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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Queen of the Pirate Isle, by Bret Harte
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Queen of the Pirate Isle
+
+Author: Bret Harte
+
+Release Date: May 27, 2006 [EBook #2798]
+Last Updated: March 5, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE QUEEN OF THE PIRATE ISLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+THE QUEEN OF THE PIRATE ISLE
+
+by Bret Harte
+
+
+
+I first knew her as the Queen of the Pirate Isle. To the best of my
+recollection she had no reasonable right to that title. She was only
+nine years old, inclined to plumpness and good humor, deprecated
+violence, and had never been to sea. Need it be added that she did NOT
+live in an island and that her name was Polly?
+
+Perhaps I ought to explain that she had already known other experiences
+of a purely imaginative character. Part of her existence had been passed
+as a Beggar Child,--solely indicated by a shawl tightly folded round her
+shoulders, and chills; as a Schoolmistress, unnecessarily severe; as a
+Preacher, singularly personal in his remarks, and once, after reading
+one of Cooper's novels, as an Indian Maiden. This was, I believe, the
+only instance when she had borrowed from another's fiction. Most of the
+characters that she assumed for days and sometimes weeks at a time were
+purely original in conception; some so much so as to be vague to the
+general understanding. I remember that her personation of a certain Mrs.
+Smith, whose individuality was supposed to be sufficiently represented
+by a sunbonnet worn wrong side before and a weekly addition to her
+family, was never perfectly appreciated by her own circle although she
+lived the character for a month. Another creation known as “The Proud
+Lady”--a being whose excessive and unreasonable haughtiness was
+so pronounced as to give her features the expression of extreme
+nausea--caused her mother so much alarm that it had to be abandoned.
+This was easily effected. The Proud Lady was understood to have died.
+Indeed, most of Polly's impersonations were got rid of in this way,
+although it by no means prevented their subsequent reappearance. “I
+thought Mrs. Smith was dead,” remonstrated her mother at the posthumous
+appearance of that lady with a new infant. “She was buried alive and kem
+to!” said Polly with a melancholy air. Fortunately, the representation
+of a resuscitated person required such extraordinary acting, and was,
+through some uncertainty of conception, so closely allied in facial
+expression to the Proud Lady, that Mrs. Smith was resuscitated only for
+a day.
+
+The origin of the title of the Queen of the Pirate Isle may be briefly
+stated as follows:--
+
+An hour after luncheon, one day, Polly, Hickory Hunt, her cousin, and
+Wan Lee, a Chinese page, were crossing the nursery floor in a Chinese
+junk. The sea was calm and the sky cloudless. Any change in the weather
+was as unexpected as it is in books. Suddenly a West Indian Hurricane,
+purely local in character and unfelt anywhere else, struck Master
+Hickory and threw him overboard, whence, wildly swimming for his life
+and carrying Polly on his back, he eventually reached a Desert Island in
+the closet. Here the rescued party put up a tent made of a table-cloth
+providentially snatched from the raging billows, and, from two o'clock
+until four, passed six weeks on the island, supported only by a piece
+of candle, a box of matches, and two peppermint lozenges. It was at this
+time that it became necessary to account for Polly's existence among
+them, and this was only effected by an alarming sacrifice of their
+morality; Hickory and Wan Lee instantly became PIRATES, and at once
+elected Polly as their Queen. The royal duties, which seemed to be
+purely maternal, consisted in putting the Pirates to bed after a day of
+rapine and bloodshed, and in feeding them with licorice water through a
+quill in a small bottle. Limited as her functions were, Polly performed
+them with inimitable gravity and unquestioned sincerity. Even when her
+companions sometimes hesitated from actual hunger or fatigue and forgot
+their guilty part, she never faltered. It was her real existence; her
+other life of being washed, dressed, and put to bed at certain hours by
+her mother was the ILLUSION.
+
+Doubt and skepticism came at last,--and came from Wan Lee! Wan Lee of
+all creatures! Wan Lee, whose silent, stolid, mechanical performance of
+a pirate's duties--a perfect imitation like all his household work--had
+been their one delight and fascination!
+
+It was just after the exciting capture of a merchantman, with the
+indiscriminate slaughter of all on board,--a spectacle on which the
+round blue eyes of the plump Polly had gazed with royal and maternal
+tolerance,--and they were burying the booty, two tablespoons and a
+thimble, in the corner of the closet, when Wan Lee stolidly rose.
+
+“Melican boy pleenty foolee! Melican boy no Pilat!” said the little
+Chinaman, substituting “l's” for “r's” after his usual fashion.
+
+“Wotcher say?” said Hickory, reddening with sudden confusion.
+
+“Melican boy's papa heap lickee him--s'pose him leal Pilat,” continued
+Wan Lee doggedly. “Melican boy Pilat INSIDE housee. Chinee boy Pilat
+OUTSIDE housee. First chop Pilat.”
+
+Staggered by this humiliating statement, Hickory recovered himself in
+character. “Ah! Ho!” he shrieked, dancing wildly on one leg, “Mutiny and
+Splordinashun! 'Way with him to the yard-arm.”
+
+“Yald-alm--heap foolee! Alee same clothes-horse for washee washee.”
+
+It was here necessary for the Pirate Queen to assert her authority,
+which, as I have before stated, was somewhat confusingly maternal.
+
+“Go to bed instantly without your supper,” she said seriously. “Really,
+I never saw such bad pirates. Say your prayers, and see that you're up
+early to church tomorrow.”
+
+It should be explained that in deference to Polly's proficiency as a
+preacher, and probably as a relief to their uneasy consciences, Divine
+Service had always been held on the Island. But Wan Lee continued:--
+
+“Me no shabbee Pilat INSIDE housee; me shabbee Pilat OUTSIDE housee.
+S'pose you lun away longside Chinee boy--Chinee boy make you Pilat.”
+
+Hickory softly scratched his leg; while a broad, bashful smile almost
+closed his small eyes. “Wot?” he asked.
+
+“Mebbe you too flightened to lun away. Melican boy's papa heap lickee.”
+
+This last infamous suggestion fired the corsair's blood. “Dy'ar think
+we daresen't?” said Hickory desperately, but with an uneasy glance at
+Polly. “I'll show yer to-morrow.”
