingly. None truly believed in the queen's magic powers; yet
none was bold enough to openly avow his unbelief; and the added grimness
of the storm, assisted by the unearthliness of that howl of anguish,
brought the four godless pirates to the verge of superstitious terror.</p>
<p>"Yes, I keep my devils there," replied Dolores; "and that is the traitor
Sancho answering to them for his perfidy. So watch, and obey me, lest
thy cries, too, go up from my altar!"</p>
<p>She stood apart at the great stone, listening, and presently Milo rolled
up the rock barrier, and appeared in the gloom, calm and cool as if he
had no association with devils, imaginary or otherwise. A livid
lightning-flash played on his features, and the pirates drew back,
muttering at his black eyes which glowed with red points like rubies in
the heart of twin coals.</p>
<p>"Milo, there flies Rufe," said Dolores, flinging an arm seaward. Beyond
the false point, in the midst of black seas dappled with rushing
white-horses, under a lowering black sky that seemed to lean down to the
verge of the ocean itself, Rufe's sloop was pictured in the next flash
of electric radiance a thing of desolation and panic. Fully a mile away,
the craft vanished in the pervading blackness between every flash. "I
need thy condor's vision now as never before. Take the swift, small
sailboat, and flares; follow the sloop as long as thy eyes can pick her
out; we shall follow thy flares in the schooner until we overtake thee.
Haste now; Rufe has grace enough!"</p>
<p>Milo stayed only to get his flare-powder and tinder-box, then
disappeared down the cliff.</p>
<p>Dolores despatched her four attendants to the schooner, prepared to
follow, then, with an afterthought, halted two of them.</p>
<p>"Here, Hanglip, Spotted Dog, wait!" She swiftly entered the council
hall, went to the three small chambers, and released her captives from
the ring-bolts. Driving them before her, bewildered by the sudden
emergence from tranquillity to the turmoil of the storm, she gave the
two pirates each a chain, held the other herself, and led the way down
to the stranded schooner. Her motive was not only uncertainty about the
people left at the camp, who might prove susceptible to bribery if not
pity; she also felt a sort of whimsical desire to impress these
strangers with the utter inevitability of her power.</p>
<p>The Feu Follette lay on the edge of the bar, as she had lain since
stranding, except that with tide after tide her keel had worn itself a
place in the sand, and she was less closely held than before. Of her
rightful crew but five survived the fight; one was the sailing-master,
Peters, and all were imprisoned under jailers in the forecastle. On the
schooner's sloping decks, when Dolores and her party climbed aboard,
were a score of nondescript pirates, besides the crew's custodians, at a
loss to account for the escape of the sloop, and worked up to a pitch of
nervousness where they were only fit for sudden, strenuous action with a
merciless taskmaster. And such they speedily had.</p>
<p>Dolores ordered her three captives to be taken to the great cabin, and
their chains were fastened to the ornately paneled mainmast which ran
down through both decks and formed the support of a gorgeously furnished
sideboard. Then the companionway was locked on them, and the girl sprang
to tremendous life.</p>
<p>"Aloft with thee, Stumpy!" she cried, selecting him because after Milo
his eyes were keenest of them all. "Keep thy eyes open for Milo's
flares, and mark well the direction. Hanglip, thou surly dog! Take ten
men and lay me out a good anchor astern, with a stout hawser. Be brisk!
Come aboard in ten minutes, or thy back shall smart."</p>
<p>Sancho's boat had remained at the port quarter, and into this Hanglip
drove his crew while Spotted Dog with the rest of the men got ready an
anchor to lower to them.</p>
<p>"Caliban, cast off the gaskets from fore and main!" cried Dolores next.
"Where are thy rascals? Plague take thee, hunchback! Couldst not say
there were not men enough? Below with ye, and bring up the schooner's
people. Have sail on this vessel<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[Pg 485]</SPAN></span> before that anchor takes hold, or I'll
flay thy hump!"</p>
<p>Cursing venomously, the deformed little demon sprang into the forecastle
and drove up Peters and his four men with kicks and blows. They, too,
were bewildered by the tremendous uproar of sea and wind, and went like
sheep to the fore and main masts at Caliban's bidding.</p>
<p>"Ready for the anchor—lower away!" roared Hanglip in the boat, where
already was piled coil on coil a great hemp hawser.</p>
<p>"Handsomely, ye dogs, handsomely!" shrieked Spotted Dog in turn. The
anchor sank into the boat to the screeching of tackles and the groaning
of boat-timbers, and was carried out astern.</p>
<p>"Carry the end aft!" Dolores commanded; the hawser was taken along and
the end passed around the quarter-deck capstan. "Up with those sails!"
cried the girl now, and Caliban's gang sweated at the halyards, while
slackened sheets permitted the booms to swing and present the luffs to
the screaming gale, bearing no resistance. While the boat pulled away
into the darkness astern, carrying the anchor to the full scope of the
cable, Dolores kept her eyes ever aloft, and over the sea, and upon
every detail of the work. Her eyes fell upon Peters, standing in sullen
mood at the belaying-pin which held a turn of the main-throat halyards.
