And now we must return for a space to the pirate cruiser, the Shadow. Although Bessie Harlan did not faint when the pirate chief seized her and bore her aboard of his own craft, from the deck of the yacht, she was in reality so near to doing so that she was rendered as helpless as a babe in the arms of the man who carried her.

She was conscious only that she was borne from the deck of one vessel to the other, and that then her abductor carried her down a short flight of steps into the interior of the boat. She heard him open a door, and she was conscious then that she was in a lighted room, although she could not have opened her eyes to save her life, it seemed to her.

They traversed this room, or cabin—she did not see what it was—and presently passed through a second door. Inside this second apartment the air was cool and sweet. She could hear the bur-r-r of an electric fan and could feel the draft it created.

But still she did not open her eyes. Then she realized that her captor was putting her down, and he did it so quietly and so tenderly that she decided he must believe that she had fainted, and, in order not to undeceive him, she kept her eyes closed.

Her only thought now was to escape from his arms—to[138] liberate herself from his immediate grasp—to get away from him, from his touch; to be out of his reach.

For she still held Max Kane’s revolver in her grasp, and she closed her fingers even more tightly around the butt of it, in order that it might not drop out of her reach, and she pushed it even farther among the folds of her dress in order that he might not by any possibility discover that she had it.

And then he put her down. She felt that she was resting upon an upholstered chair, and that the pirate was bending over her, studying her features.

She permitted herself to breathe a little—just enough to reassure him so that he would not resort to extreme measures to bring her back to consciousness. She only hoped that he would go away and leave her until she could have time to recover her senses fully—until she might think over the awful thing that had happened, and decide what to do.

She even thought calmly about the expedient of putting a bullet through her own heart the moment the pirate should leave her alone, and she regarded the idea quite calmly, as something which was not at all impracticable. He touched her hands with the tips of his own fingers, having drawn off his gauntleted gloves in order to do so. Then he touched her brow in the same manner, and she shuddered almost, lest he should use his lips.

But, if he thought of it, he did not attempt to do it.

She heard him sigh. Then she knew that he had straightened up and drawn away from her. It seemed to her that he stood there a long time, watching her, before he made a move to go away; but at last he did so.

[139]

Her sense of hearing was so acute that she could almost hear him as he breathed. She knew when he began to move away from her, and she could feel the increasing distance between them, as he went nearer to the door by which they had entered.

Then she heard the clicking of the latch, and she permitted the lids of her eyes to rise ever so little—just enough so that she could see through her drooping lashes the figure of the pirate chieftain standing on the threshold.

The mask still covered his face; evidently he had forgotten it. He was looking back upon her with an expression she could not fathom, for the reason that she could not see through the mask; but his attitude was kindly, if one can see kindness in the mere figure of a person.

Then he went out and closed the door softly behind him. For one, two, three, four, five seconds of time Bessie did not move. She counted them in order that she might make no mistake; and she waited that length of time lest the man might repent of his hasty departure and decide to return.

Then, at the end of the five seconds, she raised the revolver from under the folds of her dress and leveled it at the closed door.

She maintained that position while she counted ten more, and if the rover had opened the door during that time she would have shot him. She did not know that, when arrayed in the costume he was then wearing, he wore a steel breastplate under his shirt which would have[140] turned her bullet just as it turned Kane’s, earlier in the evening.

But now fifteen seconds had elapsed since the pirate left her. A full quarter of a minute, and she leaped to her feet and darted toward the door. There was no ordinary lock upon it, but there was a chain-bolt, and this she at once slipped into place.

That done, she breathed a sigh of relief; and then, with an added shiver, she looked hastily around to discover if there were other means of entrance to the palatial cabin in which she was now a prisoner.

Farther aft there were portières over a doorway, and she hurried to it, but only to discover that it was the means of communication with a passage from which four staterooms opened.

There was no other way out of the cabin save through the door used by the pirate; Bessie convinced herself of that at once, and with untold relief. Then she peered into the staterooms, one after another, and she discovered with alarm that one of them was all too plainly the abode of the corsair.

And then, when she would have made further investigation, she heard the rattle of the chain on the door she had fastened, and she tiptoed her way across the cabin until she stood almost against it, listening. The pirate had returned. She knew he was there, although, from the position she occupied almost behind the door, she could not see him. After a moment, during which she knew that he turned and gave a low-toned order to some[141] person who was standing near him, he called her by name.

“Miss Harlan!” he said. “Miss Harlan!”

She did not reply. He repeated the summons, somewhat louder than before, but she made no answer.

“Won’t you open the door?” he requested. “At least let me know that you hear me, or I will be obliged to break it down in order to assure myself that you are uninjured.”

“Yes, I hear you,” she said, then, realizing how simple a matter it would be for him to burst the door open.

“Will you not open the door?” he asked her again.

“No,” she replied.

“If I assure you that you will be as free from harm as if you were aboard your brother’s yacht?”

“No.”

“But I wish to talk with you, and this is not a pleasant attitude for conversation.”

She made no reply to this.

“Will you open the door?” he asked again.

“No,” she said. “I will not open the door.”

It was stretched, of course, to the utmost limit of the chain, which permitted an aperture of two or three inches.

She still stood behind it, out of his sight, and with the revolver tightly grasped in her right hand; but now, fearing that he might decide to break the door from its fastenings, she drew back one step more, farther into the corner. Then she saw something, she did not know what, pass through the opening between the door and the casing and touch against the chain.

[142]

That something was a pair of steel nippers, although she did not know it; and she was dismayed the next moment to see the chain fall loosely away from the catch, and to see that the door was swinging open. With one bound she reached the table in the center of the cabin, and with another she passed around it so that it was between her and the door. Then she raised the revolver and pointed it at the pirate.

He came through the doorway and closed it behind him, and then he stood there with his back against it, smiling upon her almost as if he were amused.

“If you make an effort to approach me or to touch me,” she said, and her voice was clear and strong, belying the awful terror that was wringing her heart, “if you come as much as two steps nearer t............