“Jet, flash, and sparkle, little grenade! Dart fire, little stiletto, but you can do no more! Snarl and show your white teeth, little kitten; but your claws are shielded—you cannot bite now. Expand your wings, my bright little humming-bird; but you will find them clipped. Try to soar to your native heaven, my dazzling, glorious bird of paradise; and your drooping plumes will fall, fluttering and earth-stained, to the dust.”
“Well, that all sounds mighty fine, Mr. Garnet, and is a grand flourish of rhetoric on your part. I made no doubt but you’ll excuse me if I don’t understand a single blessed word of it. You’re a schoolmaster, and, of course, ought to understand what’s proper; but your grand tropes and figures of speech are all a waste of powder and shot when addressed to me. Just talk in plain English, and don’t keep calling me names, and I’ll feel greatly obliged. What a grenade and all them other things are I haven’t the remotest idea; but I expect they’re something dreadful bad, or you wouldn’t keep calling me them. It’s real impolite in you to talk so; and I wonder you ain’t ashamed of yourself, Rozzel Garnet!”
“No, you don’t understand, Miss Lawless,” he said slowly, and with the same evil smile. “Shall I tell you in plainer words my meaning?”
“No, you needn’t bother yourself,” said Pet, shortly. “The less you say to me the better I’ll like it. I’m not in the habit of talking to the offcasts of society, such as you are, Mr. Garnet; and, like frog-soup, though it does well enough for a time, one doesn’t like it as a constant thing.”
“Here, push on! push on!” said the gruff voice of Black Bart behind them. “No use standing palavering here all night. Get along, Rozzy, boy, and taking this little snapping-turtle along with you. Up with the glim, Jack, till ma’m’selle sees where she’s going.”
All this time they had been wrapped in the blackness of Tartarus, but now the two men descended the stone steps, and one of them, holding up a dark-lantern, let its rays stream round. Pet curiously cast her eyes about and saw she was in a narrow, rocky passage, with her head not more than an inch from the top. How far it led she could not tell, for the rays of light penetrated but a few feet, and beyond that stretched a black, yawning chasm that might have been the entrance into Pandemonium itself.
“Now, in we goes,” said Black Bart, giving Pet a slight push forward. “Go first, Rozzy, lad, and show little mustard-seed, here, the way. Jack and I will keep in your wake.”
“Mustard-seed and snapping-turtle,” muttered Pet, as she prepared to follow Garnet. “Pet, my dear, you will have as many aliases before long as the most notorious blackleg from here to the Cannibal Islands. Well, if I’m not in a fix to-night! What will they say at home?”
As they went on the passage grew wider and broader, until at last Pet found herself in a spacious rock-bound apartment, well lighted, rudely furnished, and occupied by some half-dozen rough, hard-looking men in the garb of sailors. They were lying in various attitudes about the floor, with the exception of two, who sat at a rough deal-table playing cards.
They turned their eyes carelessly enough as Rozzel Garnet entered; but as their eyes fell upon Pet each man sprung to his feet, and stared at her in undisguised wonder.