gestures, scowling blackly at every turn that brought
him face to face with Dolores. The packed mob milled and murmured, some
afraid, many of Caliban's mind yet not daring to openly support him.
Venner and his friends sensed the thrill of it, for their brief
experience of the pirate queen left them in slight doubt as to the
outcome of Caliban's speech. Dolores herself stood motionless for a full
minute after the hunchback ceased his defiance, and under her lowered,
heavily lashed eyelids the dark eyes seemed to slumber; only in her lips
was any trace of the alertness that governed her brain, and those
scarlet petals, which seemed to have been plucked from a love flower in
the garden of passion, slowly, almost imperceptibly parted, until the
dazzling teeth gleamed through in a smile that none might yet determine
whether soft or terrible. And as the seconds heaped suspense upon
suspense, the overbold Caliban was seized with a choking fear that he
was to pay the price. Then Dolores spoke, slowly, quietly, almost
soothingly; and those of her hardened ruffians who thought they knew her
best hung on her words in shivery uncertainty.

"For those bold words, Caliban, my father had stripped thy poisonous
skin from thy putrid flesh. Yesterday thy queen might not have proved
more merciful. Yet do I know how thy disappointment chafes thy brave
soul, and because of that thy rash speech goes unpunished." The hush
intensified, for the leniency of Dolores was little less to be feared
than her fury. A smile of ineffable radiance broke over her beautiful
face, and she extended her right hand and said, still in the same slow,
even voice: "Come, Caliban. Thou art worthy of my mercy. Kneel, that I
may know thy heart is right."

Now the suspense reached its climax. Somewhere behind those softly
spoken words surely lurked some awful, cunningly cloaked threat.
Caliban went white, ghastly; his brave tongue stuck to his palate, and
the thin lips slavered with growing panic.

"Come, Caliban!"

The girl's command was uttered no louder, her expression was unchanged;
in her glorious eyes gleamed no trace of anything other than benign
forgiveness; she remained motionless as before, with her rounded arm and
shapely hand extended in a manner that revealed their every perfection.

"Come, Caliban!"

Again the words fell from her smiling lips, and now the quivering
hunchback obeyed, drawn irresistibly by her magnetism, sick with dread
of the stroke