Pascherette, not yet over her fright, hovered tremblingly near, and her mistress dismissed her with a pacifying pat on the head, flinging, at the same time, a string of pearls around her neck that brought mingled gratitude, greed, and conceit into her sparkling eyes.

“How stands the schooner now?” Dolores asked when the girl had gone.

“She drifts slowly, Sultana. There is little wind. Yet she ever comes nearer.”

“Milo, that is my ship!” breathed Dolores fervidly. “I have jewels and silken trash, the richest in my store, which my father told me were taken from such a vessel. A yacht, he called that craft. ‘Tis sailed for pleasure; trade never soils the holds of such craft; men who sail such a vessel as that