The Queen of the Pirate Isle

by Bret Harte

with laughter. Then the extended figure was seen to detachwhat looked like a small black rope from its shoulders and throw itto the girl. There was another little giggle. The faces of the menbelow paled in terror. Then Polly--for it was she--hanging to thelong pig-tail of Wan Lee, was drawn with fits of laughter back insafety to the slide. Their childish treble of appreciation wasanswered by a ringing cheer from below.

  "Darned ef I ever want to cut off a Chinaman's pig-tail again,boys," said one of the tunnel men as he went back to dinner.

  Meantime the children had reached the goal and stood before theopening of one of the tunnels. Then these four heroes who had lookedwith cheerful levity on the deadly peril of their descent becamesuddenly frightened at the mysterious darkness of the cavern andturned pale at its threshold.

  "Mebbee a wicked Joss backside holee, He catchee Pilats," said WanLee, gravely.

  Hickory began to whimper, Patsey drew back, Polly alone stood herground, albeit with a trembling lip.

  "Let's say our prayers and frighten it away," she said, stoutly.

  "No! No!" said Wan Lee, with sudden alarm. "No frighten Spillits!You waitee! Chinee boy he talkee Spillit not to frighten you."[A]

  [Footnote A: The Chinese pray devoutly to the Evil Spirits _not_ toinjure them.]

  Tucking his hands under his blue blouse, Wan Lee suddenly producedfrom some mysterious recess of his clothing a quantity of red paperslips which he scattered at the entrance of the cavern. Then drawingfrom the same inexhaustible receptacle certain squibs or fireworks,he let them off and threw them into the opening. There they went offwith a slight fizz and splutter, a momentary glittering of smallpoints in the darkness and a strong smell of gunpowder. Polly gazedat the spectacle with undisguised awe and fascination. Hickory andPatsey breathed hard with satisfaction; it was beyond their wildestdreams of mystery and romance. Even Wan Lee appeared transfiguredinto a superior being by the potency of his own spells. But anunaccountable disturbance of some kind in the dim interior of thetunnel quickly drew the blood from their blanched cheeks again. Itwas a sound like coughing followed by something like an oath.

  "He's made the Evil Spirit orful sick," said Hickory, in a loudwhisper.

  A slight laugh that to the children seemed demoniacal, followed.

  "See," said Wan Lee, "Evil Spillet be likee Chinee, try talkee him."

  The Pirates looked at Wan Lee not without a certain envy of thismanifest favouritism. A fearful desire to continue their awfulexperiments, instead of pursuing their piratical avocations, wastaking possession of them; but Polly, with one of the swifttransitions of childhood, immediately began to extemporise a housefor the party at the mouth of the tunnel, and, with parentalforesight, gathered the fragments of the squibs to build a fire forsupper. That frugal meal consisting of half a ginger biscuit,divided into five small portions each served on a chip of wood, andhaving a deliciously mysterious flavour of gunpowder and smoke, wassoon over. It was necessary after this, that the Pirates should atonce seek repose after a day of adventure, which they did for thespace of forty seconds in singularly impossible attitudes and fartoo aggressive snoring. Indeed, Master Hickory's almost upright_pose_, with tightly folded arms, and darkly frowning brows was feltto be dramatic, but impossible for a longer period. The briefinterval enabled Polly to collect herself and to look around her inher usual motherly fashion. Suddenly she started and uttered a cry.In the excitement of the descent she had quite overlooked her doll,and was now regarding it with round-eyed horror!

  "Lady Mary's hair's gone!" she cried, convulsively grasping thePirate Hickory's legs.

  Hickory at once recognised the battered doll under the aristocratictitle which Polly had long ago bestowed upon it. He stared at thebald and battered head.

  "Ha! ha!" he said, hoarsely; "skelped by Injins!"

  For an instant the delicious suggestion soothed the imaginativePolly. But it was quickly dispelled by Wan Lee.

  "Lady Maley's pig-tail hangee top side hillee. Catchee on big quartzstone allee same Polly, me go fetchee."

