her thoughts. She waved them from her presence, and they went out
together, leaving her sitting motionless until the hangings fell behind
them. Then she sprang up, ran to a great mirror, and stood for many
moments regarding her lovely reflection.

"Yes, thou art beautiful!" she apostrophised. "Beautiful as an artist's
dream. And for what? To queen it over these beasts! To be called
Sultana, and to be in truth a caged eagle. Of them all, who save loyal
Milo may I trust? Of them all, where is one whose blood mixed with mine
could produce aught but devils! Yet I must slink away in the night like
a whipped cur, or leave behind these treasures which alone can secure me
station in the outside world." She began to pace the great apartment,
oblivious of her surroundings, conscious only of a surging rebellion
against even the small necessity of biding her time. The day's
happenings on the schooner had shown her clearly the explosive condition
of her crew; she had no mistaken ideas that for her to load up the
schooner and sail away was simple. Further, she detected in recent
events a growing unrest among the band, the cause of which she had but
begun to fathom. Even now, through the tapestry sounding-stone, her
keenly attuned ears caught a note in the cries of returning woods
parties that told her how precarious was her sway over some of the more
turbulent spirits.

"Before me they cringe like the dogs they are," she muttered, halting
again at the mirror. "Behind my back they snap like wolves. They shall
have their lesson quickly--such a one as the boldest of them shall
shriek mercy." She gazed intently into the mirror, as if she would read
therein an answer to her unspoken longing; then her eyes grew dark and
hard; her round, strong chin set stubbornly, and she whispered
intensely: "Pah! Cattle! They shall not alter my will to seek my
rightful place in the world of the white man! What avails it that in my
veins runs my mother's noble blood, the red chief's fiery courage, if
this nest of soulless brutes is to witness my life and my end? Among
those three white men is one who shall release me. They--ah, they are of
a whiter, cleaner mold! Theirs is the blood that matches mine! Let them
show me which is the stronger. He shall mate with me, and I will make
him a king indeed, even in his own land."

Dolores stepped back panting. Then she controlled herself and began to
put on garment after garment, jewel after jewel, all of superl