The Argosy, Vol. 75, No. 4 — page 175: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

SAILING WITH MORGAN, was but a thought—that she colored as I raised it to my lips. “JT am repaid a thousand times by that,” I whispered. I could distinctly hear Oakes chuckling in the darkness behind us. “Where do you wish to go, Dona Gea” “Dolores,” she said demurely. “ Dolores,” I said vety slowly, that I should- catch the full flavor of it. ‘“ Where do you wish to go?”’ ‘Out beyond the edge of the town, toward the forest. Our people fled in that direction, and it must be that they have taken to the hills and the country, where your men cannot find them. We will meet some one before we have gone very far, and I am known to all. How long will these —these piratas stay in town, Don Esteban? ”’ “ Till they have got every peso and emptied every bottle,” I said bitterly. “And then, I suppose, Gibraltar will share our fate.”” She did not ask a question; she merely stated a self- evident fact. “What will you do, seror? You cannot go with them! You have shown me very clearly that you are not of them, though your fate has thrown you among them. What will you do? Leave them, Don Esteban! Leave them! ” “On a hostile coast, when they need every sword-hand? Bad as these men are, Dofia Dolores, yet they saved our lives. And even if I could leave them, - what would happen to me should I hap- pen into the hands of the Spaniards? You know right well. If king’s off- cers would torture helpless seamen to get information from them on mere suspicion of being accomplices of the Brethren of the Coast, what would these people here in Maracaibo, whom we have looted, do? A long drop and no priests would be the only favor that they would be likely to grant.” “You have saved me,” she said softly; “ and I am not unknown among them.” “ But there are many, Dofia—Do- 7) 877 lores—who were not saved and who are even now aboard the ships, calling to God in their misery!” { must have spoken as I felt, strong- ly, for she burst into weeping, and in a moment, before she had even the chance if she had the desire to remon- strate, [ had taken her in my arms. “ Dolores, Dolores!” I said. “ Thou are the brightest star in all the South- ern skies. This raid of mine, with _all of its attendant cruelty and blood- shed, war, and disaster, is well worth while, for it has made me know you. To have known you is better than a king’s ransom, and to have seen you, to have heard the mysic of your dear voice, is like water to a thirsty land.” She pulled away from me, I thought indignantly, and I half regretted the wild vehemence of my words. Whai earthly use was there in speaking? Though, indeed, I was in that case when a man simply speaks without thought of what the outcome may be. What right had I to annoy her? I, a mere gentleman adventurer, of a for- eign race, and looked on by her people as a pirate! A flood of hot shaine flushed over me. “T am sorry—” I began. “For what you have told me? Fie, Sefior Esteban! That is not said pret- tily! That is not the saying of a hidalgo, Es-te-ban—” “No, no! Never sorry for what I told you; but sorry for the mad folly that led me to speak of it. Is it not enough that I, a mere adventurer, have come here and in the time that I have been here have fallen in love so hopelessly with you? Oh, yes, I will speak the truth now, if I never do it again—”’ She held up her hand in protest. [ went on: “Oh, yes, I did, Dolores, that very first evening, when you came aboard my ship and when I knew that I would give my immortal soul to be of service to you. I say, is not this bad enough? But I must needs annoy you by tell- ing you of it like some schoolboy who CORNICLOO SS (©)