And as the croaking cry of Caliban ordered "Belay!" she called Peters to
her.</p>
<p>"Thou'rt sailing-master, hey?"</p>
<p>"I was."</p>
<p>"Art still, if thy heart is as stubborn as thy face!" cried Dolores,
laughing at his scowl. "Canst sail thy ship now?"</p>
<p>"I can sail any ship that floats, but neither I nor your sharks can sail
this schooner now," he replied surlily. "Your false marks did their work
well."</p>
<p>"Then thou'd rather pull a rope than hold a wheel, hey? 'Tis but a
wooden sailor, after all. I hoped such a ship would boast a seaman as
master. I'll show thee seamanship, sheep-heart!"</p>
<p>Out of the darkness astern came a roar:</p>
<p>"Anchor's down! Heave away!"</p>
<p>And from the darkness aloft Stumpy bawled:</p>
<p>"There she flares! Mother o' me!" The prayer, curse, whatever the last
words might be, were called forth by a paralyzing flash of lightning
that shone over the raging sea like a gigantic calcium-light. The
schooner's deck resounded with superstitious howls, which rose to awed
cries from the weakest as from trucks and gaff-ends glowed and flickered
the blue brush of St. Elmo's fire.</p>
<p>"Heave away, heave away!" Dolores's voice rang out on the hubbub,
forcing obedience even in face of terror. The capstan went round to the
urge of a dozen pair of fear-stimulated arms; and fathom by fathom the
great cable came in dripping and glistening; fathom after fathom was
heaped on the deck, and still the schooner remained fast. And ever from
aloft came Stumpy's hail, reporting Milo's flare fast fading in the
distance.</p>
<p>"You can't do it! I knew it!" shouted Peters defiantly.</p>
<p>"Peace, sheep!" answered Dolores, slapping him upon the mouth. She stood
at the wheel, and no part of the vessel's situation escaped her. She had
yet a trump to play: a hazardous one, truly, but the big one. The big
fore and main sails swung and crashed idly at their sheets, filling the
air with the thunder of their flinging blocks. At each boom a seaman
stood, and each held the double block of a boom-tackle, waiting the word
that now came.</p>
<p>"Clap on those boom-tackles!" Dolores commanded, and four men flew to
each as it was hooked to the rigging. "Haul away! Boom the sails square
out!" The great sails filled with a crash as the gale took them on the
fore side, flinging them violently aback.</p>
<p>"You'll pluck the spars out of her!" screamed Peters, in a frenzy now as
his cherished masts whipped and cracked to the tremendous backward
strain. Dolores ignored the crazed man, but a scornful smile wreathed
about her lips, and her dark eyes gleamed. "Out with them!" she cried.
"More hands there! And heave, ho, heave away on the capstan! Burst thy
arms, bullies! Here comes Hanglip and his bold lads to help ye! Round
with her! Out with them! Heave, good bullies!"</p>
<p>The girl stood by the wheel, a splendid figure of matchless energy and
courage.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[Pg 486]</SPAN></span> Aloft the topmasts bent like whips; Stumpy's voice came down
in ever-increasing fear as his perch grew shakier; the great expanse of
canvas, which should have been treble-reefed even in a floating ship
going forward, tore at boom-tackles and earrings, tacks, and mast-hoops,
shaking the vessel to the keel and filling her with cataclysmic thunder.</p>
<p>"By the bones of Red Jabez, she comes!" roared Spotted Dog, peering over
the side. "Heave, lads, and never doubt the girl again! Fiends o'
Topheth! See her slide!"</p>
<p>The schooner shuddered from forefoot to sternpost; the big hawser
slipped in through the lead with gathering speed; the groaning masts
imparted an impulse to her that drove her astern like an arrow, and now,
triumphantly, Dolores cried:</p>
<p>"An ax! Quickly—cut the hawser! Caliban, get a jib loosed! Hanglip,
open the companionway, and bring up my prisoners. I would have them
enjoy the sail."</p>
<p>A curling sea poured over the taffrail, sweeping Dolores from her feet;
she met it with a ringing laugh, gripping the wheel as her safeguard,
and the moment the ax severed the hawser she gave the vessel a sheer
with the helm, and again her orders rang out:</p>
<p>"Let go both boom-tackles! Hoist away the jib! Haul the jib-sheet to
starboard, and stand by fore and main sheets!"</p>
<p>Out of the darkness ahead came the fluttering of canvas, and soon
Caliban's hoarse croak rang aft: "Hoist away th' jib!" The great booms
swung amidships again when the tackles were cast off, and now the
headsail flew up the stay, the restrained sheet to starboard causing the
canvas to fill aback as had the greater sails before. The pressure was
ahead and to one side; the schooner's head began to fall off, then
faster as she gained momentum, and the fore and main sails again began
to thunder at their blocks.</p>
<p>"Let draw the jib! Bring in the fore sheet; bear a hand aft here, main
sheet, lads, smartly!" cried Dolores, twirling the wheel to meet the
vessel's swift leeward leap. And as the liberated Feu Follette heeled
dizzily to the gale, under full spread of sail, and her owner and his
guests appeared into the storm, Stumpy's cry rang out:</p>
<p>"There's the flare—and she's burnin' steady!"</p>
<p class="continue">TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK. Don't forget this magazine is issued weekly,
and that you will get the continuation of this story without waiting a
month.</p>
<h2><SPAN name="Part_III" id="Part_III"></SPAN>The Pirate Woman</h2>
<h2>by Captain Dingle</h2>
<p class="center"><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_697" id="Page_697">[Pg 697]</SPAN></span>Author of "The Coolie Ship," "Steward of the Westward," etc.</p>
<p class="continue2">This story began in the All-Story Weekly for November 2.</p>
<h2 class="newchapter"><SPAN name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></SPAN>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />