“Take ye the sloop, then,” she commanded, “and bring me no tale of failure. Ten miles southwest from the bluff she lies becalmed. Let no man return without tribute for me. Go now!”

With a whoop the evil ruffians tumbled out, hurling themselves pell-mell down to the shore, and splashing out to the boats. Their sloop, a long, beamy Cayman-built craft, of eighty tons and twelve murderous guns that were cast for a king’s ship, could be handled by four men or a hundred. She carried fifty men now, and she sped out of the estuary before the faint breeze with a velocity that spelled certain doom for any square-rigged ship she ever lifted over the horizon.

Dolores watched them go with inscrutable face; then commanded Milo to attend her in the great chamber.