heavily earringed, handsome, with a swart, brutal beauty, delivered a scorching oath to the heavy air and exclaimed fiercely:

“A curse on this babe’s play! Must men stand here like whipped curs until a slave commands us enter? Come! Who’ll follow me past that door? I’ll know what lies behind this mummery if I choke it from old Jabez’s withered neck as he dies.”

The man stepped forward two paces, glaring defiantly at Dolores, waiting for men to follow. An uneasy shuffling of feet was his only answer for a moment; then his eyes shifted with cooling ardor at sight of Dolores. For a breath after he had ceased speaking, the girl stood like a splendid statue, except for the glitter of her eyes and a slight quivering of her limbs; it was as if she awaited some