The Queen of the Pirate Isle | Page 7

she,--hanging to the long pigtail of Wan Lee, was
drawn with fits of laughter back in safety to the slide. Their childish
treble of appreciation was answered by a ringing cheer from below.
"Darned ef I ever want to cut off a Chinaman's pigtail again, boys," said
one of the tunnel-men as he went back to dinner.
Meantime the children had reached the goal and stood before the
opening of one of the tunnels. Then these four heroes who had looked
with cheerful levity on the deadly peril of their descent became
suddenly frightened at the mysterious darkness of the cavern and turned
pale at its threshold.
"Mebbee a wicked Joss backside holee, he catchee Pilats," said Wan
Lee gravely.
Hickory began to whimper, Patsey drew back, Polly alone stood her
ground, albeit with a trembling lip.
"Let's say our prayers and frighten it away," she said stoutly.
"No! no!" said Wan Lee, with a sudden alarm. "No frighten Spillits!
You waitee! Chinee boy he talkee Spillit not to frighten you."*
* The Chinese pray devoutly to the Evil Spirits NOT to injure them.
Tucking his hands under his blue blouse, Wan Lee suddenly produced
from some mysterious recess of his clothing a quantity of red paper
slips which he scattered at the entrance of the cavern. Then drawing
from the same inexhaustible receptacle certain squibs or fireworks, he
let them off and threw them into the opening. There they went off with
a slight fizz and splutter, a momentary glittering of small points in the

darkness, and a strong smell of gunpowder. Polly gazed at the spectacle
with undisguised awe and fascination. Hickory and Patsey breathed
hard with satisfaction: it was beyond their wildest dreams of mystery
and romance. Even Wan Lee appeared transfigured into a superior
being by the potency of his own spells. But an unaccountable
disturbance of some kind in the dim interior of the tunnel quickly drew
the blood from their blanched cheeks again. It was a sound like
coughing, followed by something like an oath.
"He's made the Evil Spirit orful sick," said Hickory in a loud whisper.
A slight laugh, that to the children seemed demoniacal, followed.
"See!" said Wan Lee. "Evil Spillet he likee Chinee; try talkee him."
The Pirates looked at Wan Lee, not without a certain envy of this
manifest favoritism. A fearful desire to continue their awful
experiments, instead of pursuing their piratical avocations, was taking
possession of them; but Polly, with one of the swift transitions of
childhood, immediately began to extemporize a house for the party at
the mouth of the tunnel, and, with parental foresight, gathered the
fragments of the squibs to build a fire for supper. That frugal meal,
consisting of half a ginger biscuit divided into five small portions, each
served on a chip of wood, and having a deliciously mysterious flavor of
gunpowder and smoke, was soon over. It was necessary after this that
the pirates should at once seek repose after a day of adventure, which
they did for the space of forty seconds in singularly impossible
attitudes and far too aggressive snoring. Indeed, Master Hickory's
almost upright pose, with tightly folded arms and darkly frowning
brows, was felt to be dramatic, but impossible for a longer period. The
brief interval enabled Polly to collect herself and to look around her in
her 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 the Pirate
Hickory's legs.
Hickory at once recognized the battered doll under the aristocratic title
which Polly had long ago bestowed upon it. He stared at the bald and
battered head.
"Ha! ha!" he said hoarsely; "skelped by Injins!"
For an instant the delicious suggestion soothed the imaginative Polly.

But it was quickly dispelled by Wan Lee.
"Lady Maley's pigtail hangee top side hillee. Catchee on big quartz
stone allee same Polly; me go fetchee."
"No!" quickly shrieked the others. The prospect of being left in the
proximity of Wan Lee's evil spirit, without Wan Lee's exorcising power,
was anything but reassuring. "No, don't go!" Even Polly (dropping a
maternal tear on the bald head of Lady Mary) protested against this
breaking up of the little circle. "Go to bed!" she said authoritatively,
"and sleep till morning."
Thus admonished, the Pirates again retired. This time effectively; for,
worn by actual fatigue or soothed by the delicious coolness of the cave,
they gradually, one by one, succumbed to real slumber. Polly, withheld
from joining them by official and maternal responsibility, sat and
blinked at them affectionately.
Gradually she, too, felt herself yielding to the fascination and mystery
of the place and the solitude that