"Ease?" she laughed as of old, but her teeth clenched upon her lower lip immediately, with the pain it caused. "I shall ask ye to ease me presently, good friends. Grim Death has me by the throat already. But carry me outside. I am stifling in here. Let me see the ocean and the sky at least in my passage. And I have something to tell ye also."
On the gratings around the stern, abaft the wheel, they laid her on soft cushions. She drank greedily of the wine and water they offered her; she quivered with eagerness to unburden her mind before her thirst was quenched forever. She motioned them, to bend over her, and began to speak in, husky whispers.
"That chest, thou cast it overboard. Dost know what was in it?"
Both shook their heads. None had seen inside the chests after they came from the great chamber.
"I'll tell ye, then, for the peace of your souls and the tranquillity of your voyage. Lest thy men be seized with a desire for treasure that shall work ye mischief, have them open the other two chests. Quickly, for I am faint."
Venner went to the chests himself and flung back the lids, which were bolted on the outside and not locked. He stared for a moment, unbelievingly, then nodded to Pearse. Pearse stared, too, in amazement, and one after the other the sailors were called to see. They saw two great strong-boxes filled to the brim with iron chains, broken cutlases, rusty bilboes, and rock; a fool's treasure in truth.
"'Twas a trick to set my rascals at odds," Dolores told them when they returned to her. "To thee, Pearse, I showed my treasure, and I fear that blast has buried it beneath a mountain. Milo was to take it out. I cannot believe it can have been taken away ere that powder blew it to fragments. It was still in the powder store."
"Yes, I know," said Pearse quietly. "It was that which precipitated the fight between us three that killed poor Tomlin."
"Well, if thou still art hungry for treasure, my friends, there is my store buried where thou knowest, and I shrewdly fear but few of my people are left. But I am slipping. Stand aside, that I may close my eyes on the place I called home."
Dolores ceased speaking and lay, scarcely stirred by her faint respiration, gazing over the schooner's stern at the sinking sun. The golden disk was turning to red and across its darkened face the cliff and Point stood out in sharp silhouette, which grew larger as the great glowing sun was distorted and enlarged by the refraction near the horizon. The breeze had changed, and now blew with gentle strength out of the west, a fair wind for their homeward course, and the strands of Dolores's glorious hair blew about her face like tendrils about an orchid of unearthly beauty.