+
+The entrance of Polly's mother at this moment put an end to Polly's
+authority and dispersed the pirate band, but left Wan Lee's proposal and
+Hickory's rash acceptance ringing in the ears of the Pirate Queen. That
+evening she was unusually silent. She would have taken Bridget,
+her nurse, into her confidence, but this would have involved a long
+explanation of her own feelings, from which, like all imaginative
+children, she shrank. She, however, made preparation for the proposed
+flight by settling in her mind which of her two dolls she would take. A
+wooden creature with easy-going knees and movable hair seemed to be more
+fit for hard service and any indiscriminate scalping that might turn up
+hereafter. At supper, she timidly asked a question of Bridget. “Did
+ye ever hear the loikes uv that, ma'am?” said the Irish handmaid with
+affectionate pride. “Shure the darlint's head is filled noight and
+day with ancient history. She's after asking me now if Queens ever run
+away!” To Polly's remorseful confusion here her good father, equally
+proud of her precocious interest and his own knowledge, at once
+interfered with an unintelligible account of the abdication of various
+queens in history until Polly's head ached again. Well meant as it was,
+it only settled in the child's mind that she must keep the awful secret
+to herself and that no one could understand her.
+
+The eventful day dawned without any unusual sign of importance. It was
+one of the cloudless summer days of the Californian foothills, bright,
+dry, and, as the morning advanced, hot in the white sunshine. The
+actual, prosaic house in which the Pirates apparently lived was a mile
+from a mining settlement on a beautiful ridge of pine woods sloping
+gently towards a valley on the one side, and on the other falling
+abruptly into a dark deep olive gulf of pine-trees, rocks, and patches
+of red soil. Beautiful as the slope was, looking over to the distant
+snow peaks which seemed to be in another world than theirs, the children
+found a greater attraction in the fascinating depths of a mysterious
+gulf, or canyon, as it was called, whose very name filled their ears
+with a weird music. To creep to the edge of the cliff, to sit upon
+the brown branches of some fallen pine, and, putting aside the dried
+tassels, to look down upon the backs of wheeling hawks that seemed to
+hang in mid-air was a never-failing delight. Here Polly would try to
+trace the winding red ribbon of road that was continually losing itself
+among the dense pines of the opposite mountains; here she would listen
+to the far-off strokes of a woodman's axe, or the rattle of some heavy
+wagon, miles away, crossing the pebbles of a dried-up watercourse. Here,
+too, the prevailing colors of the mountains, red and white and green,
+most showed themselves. There were no frowning rocks to depress the
+children's fancy, but everywhere along the ridge pure white quartz bared
+itself through the red earth like smiling teeth; the very pebbles they
+played with were streaked with shining mica like bits of looking-glass.
+The distance was always green and summer-like, but the color they most
+loved, and which was most familiar to them, was the dark red of the
+ground beneath their feet everywhere. It showed itself in the roadside
+bushes; its red dust pervaded the leaves of the overhanging laurel;
+it colored their shoes and pinafores; I am afraid it was often seen in
+Indian-like patches on their faces and hands. That it may have often
+given a sanguinary tone to their fancies I have every reason to believe.
+
+It was on this ridge that the three children gathered at ten o'clock
+that morning. An earlier flight had been impossible on account of Wan
+Lee being obliged to perform his regular duty of blacking the shoes
+of Polly and Hickory before breakfast,--a menial act which in the pure
+republic of childhood was never thought inconsistent with the loftiest
+piratical ambition. On the ridge they met one “Patsey,” the son of a
+neighbor, sun-burned, broad-brimmed hatted, red-handed, like themselves.
+As there were afterwards some doubts expressed whether he joined the
+Pirates of his own free will, or was captured by them, I endeavor to
+give the colloquy exactly as it occurred:--
+
+Patsey: “Hallo, fellers.”
+
+The Pirates: “Hello!”
+
+Patsey: “Goin' to hunt bars? Dad seed a lot o' tracks at sun-up.”
+
+The Pirates (hesitating): “No--o--”
+
+Patsey: “I am; know where I kin get a six-shooter?”
+
+The Pirates (almost ready to abandon piracy for bear-hunting, but
+preserving their dignity): “Can't! We've runn'd away for real pirates.”
+
+Patsey: “Not for good!”
+
+The Queen (interposing with sad dignity and real tears in her round
+blue eyes): “Yes!” (slowly and shaking her head). “Can't go back again.
+Never! Never! Never! The--the--eye is cast!”
+
+Patsey (bursting with excitement): “No-o! Sho'o! Wanter know.”
+
+The Pirates (a little frightened themselves, but tremulous with
+gratified vanity): “The Perleese is on our track!”
+
+Patsey: “Lemme go with yer!”
+
+Hickory: “Wot'll yer giv?”
+
+Patsey: “Pistol and er bananer.”
+
+Hickory (with judicious prudence): “Let's see 'em.”
+
+Patsey was off like a shot; his bare little red feet trembling under
+him. In a few minutes he returned with an old-fashioned revolver known
+as one of “Allen's pepper-boxes” and a large banana. He was at once
+enrolled, and the banana eaten.
+
+As yet they had resolved on no definite nefarious plan. Hickory, looking
+down at Patsey's bare feet, instantly took off his own shoes. This bold
+act sent a thrill through his companions. Wan Lee took off his cloth
+leggings, Polly removed her shoes and stockings, but, with royal
+foresight, tied them up in her handkerchief. The last link between them
+and civilization was broken.
+
+“Let's go to the Slumgullion.”
+
+“Slumgullion” was the name given by the miners to a certain soft,
+half-liquid mud, formed of the water and finely powdered earth that
+was carried off by the sluice-boxes during gold-washing, and eventually
+collected in a broad pool or lagoon before the outlet. There was a
+pool of this kind a quarter of a mile away, where there were “diggings”
+ worked by Patsey's father, and thither they proceeded along the ridge
+in single file. When it was reached they solemnly began to wade in its
+viscid paint-like shallows. Possibly its unctuousness was pleasant
+to the touch; possibly there was a fascination in the fact that their
+parents had forbidden them to go near it, but probably the principal
+object of this performance was to produce a thick coating of mud on the
+feet and ankles, which, when dried in the sun, was supposed to harden
+the skin and render their shoes superfluous. It was also felt to be
+the first real step towards independence; they looked down at their
+ensanguined extremities and recognized the impossibility of their ever
+again crossing (unwashed) the family threshold.
+
+Then they again hesitated. There was a manifest need of some
+well-defined piratical purpose. The last act was reckless and
+irretrievable, but it was vague. They gazed at each other. There was a
+stolid look of resigned and superior tolerance in Wan Lee's eyes.
+
+Polly's glance wandered down the side of the slope to the distant little
+tunnels or openings made by the miners who were at work in the bowels of
+the mountain. “I'd like to go into one of them funny holes,” she said to
+herself, half aloud.
