Just for one second Milo pondered staying them. But his soul had soured; he uttered a grunt of scornful disgust, and waved a hand at them, muttering:
"Revel, ye dogs! Plunge thy hands deep. 'Tis all thine, and the fiend's blessing go with it!"
He returned to his dead Pascherette and knelt beside her, patting her cold hands and speaking to her softly and tenderly. Out in the chamber the pirates had hurled aside the slaves, and, flinging open the chests, were glaring with wolfish eyes and dripping jaws at the bewildering mass of treasure revealed.
Their noise irritated Milo. He went out again to stop them. And he saw a pirate snatch up a glittering tiara and place it on his head with a roaring oath. He saw another snatch the bauble off; and in a breath the pirates were at each other's throats; cutlases flashed and a savage fight began at the moment the women stole in to see the mysterious place, and one of their number ran to bring Stumpy.
The giant glowered at the snarling men as at some repulsive beasts, horrified that they should thus desecrate the quiet of his Pascherette's death-bed. He was not the Milo of old now. His memory had flown back through the years to the time when he was a youth of position and great promise in his own land; when, instead of being the cast-off servant of a beautiful ingrate, he numbered his own servants by hundreds. And a great dignity stole into his ennobled face. He softly picked up the dead girl, and advanced toward the rock tunnel.
Stumpy met him at the door, and the crippled pirate's eyes burned with the newborn lust of loot. Stumpy made as if to stay the giant with questions; but he saw the snarling fight at the end of the chamber and caught the glitter of jewels. With the stumbling speed of a charging, wounded bull, he rushed in to join battle.
Running women brushed against Milo in the passage; all the camp's living people had caught the fever. The giant strode on, until he stood in the rugged rock portals and gazed once more over the sea. The schooner had moved but slightly since he last looked at her; he could see Dolores's head still advancing, and very near to the vessel now. The breeze had lulled, perhaps preceding a shift of wind; and the visible people on the deck of the Feu Follette appeared to be running back and forth in indecision.
At Milo's right hand the great rock sat on its ledge, ready to fall at a touch, and his brooding eyes flashed to it with terrible meaning. Inside, the great chamber resounded with the clash of steel, the shouts of furious human beasts, and the shrill cries of women urging them on; for there must be victors, even to such a sordid fight, and to the victors, spoils. Where victors and spoils are, there harpy women await them.
Milo gazed long and passionately into the face of his dead; then he laid her softly down outside the rock and arose with a fierce light irradiating his face.
"Dogs, who would thus break the sleep of my beloved, I give ye good for evil!" he muttered. "Treasure ye crave: treasure I give ye, and none may take it from ye!"