now
within hail of the schooner and coming fast with sail and sweeps, while
her crew stared over the low bulwarks in puzzlement as to the reason for
the hasty exodus from the strange craft.

"Here, Milo, is fresh fare of trouble. Hast brought my own flag?"

"Here, Sultana," replied Milo, taking a carefully folded silken banner
from a pocket in his leathern tunic.

"Hoist it, then, at the main! Perhaps Hanglip and Caliban, Stumpy and
the rest of my brave jackals, will forego their expected meal at sight
of it. And send forth a shout for slaves; this vessel must be cleansed
and her people's wounds attended to."

Up at the schooner's lofty main-truck the Sultana's private flag
fluttered out; the mark and sign of Dolores's ownership. And while three
anxious yachtsmen on the cliff-top waited for her return, a hundred and
twenty hungry and thirsty baffled ruffians on the sloop cursed her
vehemently in their hoarse, dry throats.

CHAPTER VIII.

DOLORES DELIVERS JUDGMENT.

On the level sward before the village the three yachtsmen paced back and
forth in an ecstasy of apprehension. Pascherette had left them, after
playing them like fish with her own charms and a hinted promise of
Dolores's favors as bait; and the moment they were alone Venner shook
off the spell in a resurging determination to attend to the safety of
his vessel in person.

"Follow me, Pearse; come Tomlin!" he said. "We are three mad fools to
stand here while these pirates loot and wreck the Feu Follette!"

Tomlin shuddered as he started to follow. Pearse kept silence, but did
not hesitate. But they had not stepped ten paces before they realized
fully the completeness of their helplessness, for Venner, first to
attempt the path down, was brought to a halt by a musket leveled at his
breast, the musketeer showing only his head and shoulders above the
cliff edge. And as Tomlin and Pearse came up, they, too, were abruptly
halted in like manner; and a grinning Carib motioned each back with an
unspoken command which was none the less inexorable.

They returned to their first positions, and resumed their nervous walk,
condemning themselves as utter idiots for venturing unarmed into such a
nest of vipers at the urge of curiosity, novelty, feminine attraction,
greed--whatever their motives had been. And here Dolores came upon them,
while all about them swarmed the disgruntled pirates from the sloop, and
those of the mutineers whose abject fears warned