+
+Wan Lee suddenly began to blink his eyes with unwonted excitement.
+“Catchee tunnel--heap gold,” he said quickly. “When manee come outside
+to catchee dinner--Pilats go inside catchee tunnel! Shabbee! Pilats
+catchee gold allee samee Melican man!”
+
+“And take perseshiun,” said Hickory.
+
+“And hoist the Pirate flag,” said Patsey.
+
+“And build a fire, and cook, and have a family,” said Polly.
+
+The idea was fascinating to the point of being irresistible. The eyes of
+the four children became rounder and rounder. They seized each other's
+hands and swung them backwards and forwards, occasionally lifting their
+legs in a solemn rhythmic movement known only to childhood.
+
+“It's orful far off!” said Patsey with a sudden look of dark importance.
+“Pap says it's free miles on the road. Take all day ter get there.”
+
+The bright faces were overcast.
+
+“Less go down er slide!” said Hickory boldly.
+
+They approached the edge of the cliff. The “slide” was simply a sharp
+incline zigzagging down the side of the mountain used for sliding
+goods and provisions from the summit to the tunnel-men at the different
+openings below. The continual traffic had gradually worn a shallow gully
+half filled with earth and gravel into the face of the mountain which
+checked the momentum of the goods in their downward passage, but
+afforded no foothold for a pedestrian. No one had ever been known to
+descend a slide. That feat was evidently reserved for the Pirate band.
+They approached the edge of the slide, hand in hand, hesitated, and the
+next moment disappeared.
+
+Five minutes later the tunnel-men of the Excelsior mine, a mile below,
+taking their luncheon on the rude platform of debris before their
+tunnel, were suddenly driven to shelter in the tunnel from an apparent
+rain of stones, and rocks, and pebbles, from the cliffs above. Looking
+up, they were startled at seeing four round objects revolving and
+bounding in the dust of the slide, which eventually resolved themselves
+into three boys and a girl. For a moment the good men held their breath
+in helpless terror. Twice one of the children had struck the outer edge
+of the bank, and displaced stones that shot a thousand feet down into
+the dizzy depths of the valley; and now one of them, the girl, had
+actually rolled out of the slide and was hanging over the chasm
+supported only by a clump of chamisal to which she clung!
+
+“Hang on by your eyelids, sis! but don't stir, for Heaven's sake!”
+ shouted one of the men, as two others started on a hopeless ascent of
+the cliff above them.
+
+But a light childish laugh from the clinging little figure seemed to
+mock them! Then two small heads appeared at the edge of the slide; then
+a diminutive figure, whose feet were apparently held by some invisible
+companion, was shoved over the brink and stretched its tiny arms towards
+the girl. But in vain, the distance was too great. Another laugh of
+intense youthful enjoyment followed the failure, and a new insecurity
+was added to the situation by the unsteady hands and shoulders of the
+relieving party, who were apparently shaking with laughter. Then the
+extended figure was seen to detach what looked like a small black rope
+from its shoulders and throw it to the girl. There was another little
+giggle. The faces of the men below paled in terror. Then Polly,--for it
+was 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 encompassed her. Beyond the pleasant
+shadows where she sat, she saw the great world of mountain and valley
+through a dreamy haze that seemed to rise from the depths below and
+occasionally hang before the cavern like a veil. Long waves of spicy
+heat rolling up the mountain from the valley brought her the smell of
+pine-trees and bay, and made the landscape swim before her eyes. She
+could hear the far-off cry of teamsters on some unseen road; she could
+see the far-off cloud of dust following the mountain stagecoach, whose
+rattling wheels she could not hear. She felt very lonely, but was not
+quite afraid; she felt very melancholy, but was not entirely sad; and
+she could have easily awakened her sleeping companions if she wished.
+
+No; she was a lone widow with nine children, six of whom were already in
+the lone churchyard on the hill, and the others lying ill with measles
+and scarlet fever beside her. She had just walked many weary miles that
+day, and had often begged from door to door for a slice of bread for the
+starving little ones. It was of no use now--they would die! They would
+never see their dear mother again. This was a favorite imaginative
+situation of Polly's, but only indulged when her companions were asleep,
+partly because she could not trust confederates with her more serious
+fancies, and partly because they were at such times passive in her
+hands. She glanced timidly around. Satisfied that no one could observe
+her, she softly visited the bedside of each of her companions, and
+administered from a purely fictitious bottle spoonfuls of invisible
+medicine. Physical correction in the form of slight taps, which they
+always required, and in which Polly was strong, was only withheld now
+from a sense of their weak condition. But in vain; they succumbed to the
+fell disease,--they always died at this juncture,--and Polly was left
+alone. She thought of the little church where she had once seen a
+funeral, and remembered the nice smell of the flowers; she dwelt with
+melancholy satisfaction of the nine little tombstones in the graveyard,
+each with an inscription, and looked forward with gentle anticipation to
+the long summer days when, with Lady Mary in her lap, she would sit on
+those graves clad in the deepest mourning. The fact that the unhappy
+victims at times moved as it were uneasily in their graves, or snored,
+did not affect Polly's imaginative contemplation, nor withhold the tears
+that gathered in her round eyes.
+
+Presently, the lids of the round eyes began to droop, the landscape
+beyond began to be more confused, and sometimes to disappear entirely
+and reappear again with startling distinctness. Then a sound of rippling
+water from the little stream that flowed from the mouth of the tunnel
+soothed her and seemed to carry her away with it, and then everything
+was dark.
+
+The next thing that she remembered was that she was apparently being
+carried 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 feel and hear that
+they were accompanied, and once or twice a faint streak of light from
+the side of the tunnel showed her gigantic shadows walking slowly
+on either side of the gliding car. She felt the little hands of her
+associates seeking hers, and knew they were awake and conscious, and
+she returned to each a reassuring pressure from the large protecting
+instinct of her maternal little heart. Presently the car glided into
+an open space of bright light, and stopped. The transition from the
+darkness of the tunnel at first dazzled their eyes. It was like a dream.
+
+They were in a circular cavern from which three other tunnels, like the
+one they had passed through, diverged. The walls, lit up by fifty or
+sixty candles stuck at irregular intervals in crevices of the rock, were
+of glittering quartz and mica. But more remarkable than all were the
+inmates of the cavern, who were ranged round the walls,--men who, like
+their attendants, seemed to be of extra stature; who had blackened
+faces, wore red bandana handkerchiefs round their heads and their
+waists, and carried enormous knives and pistols stuck in their belts.
