A silence followed, then suddenly she said:
"Zounds! Are we to stay pent up here forever? I'm growing hungry!"
"Bide you here," said I, "and I will go forth and fetch some fruit which grows wild here—"
"Good enough," she replied, "but I crave more than fruit. By Zeus! There is bread and salt pork and dried beef in the longboat and I have a mind to sally forth and—"
Now I, who had tasted no Christian food in more than a week, felt my mouth water at the mention of bread and beef, but I said:
"Are you insane? Of what good is a hiding place if it is not used? You would surely fall into the hands of those rogues."
"No, now is the best time for such an attempt," said she, rising. "Hinder me not—my mind is made up. You saw that the five were together—so there is no one at the boat. The other two are dead."
"Unless the whole gang of them returned to the beach," said I.
"Not likely. They are still searching for me, or else have taken up the hunt for the temple. No, I tell you, now is the best time."
"Then I go with you, if you are so determined," I replied, and together we dropped from the ledge in front of the cavern, splashed through the falls and waded out of the pool.
I peered about, half-expecting an attack, but no man was in sight. All was silent save for the occasional raucous plaint of some jungle bird. I looked to my weapons. One of the dead buccaneer's pistols was empty, of course, and the priming of the other was wet.
"The locks of mine are wrapped in silk," said Helen, noticing my activities. "Here, draw the useless charge and reload them."
And she handed me a waterproof horn flask with compartments for powder and ball. So I did as she said, drying the weapons with leaves.
"I am probably the finest pistol shot in the world," said the girl modestly, "but the blade is my darling."
She drew her rapier and slashed and thrust the empty air.
"You sailors seldom appreciate the true value of the straight steel," said she. "Look at you with that clumsy cutlass. I could run you through while you were heaving it up for a slash. So!"
Her point suddenly leaped out and a lock of my hair floated to the earth.
"Have a care with that skewer," said I, annoyed and somewhat uneasy. "Save your tierces and thrusts for your enemies. As for a cutlass, it is a downright weapon for an honest man who knows naught of your fine French tricks."
"Roger O'Farrel knows the worth of the rapier," said she. "'Twould do your heart good to see it sing in his hand, and how that he spits those who oppose him."
"Let us be going," I answered shortly, for her hardness rasped again on me, and it somehow irked me to hear her sing the praises of the pirate O'Farrel.
So we went silently up through the gorges and ravines, mounting the north cliffs at another place, and so proceeded through the thick trees until we came to the crest of the slope that led down to the beach. Peering from ambush, we saw the longboat lying alone and unguarded.
No sound broke the utter stillness as we went warily down the incline. The sun hung over the western waters tike a shield of blood, and the very birds in the trees seemed to have fallen silent. The breeze had gone and no leaf rustled on any branch.
We came to the longboat and, working swiftly, broke open the kegs and made a bundle of bread and beef. My fingers trembled with haste and nervousness, for I felt we were riding the crest of a precipice—I was sure that the pirates would return to their boat before nightfall, and the sun was about to go down.
Even as this thought came to me, I heard a shout and a shot, and a bullet hummed by my cheek. Mike Donler and Will Harbor were running down the beach toward us, cursing and bellowing horrible threats. They had come upon us from among the lofty rocks further down the shore, and now were on us before we had time to draw a breath.
Donler rushed in on me, wild eyes aflame, belt buckle, finger rings and cutlass blade all afire in the gleam of the sunset. His broad breast showed hairy through his open shirt, and I levelled my pistol and shot him through the chest, so that he staggered and roared like a wounded buffalo. Yet such was his terrible vitality that he came reeling on in spite of this mortal hurt to slash at me with his cutlass. I parried the blow, splitting his skull to the brows with my own blade, and he fell dead at my feet, his brains running out on the sand.
Then I turned to the girl, whom I feared to be hard pressed, and looked just in time to see her disarm Harbor with a dextrous wrench of her wrist, and run him through the heart so that her point came out under his shoulder.
For a fleeting instant he stood erect, mouth gaping stupidly, as if upheld by the blade. Blood gushed from that open mouth and, as she withdrew her sword with a marvelous show of wrist strength, he toppled forward, dead before he touched earth.
Helen turned to me with a light laugh.
