“Come!”

Venner and Tomlin walked on either side of her, not caring to meet each other’s eye, for their subjection to Dolores’s spell was complete whenever in close proximity to her. Hurriedly she led them around the cliff to the great entrance, beyond which they had never stepped. And they went full of tremendous hopes and suspicions, in which the hope predominated; they failed even to cast a look at their schooner, then lying free at anchor, with a few men visible on her decks. Three of the pirates’ long boats lay on the shore abreast of her.

They stood in the entrance to the great chamber, sensing some of the awe that filled the mysterious place, peering into the gloom where the ruby lights now failed to cast their glow in the broader light of day entering