+On a raised platform made of a packing-box on which was rudely painted a
+skull and cross-bones, sat the chief or leader of the band covered with
+a buffalo robe; on either side of him were two small barrels marked
+“Grog” and “Gunpowder.” The children stared and clung closer to Polly.
+Yet, in spite of these desperate and warlike accessories, the strangers
+bore a singular resemblance to “Christy Minstrels” in their blackened
+faces and attitudes that somehow made them seem less awful. In
+particular, Polly was impressed with the fact that even the most
+ferocious had a certain kindliness of eye, and showed their teeth almost
+idiotically.
+
+“Welcome!” said the leader,--“welcome to the Pirates' Cave! The Red
+Rover of the North Fork of the Stanislaus River salutes the Queen of the
+Pirate Isle!” He rose up and made an extraordinary bow. It was repeated
+by the others with more or less exaggeration, to the point of one
+humorist losing his balance!
+
+“Oh, thank you very much,” said Polly timidly, but drawing her little
+flock closer to her with a small protecting arm; “but could you--would
+you--please--tell us--what time it is?”
+
+“We are approaching the middle of Next Week,” said the leader gravely;
+“but what of that? Time is made for slaves! The Red Rover seeks it not!
+Why should the Queen?”
+
+“I think we must be going,” hesitated Polly, yet by no means displeased
+with the recognition of her rank.
+
+“Not until we have paid homage to Your Majesty,” returned the leader.
+“What ho! there! Let Brother Step-and-Fetch-It pass the Queen around
+that we may do her honor.” Observing that Polly shrank slightly back,
+he added: “Fear nothing; the man who hurts a hair of Her Majesty's head
+dies by this hand. Ah! ha!”
+
+The others all said ha! ha! and danced alternately on one leg and then
+on the other, but always with the same dark resemblance to Christy
+Minstrels. Brother Step-and-Fetch-It, whose very long beard had a
+confusing suggestion of being a part of the leader's buffalo robe,
+lifted her gently in his arms and carried her to the Red Rovers in turn.
+Each one bestowed a kiss upon her cheek or forehead, and would have
+taken her in his arms, or on his knees, or otherwise lingered over
+his salute, but they were sternly restrained by their leader. When the
+solemn rite was concluded, Step-and-Fetch-It paid his own courtesy
+with an extra squeeze of the curly head, and deposited her again in the
+truck, a little frightened, a little astonished, but with a considerable
+accession to her dignity. Hickory and Patsey looked on with stupefied
+amazement. Wan Lee alone remained stolid and unimpressed, regarding the
+scene with calm and triangular eyes.
+
+“Will Your Majesty see the Red Rovers dance?”
+
+“No, if you please,” said Polly, with gentle seriousness.
+
+“Will Your Majesty fire this barrel of gunpowder, or tap this breaker of
+grog?”
+
+“No, I thank you.”
+
+“Is there no command Your Majesty would lay upon us?”
+
+“No, please,” said Polly, in a failing voice.
+
+“Is there anything Your Majesty has lost? Think again! Will Your Majesty
+deign to cast your royal eyes on this?”
+
+He drew from under his buffalo robe what seemed like a long tress of
+blond hair, and held it aloft. Polly instantly recognized the missing
+scalp of her hapless doll.
+
+“If you please, sir, it's Lady Mary's. She's lost it.”
+
+“And lost it--Your Majesty--only to find something more precious. Would
+Your Majesty hear the story?”
+
+A little alarmed, a little curious, a little self-anxious, and a
+little induced by the nudges and pinches of her companions, the Queen
+blushingly signified her royal assent.
+
+“Enough. Bring refreshments. Will Your Majesty prefer wintergreen,
+peppermint, rose, or acidulated drops? Red or white? Or perhaps Your
+Majesty will let me recommend these bull's-eyes,” said the leader, as
+a collection of sweets in a hat were suddenly produced from the barrel
+labeled “Gunpowder” and handed to the children.
+
+“Listen,” he continued, in a silence broken only by the gentle sucking
+of bull's-eyes. “Many years ago the old Red Rovers of these parts locked
+up all their treasures in a secret cavern in this mountain. They used
+spells and magic to keep it from being entered or found by anybody, for
+there was a certain mark upon it made by a peculiar rock that stuck out
+of it, which signified what there was below. Long afterwards, other Red
+Rovers who had heard of it came here and spent days and days trying to
+discover it, digging holes and blasting tunnels like this, but of no
+use! Sometimes they thought they discovered the magic marks in the
+peculiar rock that stuck out of it, but when they dug there they found
+no treasure. And why? Because there was a magic spell upon it. And what
+was that magic spell? Why, this! It could only be discovered by a person
+who could not possibly know that he or she had discovered it; who never
+could or would be able to enjoy it; who could never see it, never feel
+it, never, in fact, know anything at all about it! It wasn't a dead man,
+it wasn't an animal, it wasn't a baby!”
+
+“Why,” said Polly, jumping up and clapping her hands, “it was a Dolly.”
+
+“Your Majesty's head is level! Your Majesty has guessed it!” said the
+leader, gravely. “It was Your Majesty's own dolly, Lady Mary, who broke
+the spell! When Your Majesty came down the slide, the doll fell from
+your gracious hand when your foot slipped. Your Majesty recovered Lady
+Mary, but did not observe that her hair had caught in a peculiar rock,
+called the 'Outcrop,' and remained behind! When, later on, while sitting
+with your attendants at the mouth of the tunnel, Your Majesty discovered
+that Lady Mary's hair was gone, I overheard Your Majesty, and dispatched
+the trusty Step-and-Fetch-It to seek it at the mountain side. He did so,
+and found it clinging to the rock, and beneath it--the entrance to the
+Secret Cave!”
+
+Patsey and Hickory, who, failing to understand a word of this
+explanation, had given themselves up to the unconstrained enjoyment of
+the sweets, began now to apprehend that some change was impending, and
+prepared for the worst by hastily swallowing what they had in their
+mouths, thus defying enchantment, and getting ready for speech. Polly,
+who had closely followed the story, albeit with the embellishments of
+her own imagination, made her eyes rounder than ever. A bland smile
+broke on Wan Lee's face, as to the children's amazement, he quietly
+disengaged himself from the group and stepped before the leader.
+
+“Melican man plenty foolee Melican chillern. No foolee China boy!
