The Pirate Woman

In a great canopied bed, taken from some rich looted Indiaman, Red Jabez lay motionless as an effigy in stone. His tall, powerful body was sharply outlined in coverings of silk...

Venner's order to heave the treasure-chests overboard was not given without a pang of regret. It was scarcely obeyed without threats; for the sailing master had been bitten by t...

The schooner yacht Feu Follette swam sluggishly along shore, her lofty canvas flapping in the faint air. On her spotless quarter-deck, Rupert Venner, wealthy idler and owner of...

Dolores spent her night in slumber as peaceful as a babe's. When Milo had completed his task with the treasure chests he went to his own couch. John Pearse wandered deep into th...

Dolores gaily took John Pearse by the hand and led him down the chamber to the dais on which stood the vacant chair of state of the dead Red Jabez. The great canopied bed still...

"Sing out when we point for it!" Dolores gave the wheel a few spokes, and at her command the main-sheet was rendered until the schooner fell off from the wind, and Stumpy hailed...

Lucky it proved that Pascherette had been left behind when the schooner sailed after Yellow Rufe. Even Dolores, with all her consummate wisdom, had forgotten the existence of th...

Dolores stood still, sweeping the scene of destruction with a gaze of flinty penetration. The groveling crone at her feet affected her like something unclean, and she spurned th...

In the schooner's saloon the atmosphere was peaceful by contrast with the hurly-burly outside; yet even here the steep slant of the deck, the shrill, protesting squeal of workin...

The cry rang through the Grove like a trumpet call, and the fight was stayed instantly. Every eye flashed upon the bringer of the news, and behind him stood Pascherette, partly...

Pearse followed her with his eyes until she vanished into the passage; then with muttering lips and harshly working features he strode down the chamber to the great tapestry beh...

Milo let loose his infernal blast, and the smashing report was followed by a hush as of death. Then through the blinding and choking powder-reek came the groans and shrieks of t...

In the rock passage the hush was complete. For the space of ten long breaths Sancho stood quivering under the weird spell of the infernal red radiance from the hidden lights, wh...

"No chains for me, by God!" shouted Venner, crouching to ward off the giant's approach. "Tomlin, Pearse, break for the schooner! I'll hold this savage. We shall perhaps fail; bu...

Milo and Pascherette stood outside the rock portals of the great chamber after their dismissal by Dolores, and the giant's face wore a look of perplexity which was not reflected...

A great unrest brooded over mountain and forest; the blue Caribbean lay hushed and glaring, as if held in leash by a power greater than that which ordered its daily ebb and flow.

Day broke through a silver haze, and as the blue sea unrolled to view, far down to the southeast, flashed a pearly sliver of sail lazily drawing in to the coast. It was the mere...

By means of the floating blind the Point had been carried out across the narrow channel until its edge rested on the bar; and the schooner lay with a heavy list broadside on to...

No need now to wait for the verdict of the wax image; no further shifting of brazen glances, or winking of knowing eyes. Shrill voices of terrified blacks, hoarse bellowings of...

Rupert Venner sat on the floor of his prison, tugging at his chains with an absent, aimless, all but perpetual motion; for he had long since convinced himself that his fetters c...

"Hell's breath!" screamed Caliban, as the cry rang out. "Have ye devils in the Grove, mistress?" Hanglip and Spotted Dog, too, cringed back in fright. Stumpy concealed his uneas...

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 ow...

Dolores, flinging herself down upon Craik Tomlin, seized his face between her hands and raised his head, placing her knee beneath it. She panted like an exhausted doe, yet the f...

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 resentme...

Milo watched Stumpy disappear down the grove path, and heard him call to his men to follow. Then he regarded the receding yacht intently for a moment, and the last vestige of no...