Then she left them without a word, and returned to the great chamber, where she snatched up an immense rope of pearls and resumed her seat on the edge of the table. There she sat, giving them no glance, when the three men came back, hastily, uneasily, one behind the other, with Tomlin bringing up the rear, scowling at Venner's back malevolently.
Idly now Dolores rolled her pearls on the table, and one by one she crushed them with her dagger-hilt—crushed in one moment the wealth of many a petty princeling, and still crushed gem after gem without so much as a flicker of interest on her cool face. The three men glared at her, and at each other, and the stress they were under could be felt like an impending electric storm. Tomlin's teeth gritted together harshly, his lips were dripping saliva, and he could stand it no longer. He stepped suddenly before Dolores, seized her hands, and cried:
"Woman, you are mad! Do you know what those things are? They are pearls, woman, pearls! Stop this crazy destruction, and in God's name let us go before you madden us."
Dolores turned her cool gaze upon him, drew her hand away easily yet without apparent effort, and crushed another pearl between her gleaming teeth.
"Pearls?" she repeated, tossing away the shattered gem. "Pearls, yes, friend. What of it? Do ye value these trifles, then? Pish! I have such things as these, aye, one for every hair on thy hot head. But let ye go—ha! That is in thy hands, my friend, thine and thy companions."
"Yes, we know your price!" gasped Venner hoarsely, staring full into her eyes. "But what is to prevent us now, when we have you alone, and that great giant is away, from binding you fast and sailing away with the treasure you have already put in my vessel?"
"What can prevent?" she echoed, simulating surprise that such a question should occur to any one. "Nothing shall prevent, my friend, if any of ye think to try it. Have I not said my treasure is for the man who wins it. Am I not waiting for the man able to take it, that I may go with him, too? Here—" She suddenly flung down the pearls at Tomlin's feet, glided close to Venner, and thrust her red lips up to him, her violet eyes like brimming pools behind her drooping lashes. "Here, tie me, my Rupert. Here are my hands; there my feet. Bind me well, and go if thou canst. What, wilt thou not? There, I knew thee better than thou knowest thyself."
She stepped back with a low laugh, and her arm brushed his cheek, sending the hot blood surging to his temples. John Pearse crouched toward Venner, as if waiting for him to lay a finger on Dolores at his peril. She smiled at all three, and stepped over to the side of the chamber, where she carelessly pointed out sacred vessels and altar furnishings, gems of art and jewel-crusted lamps.
"Here, also, is a reason why ye will not go, my friends. Your eyes, accustomed to these things in the great world outside, dare not ignore their worth. And I tell ye that all the treasure now going to the vessel could not purchase the thousandth part of my real treasure, which I will not show, until I know my man." She glanced at Pearse as she spoke, and saw rising greed in his eyes. He had seen the real treasure; he was ripe for her hand. Milo and his slaves returned for another chest, and Dolores waited until they had gone; then she glided swiftly toward the passage, and turned at the door.
"I shall return in fifteen minutes, gentlemen," she said. "Then my man must be ready, or I will drop the great rock at the entrance, and leave ye all three caged here until ye die. For go I will, mated or mateless, with all my treasure, ere the sun sinks into the western sea." And as she left them she flashed a look of appeal at John Pearse.