+China boy knowee you. YOU no Led Lofer. YOU no Pilat--you allee same
+tunnel-man--you Bob Johnson! Me shabbee you! You dressee up allee same
+as Led Lofer--but you Bob Johnson--allee same. My fader washee washee
+for you. You no payee him. You owee him folty dolla! Me blingee you
+billee. You no payee billee! You say, 'Chalkee up, John.' You say,
+'Bimeby, John.' But me no catchee folty dolla!”
+
+A roar of laughter followed, in which even the leader apparently forgot
+himself enough to join. But the next moment springing to his feet
+he shouted, “Ho! ho! A traitor! Away with him to the deepest dungeon
+beneath the castle moat!”
+
+Hickory and Patsey began to whimper, but Polly, albeit with a tremulous
+lip, stepped to the side of her little Pagan friend. “Don't you dare
+touch him,” she said with a shake of unexpected determination in her
+little curly head; “if you do, I'll tell my father, and he will slay
+you! All of you--there!”
+
+“Your father! Then you are NOT the Queen!”
+
+It was a sore struggle to Polly to abdicate her royal position; it was
+harder to do it with befitting dignity. To evade the direct question she
+was obliged to abandon her defiant attitude. “If you please, sir,” she
+said hurriedly, with an increasing color and no stops, “we're not always
+Pirates, you know, and Wan Lee is only our boy what brushes my shoes in
+the morning, and runs of errands, and he doesn't mean anything bad, sir,
+and we'd like to take him back home with us.”
+
+“Enough,” said the leader, changing his entire manner with the most
+sudden and shameless inconsistency. “You shall go back together, and woe
+betide the miscreant who would prevent it! What say you, brothers?
+What shall be his fate who dares to separate our noble Queen from her
+faithful Chinese henchman?”
+
+“He shall die!” roared the others, with beaming cheerfulness.
+
+“And what say you--shall we see them home?”
+
+“We will!” roared the others.
+
+Before the children could fairly comprehend what had passed, they were
+again lifted into the truck and began to glide back into the tunnel they
+had just quitted. But not again in darkness and silence; the entire band
+of Red rovers accompanied them, illuminating the dark passage with the
+candles they had snatched from the walls. In a few moments they were at
+the entrance again. The great world lay beyond them once more with rocks
+and valleys suffused by the rosy light of the setting sun. The past
+seemed like a dream.
+
+But were they really awake now? They could not tell. They accepted
+everything with the confidence and credulity of all children who have
+no experience to compare with their first impressions and to whom the
+future contains nothing impossible. It was without surprise, therefore,
+that they felt themselves lifted on the shoulders of the men who were
+making quite a procession along the steep trail towards the settlement
+again. Polly noticed that at the mouth of the other tunnels they were
+greeted by men as if they were carrying tidings of great joy; that they
+stopped to rejoice together, and that in some mysterious manner their
+conductors had got their faces washed, and had become more like beings
+of the outer world. When they neared the settlement the excitement
+seemed to have become greater; people rushed out to shake hands with
+the men who were carrying them, and overpowered even the children with
+questions they could not understand. Only one sentence Polly could
+clearly remember as being the burden of all congratulations. “Struck the
+old lead at last!” With a faint consciousness that she knew something
+about it, she tried to assume a dignified attitude on the leader's
+shoulders, even while she was beginning to be heavy with sleep.
+
+And then she remembered a crowd near her father's house, out of which
+her father came smiling pleasantly on her, but not interfering with
+her triumphal progress until the leader finally deposited her in her
+mother's lap in their own sitting-room. And then she remembered being
+“cross,” and declining to answer any questions, and shortly afterwards
+found herself comfortably in bed. Then she heard her mother say to her
+father:--
+
+“It really seems too ridiculous for anything, John; the idea of those
+grown men dressing themselves up to play with children.”
+
+“Ridiculous or not,” said her father, “these grown men of the Excelsior
+mine have just struck the famous old lode of Red Mountain, which is as
+good as a fortune to everybody on the Ridge, and were as wild as boys!
+And they say it never would have been found if Polly hadn't tumbled over
+the slide directly on top of the outcrop, and left the absurd wig of
+that wretched doll of hers to mark its site.”
+
+“And that,” murmured Polly sleepily to her doll as she drew it closer to
+her breast, “is all that they know of it.”
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Queen of the Pirate Isle, by Bret Harte
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+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      The Queen of the Pirate Isle, by Bret Harte
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
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+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
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+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
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+               text-align: right;}
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+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Queen of the Pirate Isle, by Bret Harte
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Queen of the Pirate Isle
+
+Author: Bret Harte
+
+Release Date: May 27, 2006 [EBook #2798]
+Last Updated: March 5, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE QUEEN OF THE PIRATE ISLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto" cellpadding="4" border="3">
+<tr>
+<td>
+THERE IS AN ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF THIS TITLE WHICH MAY VIEWED AT EBOOK <big><b><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17168">
+[# 17168 ]</a></b></big>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      THE QUEEN OF THE PIRATE ISLE
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      by Bret Harte
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I first knew her as the Queen of the Pirate Isle. To the best of my
+      recollection she had no reasonable right to that title. She was only nine
+      years old, inclined to plumpness and good humor, deprecated violence, and
+      had never been to sea. Need it be added that she did NOT live in an island
+      and that her name was Polly?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps I ought to explain that she had already known other experiences of
+      a purely imaginative character. Part of her existence had been passed as a
+      Beggar Child,&mdash;solely indicated by a shawl tightly folded round her
+      shoulders, and chills; as a Schoolmistress, unnecessarily severe; as a
+      Preacher, singularly personal in his remarks, and once, after reading one
+      of Cooper's novels, as an Indian Maiden. This was, I believe, the only
+      instance when she had borrowed from another's fiction. Most of the
+      characters that she assumed for days and sometimes weeks at a time were
+      purely original in conception; some so much so as to be vague to the
+      general understanding. I remember that her personation of a certain Mrs.
