“Ye have none more faithful than Stumpy, if thy heart is still with us and for us. But things begin to look plaguey rough, Dolores, since ye spared the white schooner and her owner.”

Swiftly Dolores stepped down and glided to Stumpy’s side, his men drawing back involuntarily, not in sufficient numbers to be able to cast off their old awe of her.

“Thy ear, good Stumpy,” she whispered. “Art for thy fellow pirates, or for me? Speak quickly.”

“I’m for you, lady,” he replied, shifting awkwardly on his mutilated foot. “For you, but not if what we heard is true.”

“I tell thee it was false. Now art for me?” She bent upon him a smile of dazzling beauty, soft-eyed and almost tender, and the pirate’s