, she gained but slowly. She hailed
again.

"Rupert, my Rupert!" and finished the cry with a rippling laugh. "Art
stealing my treasure and leaving me?"

"By Heavens, Pearse, I had forgotten these chests," said Venner
uneasily. Pearse regarded him closely, fearing that Dolores's spell was
yet powerful. He gripped Venner tightly by the arm, leaned nearer, and
said:

"Venner, so long as that blood-polluted treasure is on your deck, so
long will you be unable to settle your mind. Bid the hands pitch it into
the sea, for God's sake!"

A lull in the wind slowed the schooner down, and Dolores gained a
fathom. Her fair face was set toward them in a bewitching smile, and she
waved a gleaming arm at them. Venner fought with himself in silence for
a brief while, then with a shudder stepped to the wheel.

"Get the hands, Peters," he told the sailing-master, "and heave those
chests overboard. Quickly! You shall lose nothing by this, but don't
delay a moment!"

CHAPTER XXIII.

STUMPY FIRES THE MAGAZINE.

Milo and his slaves worked frenziedly at their task, his suddenly bitter
spirit flogging them to unremitting haste. In the giant's troubled face
the smoldering spark of resentment had grown to an incipient blaze that
required but a breath to burst into angry flame.

One great chest was filled with the choicest of the gems in the powder
store; it was set aside in the entrance beside the tapestry, and another
box was opened before the powder-kegs. Little Pascherette had ceased
moaning, but from time to time a choking sob sounded from her alcove
that increased the hard brilliancy of the light in Milo's eyes. The
great chamber was silent as a mausoleum in the intervals between the
clashing and tinkling of gold and stones in the chest; from the outside,
by way of the rock tunnel, came only the sigh and murmur of the crooning
breeze, the softened plash of the tide on the shore, the scream of
wheeling seabirds. All sound of the schooner had departed; there was no
human note in the whole region.

Then, as the second chest was almost full, and Milo pulled the third and
last along in readiness, from the secret gallery behind the Grove came
the shouts and oaths of men, weary, footsore men, but men with animal
appetites whetted by the day of bloody conflict. They could be heard at
the great door in the painting of the "Sleeping Venus"; not knowing its
secret their way was barred. But Stumpy's hoarse roar could be heard
call