+      Smith, whose individuality was supposed to be sufficiently represented by
+      a sunbonnet worn wrong side before and a weekly addition to her family,
+      was never perfectly appreciated by her own circle although she lived the
+      character for a month. Another creation known as &ldquo;The Proud Lady&rdquo;&mdash;a
+      being whose excessive and unreasonable haughtiness was so pronounced as to
+      give her features the expression of extreme nausea&mdash;caused her mother
+      so much alarm that it had to be abandoned. This was easily effected. The
+      Proud Lady was understood to have died. Indeed, most of Polly's
+      impersonations were got rid of in this way, although it by no means
+      prevented their subsequent reappearance. &ldquo;I thought Mrs. Smith was dead,&rdquo;
+       remonstrated her mother at the posthumous appearance of that lady with a
+      new infant. &ldquo;She was buried alive and kem to!&rdquo; said Polly with a
+      melancholy air. Fortunately, the representation of a resuscitated person
+      required such extraordinary acting, and was, through some uncertainty of
+      conception, so closely allied in facial expression to the Proud Lady, that
+      Mrs. Smith was resuscitated only for a day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The origin of the title of the Queen of the Pirate Isle may be briefly
+      stated as follows:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour after luncheon, one day, Polly, Hickory Hunt, her cousin, and Wan
+      Lee, a Chinese page, were crossing the nursery floor in a Chinese junk.
+      The sea was calm and the sky cloudless. Any change in the weather was as
+      unexpected as it is in books. Suddenly a West Indian Hurricane, purely
+      local in character and unfelt anywhere else, struck Master Hickory and
+      threw him overboard, whence, wildly swimming for his life and carrying
+      Polly on his back, he eventually reached a Desert Island in the closet.
+      Here the rescued party put up a tent made of a table-cloth providentially
+      snatched from the raging billows, and, from two o'clock until four, passed
+      six weeks on the island, supported only by a piece of candle, a box of
+      matches, and two peppermint lozenges. It was at this time that it became
+      necessary to account for Polly's existence among them, and this was only
+      effected by an alarming sacrifice of their morality; Hickory and Wan Lee
+      instantly became PIRATES, and at once elected Polly as their Queen. The
+      royal duties, which seemed to be purely maternal, consisted in putting the
+      Pirates to bed after a day of rapine and bloodshed, and in feeding them
+      with licorice water through a quill in a small bottle. Limited as her
+      functions were, Polly performed them with inimitable gravity and
+      unquestioned sincerity. Even when her companions sometimes hesitated from
+      actual hunger or fatigue and forgot their guilty part, she never faltered.
+      It was her real existence; her other life of being washed, dressed, and
+      put to bed at certain hours by her mother was the ILLUSION.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Doubt and skepticism came at last,&mdash;and came from Wan Lee! Wan Lee of
+      all creatures! Wan Lee, whose silent, stolid, mechanical performance of a
+      pirate's duties&mdash;a perfect imitation like all his household work&mdash;had
+      been their one delight and fascination!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was just after the exciting capture of a merchantman, with the
+      indiscriminate slaughter of all on board,&mdash;a spectacle on which the
+      round blue eyes of the plump Polly had gazed with royal and maternal
+      tolerance,&mdash;and they were burying the booty, two tablespoons and a
+      thimble, in the corner of the closet, when Wan Lee stolidly rose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Melican boy pleenty foolee! Melican boy no Pilat!&rdquo; said the little
+      Chinaman, substituting &ldquo;l's&rdquo; for &ldquo;r's&rdquo; after his usual fashion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wotcher say?&rdquo; said Hickory, reddening with sudden confusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Melican boy's papa heap lickee him&mdash;s'pose him leal Pilat,&rdquo;
+       continued Wan Lee doggedly. &ldquo;Melican boy Pilat INSIDE housee. Chinee boy
+      Pilat OUTSIDE housee. First chop Pilat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Staggered by this humiliating statement, Hickory recovered himself in
+      character. &ldquo;Ah! Ho!&rdquo; he shrieked, dancing wildly on one leg, &ldquo;Mutiny and
+      Splordinashun! 'Way with him to the yard-arm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yald-alm&mdash;heap foolee! Alee same clothes-horse for washee washee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was here necessary for the Pirate Queen to assert her authority, which,
+      as I have before stated, was somewhat confusingly maternal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go to bed instantly without your supper,&rdquo; she said seriously. &ldquo;Really, I
+      never saw such bad pirates. Say your prayers, and see that you're up early
+      to church tomorrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It should be explained that in deference to Polly's proficiency as a
+      preacher, and probably as a relief to their uneasy consciences, Divine
+      Service had always been held on the Island. But Wan Lee continued:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me no shabbee Pilat INSIDE housee; me shabbee Pilat OUTSIDE housee.
+      S'pose you lun away longside Chinee boy&mdash;Chinee boy make you Pilat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hickory softly scratched his leg; while a broad, bashful smile almost
+      closed his small eyes. &ldquo;Wot?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mebbe you too flightened to lun away. Melican boy's papa heap lickee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This last infamous suggestion fired the corsair's blood. &ldquo;Dy'ar think we
+      daresen't?&rdquo; said Hickory desperately, but with an uneasy glance at Polly.
+      &ldquo;I'll show yer to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The entrance of Polly's mother at this moment put an end to Polly's
+      authority and dispersed the pirate band, but left Wan Lee's proposal and
+      Hickory's rash acceptance ringing in the ears of the Pirate Queen. That
+      evening she was unusually silent. She would have taken Bridget, her nurse,
+      into her confidence, but this would have involved a long explanation of
+      her own feelings, from which, like all imaginative children, she shrank.
+      She, however, made preparation for the proposed flight by settling in her
+      mind which of her two dolls she would take. A wooden creature with
+      easy-going knees and movable hair seemed to be more fit for hard service
+      and any indiscriminate scalping that might turn up hereafter. At supper,
+      she timidly asked a question of Bridget. &ldquo;Did ye ever hear the loikes uv
+      that, ma'am?&rdquo; said the Irish handmaid with affectionate pride. &ldquo;Shure the
+      darlint's head is filled noight and day with ancient history. She's after
+      asking me now if Queens ever run away!&rdquo; To Polly's remorseful confusion
+      here her good father, equally proud of her precocious interest and his own
+      knowledge, at once interfered with an unintelligible account of the
+      abdication of various queens in history until Polly's head ached again.
+      Well meant as it was, it only settled in the child's mind that she must
+      keep the awful secret to herself and that no one could understand her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The eventful day dawned without any unusual sign of importance. It was one
+      of the cloudless summer days of the Californian foothills, bright, dry,
+      and, as the morning advanced, hot in the white sunshine. The actual,
+      prosaic house in which the Pirates apparently lived was a mile from a
+      mining settlement on a beautiful ridge of pine woods sloping gently
+      towards a valley on the one side, and on the other falling abruptly into a
+      dark deep olive gulf of pine-trees, rocks, and patches of red soil.
