sed femininity, understanding that whether Heyst
loved her or not she loved him, and feeling that she had brought this on
his head, faced the danger with a passionate desire to defend her own.

CHAPTER THREE

To Ricardo the girl had been so unforeseen that he was unable to bring
upon her the light of his critical faculties. Her smile appeared to him
full of promise. He had not expected her to be what she was. Who, from
the talk he had heard, could expect to meet a girl like this? She was
a blooming miracle, he said to himself, familiarly, yet with a tinge
of respect. She was no meat for the likes of that tame, respectable
gin-slinger. Ricardo grew hot with indignation. Her courage, her
physical strength, demonstrated at the cost of his discomfiture,
commanded his sympathy. He felt himself drawn to her by the proofs
of her amazing spirit. Such a girl! She had a strong soul; and her
reflective disposition to throw over her connection proved that she was
no hypocrite.

"Is your gentleman a good shot?" he said, looking down on the floor
again, as if indifferent.

She hardly understood the phrase; but in its form it suggested some
accomplishment. It was safe to whisper an affirmative.

"Yes."

"Mine, too--and better than good," Ricardo murmured, and then, in a
confidential burst: "I am not so good at it, but I carry a pretty deadly
thing about me, all the same!"

He tapped his leg. She was past the stage of shudders now. Stiff all
over, unable even to move her eyes, she felt an awful mental tension
which was like blank forgetfulness. Ricardo tried to influence her in
his own way.

"And my gentleman is not the sort that would drop me. He ain't no
foreigner; whereas you, with your baron, you don't know what's before
you--or, rather, being a woman, you know only too well. Much better
not to wait for the chuck. Pile in with us and get your share--of the
plunder, I mean. You have some notion about it already."

She felt that if she as much as hinted by word or sign that there was no
such thing on the island, Heyst's life wouldn't be worth half an hour's
purchase; but all power of combining words had vanished in the tension
of her mind. Words themselves were too difficult to think of--all except
the word "yes," the saving word! She whispered it with not a feature of
her face moving. To Ricardo the faint and concise sound proved a cool,
reserved assent, more worth having from that amazing mistress of herself
tha