zing violet-black eyes as sure
as any among them. Not a man could ever forget the offending slave whom
she had thrashed with her own hands, disdaining assistance, until the
wretch tore loose and fled screaming to the cliff to pitch headlong into
the shark-infested sea; nor could they forget her unhesitating dive and
terrific struggle to recover him and her completion of the interrupted
punishment when she had brought him back.

Yet the stress proved too great, even in face of these memories, and a
tall, powerful Spaniard, heavily earringed, handsome, with a swart,
brutal beauty, delivered a scorching oath to the heavy air and exclaimed
fiercely:

"A curse on this babe's play! Must men stand here like whipped curs
until a slave commands us enter? Come! Who'll follow me past that door?
I'll know what lies behind this mummery if I choke it from old Jabez's
withered neck as he dies."

The man stepped forward two paces, glaring defiantly at Dolores, waiting
for men to follow. An uneasy shuffling of feet was his only answer for a
moment; then his eyes shifted with cooling ardor at sight of Dolores.
For a breath after he had ceased speaking, the girl stood like a
splendid statue, except for the glitter of her eyes and a slight
quivering of her limbs; it was as if she awaited some response; then her
face relaxed into a contemptuous smile, and her crimson lips parted to
reveal her even, gleaming teeth. She laughed, a rippling little laugh
like the tinkle of steel links, and with a single gliding movement that
permitted no avoidance she swept to within two feet of the now
frightened ruffian.

"Yes? Yellow Rufe would choke words from a dying man!" she cried.
"Nothing that lives and can stand on two feet is in danger from such as
he. Peace, slavish dog!" she panted, flinging out a gleaming hand and
seizing him by one earring. "Thus I mark curs that seek their food among
the dead!" With the words Dolores's right hand flashed upward,
knife-armed, and across Rufe's cheek glared a crimson cross; into his
eyes leaped the fear of death.

"Now go!" she said imperiously, pushing him away. "Let no man forget
that while the life is in Red Jabez he holds thy lives in pawn. When his
spirit goes, ye shall reckon with me!"

Rufe staggered away, half incredulous that his punishment had fallen
short of death. His companions led him apart with many a backward glance
of apprehension at the authoress of his discomfiture, and a deep, sullen
mu