+      Beautiful as the slope was, looking over to the distant snow peaks which
+      seemed to be in another world than theirs, the children found a greater
+      attraction in the fascinating depths of a mysterious gulf, or canyon, as
+      it was called, whose very name filled their ears with a weird music. To
+      creep to the edge of the cliff, to sit upon the brown branches of some
+      fallen pine, and, putting aside the dried tassels, to look down upon the
+      backs of wheeling hawks that seemed to hang in mid-air was a never-failing
+      delight. Here Polly would try to trace the winding red ribbon of road that
+      was continually losing itself among the dense pines of the opposite
+      mountains; here she would listen to the far-off strokes of a woodman's
+      axe, or the rattle of some heavy wagon, miles away, crossing the pebbles
+      of a dried-up watercourse. Here, too, the prevailing colors of the
+      mountains, red and white and green, most showed themselves. There were no
+      frowning rocks to depress the children's fancy, but everywhere along the
+      ridge pure white quartz bared itself through the red earth like smiling
+      teeth; the very pebbles they played with were streaked with shining mica
+      like bits of looking-glass. The distance was always green and summer-like,
+      but the color they most loved, and which was most familiar to them, was
+      the dark red of the ground beneath their feet everywhere. It showed itself
+      in the roadside bushes; its red dust pervaded the leaves of the
+      overhanging laurel; it colored their shoes and pinafores; I am afraid it
+      was often seen in Indian-like patches on their faces and hands. That it
+      may have often given a sanguinary tone to their fancies I have every
+      reason to believe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was on this ridge that the three children gathered at ten o'clock that
+      morning. An earlier flight had been impossible on account of Wan Lee being
+      obliged to perform his regular duty of blacking the shoes of Polly and
+      Hickory before breakfast,&mdash;a menial act which in the pure republic of
+      childhood was never thought inconsistent with the loftiest piratical
+      ambition. On the ridge they met one &ldquo;Patsey,&rdquo; the son of a neighbor,
+      sun-burned, broad-brimmed hatted, red-handed, like themselves. As there
+      were afterwards some doubts expressed whether he joined the Pirates of his
+      own free will, or was captured by them, I endeavor to give the colloquy
+      exactly as it occurred:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Patsey: &ldquo;Hallo, fellers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Pirates: &ldquo;Hello!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Patsey: &ldquo;Goin' to hunt bars? Dad seed a lot o' tracks at sun-up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Pirates (hesitating): &ldquo;No&mdash;o&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Patsey: &ldquo;I am; know where I kin get a six-shooter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Pirates (almost ready to abandon piracy for bear-hunting, but
+      preserving their dignity): &ldquo;Can't! We've runn'd away for real pirates.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Patsey: &ldquo;Not for good!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Queen (interposing with sad dignity and real tears in her round blue
+      eyes): &ldquo;Yes!&rdquo; (slowly and shaking her head). &ldquo;Can't go back again. Never!
+      Never! Never! The&mdash;the&mdash;eye is cast!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Patsey (bursting with excitement): &ldquo;No-o! Sho'o! Wanter know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Pirates (a little frightened themselves, but tremulous with gratified
+      vanity): &ldquo;The Perleese is on our track!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Patsey: &ldquo;Lemme go with yer!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hickory: &ldquo;Wot'll yer giv?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Patsey: &ldquo;Pistol and er bananer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hickory (with judicious prudence): &ldquo;Let's see 'em.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Patsey was off like a shot; his bare little red feet trembling under him.
+      In a few minutes he returned with an old-fashioned revolver known as one
+      of &ldquo;Allen's pepper-boxes&rdquo; and a large banana. He was at once enrolled, and
+      the banana eaten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As yet they had resolved on no definite nefarious plan. Hickory, looking
+      down at Patsey's bare feet, instantly took off his own shoes. This bold
+      act sent a thrill through his companions. Wan Lee took off his cloth
+      leggings, Polly removed her shoes and stockings, but, with royal
+      foresight, tied them up in her handkerchief. The last link between them
+      and civilization was broken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let's go to the Slumgullion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Slumgullion&rdquo; was the name given by the miners to a certain soft,
+      half-liquid mud, formed of the water and finely powdered earth that was
+      carried off by the sluice-boxes during gold-washing, and eventually
+      collected in a broad pool or lagoon before the outlet. There was a pool of
+      this kind a quarter of a mile away, where there were &ldquo;diggings&rdquo; worked by
+      Patsey's father, and thither they proceeded along the ridge in single
+      file. When it was reached they solemnly began to wade in its viscid
+      paint-like shallows. Possibly its unctuousness was pleasant to the touch;
+      possibly there was a fascination in the fact that their parents had
+      forbidden them to go near it, but probably the principal object of this
+      performance was to produce a thick coating of mud on the feet and ankles,
+      which, when dried in the sun, was supposed to harden the skin and render
+      their shoes superfluous. It was also felt to be the first real step
+      towards independence; they looked down at their ensanguined extremities
+      and recognized the impossibility of their ever again crossing (unwashed)
+      the family threshold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then they again hesitated. There was a manifest need of some well-defined
+      piratical purpose. The last act was reckless and irretrievable, but it was
+      vague. They gazed at each other. There was a stolid look of resigned and
+      superior tolerance in Wan Lee's eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Polly's glance wandered down the side of the slope to the distant little
+      tunnels or openings made by the miners who were at work in the bowels of
+      the mountain. &ldquo;I'd like to go into one of them funny holes,&rdquo; she said to
+      herself, half aloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wan Lee suddenly began to blink his eyes with unwonted excitement.
+      &ldquo;Catchee tunnel&mdash;heap gold,&rdquo; he said quickly. &ldquo;When manee come
+      outside to catchee dinner&mdash;Pilats go inside catchee tunnel! Shabbee!
+      Pilats catchee gold allee samee Melican man!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And take perseshiun,&rdquo; said Hickory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And hoist the Pirate flag,&rdquo; said Patsey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And build a fire, and cook, and have a family,&rdquo; said Polly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The idea was fascinating to the point of being irresistible. The eyes of
+      the four children became rounder and rounder. They seized each other's
+      hands and swung them backwards and forwards, occasionally lifting their
+      legs in a solemn rhythmic movement known only to childhood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's orful far off!&rdquo; said Patsey with a sudden look of dark importance.
+      &ldquo;Pap says it's free miles on the road. Take all day ter get there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The bright faces were overcast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Less go down er slide!&rdquo; said Hickory boldly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They approached the edge of the cliff. The &ldquo;slide&rdquo; was simply a sharp
+      incline zigzagging down the side of the mountain used for sliding goods
+      and provisions from the summit to the tunnel-men at the different openings
+      below. The continual traffic had gradually worn a shallow gully half
+      filled with earth and gravel into the face of the mountain which checked
+      the momentum of the goods in their downward passage, but afforded no
+      foothold for a pedestrian. No one had ever been known to descend a slide.
