lume of blue smoke
in which flashes of devilish light played incessantly. Milo stepped up
behind and above the altar, and as the smoke reeked about him vanished
seemingly into the face of the cliff. There, in an unsuspected outlet to
the great chamber, was the key to much of the magic with which Dolores
kept her turbulent crew on the borderline of fear. She flashed a glance
holding much of anxiety after her giant servitor, and busied herself
about the altar to gain time.

She had received from his hands as he stepped up the effigy of a man in
black wax, and now she advanced with hand upraised for silence. It was
unnecessary: the silence of the dead prevailed in the Grove. With the
image held aloft Dolores was a magnet that drew all eyes inevitably. Six
inches tall, the image was a cleverly modeled composite of every type in
the motley band; and every man realized this. Placing the effigy on the
altar, Dolores seized from the brazier a glowing coal with her bare
hands and placed it behind the figure. Then she flung both hands high
and her vibrant voice pealed through the Grove.

"Regard all men the voice of the gods! By this sacred fire shall this
image be melted; and when it is gone, out of its many likenesses shall
remain the shape of him who stirred ye to mutiny against me. That shape
I shall show ye by the power of my will. Lest ye disbelieve that I have
this power, behold! Look for proof in the smoke behind me!"

As she spoke she stirred the incense to a dense cloud of smoke, and her
blazing eyes, turned from her people, peered through the reek for a
reassuring sign from the rock, for what she now demanded of Milo called
for superhuman swiftness and surety. As the seconds sped, she kept the
smoke swirling thickly, and her voice rang out in a weird incantation
that kept the spectators trembling with the growing suspense.

Then a triumphant note entered her speech; the smoke rose thicker for an
instant, then dissolved; and as it vanished, high on the rocky cliff,
framed, as it seemed, in the solid rock itself, stood the grim, cold
figure of the dead Red Jabez.

In this, her grave extremity, Milo the strong, Milo the slave, more than
all, Milo the faithful, had not failed her.

CHAPTER IV.

THE PIRATES' BARBECUE.

A moment of ghastly hush prevailed, then the Grove shook from sward to
tree-tops--pandemonium broke loose and all were in turmoil.

No need now to wait for the verdict of the wax image; no f