  "No!" quickly shrieked the others. The prospect of being left in theproximity of Wan Lee's evil spirit, without Wan Lee's exorcisingpower, was anything but reassuring. "No, don't go!" Even Polly(dropping a maternal tear on the bald head of Lady Mary) protestedagainst this breaking up of the little circle. "Go to bed," shesaid, authoritatively, "and sleep until morning."

  Thus admonished, the pirates again retired. This time effectively,for worn by actual fatigue or soothed by the delicious coolness ofthe cave, they gradually, one by one, succumbed to real slumber.Polly withheld from joining them, by official and maternalresponsibility sat and blinked at them affectionately.

  Gradually she, too, felt herself yielding to the fascination andmystery of the place and the solitude that encompassed her. Beyondthe pleasant shadows where she sat, she saw the great world ofmountain and valley through a dreamy haze that seemed to rise fromthe depths below and occasionally hang before the cavern like aveil. Long waves of spicy heat rolling up the mountain from thevalley brought her the smell of pine trees and bay and made thelandscape swim before her eyes. She could hear the far off cry ofteamsters on some unseen road; she could see the far off cloud ofdust following the mountain stage coach, whose rattling wheels shecould not hear. She felt very lonely, but was not quite afraid; shefelt very melancholy, but was not entirely sad. And she could haveeasily awakened her sleeping companions if she wished.

  No! She was a lone widow with nine children, six of whom werealready in the lone churchyard on the hill, and the others lying illwith measles and scarlet fever beside her. She had just walked manyweary miles that day, and had often begged from door to door for aslice of bread for the starving little ones. It was of no usenow--they would die! They would never see their dear mother again.This was a favourite imaginative situation of Polly's, but onlyindulged when her companions were asleep, partly because she couldnot trust confederates with her more serious fancies, and partlybecause they were at such times passive in her hands. She glancedtimidly round; satisfied that no one could observe her, she softlyvisited the bedside of each of her companions, and administered froma purely fictitious bottle spoonfuls of invisible medicine. Physicalcorrection in the form of slight taps, which they always required,and in which Polly was strong, was only withheld now from a sense oftheir weak condition. But in vain, they succumbed to the felldisease--(they always died at this juncture)--and Polly was leftalone. She thought of the little church where she had once seen afuneral, and remembered the nice smell of the flowers; she dweltwith melancholy satisfaction on the nine little tombstones in thegraveyard, each with an inscription, and looked forward with gentleanticipation to the long summer days when, with Lady Mary in herlap, she would sit on those graves clad in the deepest mourning.The fact that the unhappy victims at times moved as it were uneasilyin their graves or snored, did not affect Polly's imaginativecontemplation, nor withhold the tears that gathered in her roundeyes.

  Presently the lids of the round eyes began to droop, the landscapebeyond began to grow more confused, and sometimes to disappearentirely and reappear again with startling distinctness. Then asound of rippling water from the little stream that flowed from themouth of the tunnel soothed her and seemed to carry her away withit, and then everything was dark.

  The next thing she remembered was that she was apparently beingcarried along on some gliding object to the sound of rippling water.She was not alone, for her three companions were lying beside her,rather tightly packed and squeezed in the same mysterious vehicle.Even in the profound darkness that surrounded her, Polly could feeland hear that they were accompanied, and once or twice a faintstreak of light from the side of the tunnel showed her giganticshadows walking slowly on either side of the gliding car. She feltthe little hands of her associates seeking hers, and knew they wereawake and conscious, and she returned to each a reassuring pressurefrom the large protecting instinct of her maternal little heart.Presently the car glided into an open space of bright light, andstopped.
The transition from the darkness of the tunnel at firstdazzled their eyes. It was like a dream.

  They were in a circular cavern from which three other tunnels likethe one they had passed through, diverged. The walls, lit up byfifty or sixty candles stuck at irregular intervals in crevices ofthe rock, were of glittering quartz and mica. But more remarkablethan all were the inmates of the cavern, who were ranged round thewalls; men, who like their attendants, seemed to be of extrastature; who had blackened faces, wore red bandanna handkerchiefsround their heads and their waists, and carried enormous knives andpistols stuck in their belts. On a raised platform made of a packingbox, on which was rudely painted a skull and cross bones, sat thechief or leader of the band covered with a buffalo robe; on eitherside of him were