+      That feat was evidently reserved for the Pirate band. They approached the
+      edge of the slide, hand in hand, hesitated, and the next moment
+      disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Five minutes later the tunnel-men of the Excelsior mine, a mile below,
+      taking their luncheon on the rude platform of debris before their tunnel,
+      were suddenly driven to shelter in the tunnel from an apparent rain of
+      stones, and rocks, and pebbles, from the cliffs above. Looking up, they
+      were startled at seeing four round objects revolving and bounding in the
+      dust of the slide, which eventually resolved themselves into three boys
+      and a girl. For a moment the good men held their breath in helpless
+      terror. Twice one of the children had struck the outer edge of the bank,
+      and displaced stones that shot a thousand feet down into the dizzy depths
+      of the valley; and now one of them, the girl, had actually rolled out of
+      the slide and was hanging over the chasm supported only by a clump of
+      chamisal to which she clung!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hang on by your eyelids, sis! but don't stir, for Heaven's sake!&rdquo; shouted
+      one of the men, as two others started on a hopeless ascent of the cliff
+      above them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But a light childish laugh from the clinging little figure seemed to mock
+      them! Then two small heads appeared at the edge of the slide; then a
+      diminutive figure, whose feet were apparently held by some invisible
+      companion, was shoved over the brink and stretched its tiny arms towards
+      the girl. But in vain, the distance was too great. Another laugh of
+      intense youthful enjoyment followed the failure, and a new insecurity was
+      added to the situation by the unsteady hands and shoulders of the
+      relieving party, who were apparently shaking with laughter. Then the
+      extended figure was seen to detach what looked like a small black rope
+      from its shoulders and throw it to the girl. There was another little
+      giggle. The faces of the men below paled in terror. Then Polly,&mdash;for
+      it was she,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Darned ef I ever want to cut off a Chinaman's pigtail again, boys,&rdquo; said
+      one of the tunnel-men as he went back to dinner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mebbee a wicked Joss backside holee, he catchee Pilats,&rdquo; said Wan Lee
+      gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hickory began to whimper, Patsey drew back, Polly alone stood her ground,
+      albeit with a trembling lip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let's say our prayers and frighten it away,&rdquo; she said stoutly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No! no!&rdquo; said Wan Lee, with a sudden alarm. &ldquo;No frighten Spillits! You
+      waitee! Chinee boy he talkee Spillit not to frighten you.&rdquo; *
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The Chinese pray devoutly to the Evil Spirits NOT to
+     injure them.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's made the Evil Spirit orful sick,&rdquo; said Hickory in a loud whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A slight laugh, that to the children seemed demoniacal, followed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See!&rdquo; said Wan Lee. &ldquo;Evil Spillet he likee Chinee; try talkee him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lady Mary's hair's gone!&rdquo; she cried, convulsively grasping the Pirate
+      Hickory's legs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha! ha!&rdquo; he said hoarsely; &ldquo;skelped by Injins!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For an instant the delicious suggestion soothed the imaginative Polly. But
+      it was quickly dispelled by Wan Lee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lady Maley's pigtail hangee top side hillee. Catchee on big quartz stone
+      allee same Polly; me go fetchee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No!&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;No, don't go!&rdquo; Even Polly (dropping a
+      maternal tear on the bald head of Lady Mary) protested against this
+      breaking up of the little circle. &ldquo;Go to bed!&rdquo; she said authoritatively,
+      &ldquo;and sleep till morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gradually she, too, felt herself yielding to the fascination and mystery
+      of the place and the solitude that encompassed her. Beyond the pleasant
+      shadows where she sat, she saw the great world of mountain and valley
+      through a dreamy haze that seemed to rise from the depths below and
+      occasionally hang before the cavern like a veil. Long waves of spicy heat
+      rolling up the mountain from the valley brought her the smell of
+      pine-trees and bay, and made the landscape swim before her eyes. She could
+      hear the far-off cry of teamsters on some unseen road; she could see the
+      far-off cloud of dust following the mountain stagecoach, whose rattling
+      wheels she could not hear. She felt very lonely, but was not quite afraid;
+      she felt very melancholy, but was not entirely sad; and she could have
+      easily awakened her sleeping companions if she wished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No; she was a lone widow with nine children, six of whom were already in
+      the lone churchyard on the hill, and the others lying ill with measles and
+      scarlet fever beside her. She had just walked many weary miles that day,
+      and had often begged from door to door for a slice of bread for the
+      starving little ones. It was of no use now&mdash;they would die! They
+      would never see their dear mother again. This was a favorite imaginative
+      situation of Polly's, but only indulged when her companions were asleep,
+      partly because she could not trust confederates with her more serious
+      fancies, and partly because they were at such times passive in her hands.
+      She glanced timidly around. Satisfied that no one could observe her, she
+      softly visited the bedside of each of her companions, and administered
+      from a purely fictitious bottle spoonfuls of invisible medicine. Physical
+      correction in the form of slight taps, which they always required, and in
+      which Polly was strong, was only withheld now from a sense of their weak
+      condition. But in vain; they succumbed to the fell disease,&mdash;they
+      always died at this juncture,&mdash;and Polly was left alone. She thought
+      of the little church where she had once seen a funeral, and remembered the
+      nice smell of the flowers; she dwelt with melancholy satisfaction of the
+      nine little tombstones in the graveyard, each with an inscription, and
+      looked forward with gentle anticipation to the long summer days when, with
+      Lady Mary in her lap, she would sit on those graves clad in the deepest
+      mourning. The fact that the unhappy victims at times moved as it were
+      uneasily in their graves, or snored, did not affect Polly's imaginative
+      contemplation, nor withhold the tears that gathered in her round eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently, the lids of the round eyes began to droop, the landscape beyond
+      began to be more confused, and sometimes to disappear entirely and
+      reappear again with startling distinctness. Then a sound of rippling water
+      from the little stream that flowed from the mouth of the tunnel soothed
+      her and seemed to carry her away with it, and then everything was dark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next thing that she remembered was that she was apparently being
+      carried 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 feel and hear that they
+      were accompanied, and once or twice a faint streak of light from the side
+      of the tunnel showed her gigantic shadows walking slowly on either side of
+      the gliding car. She felt the little hands of her associates seeking hers,
+      and knew they were awake and conscious, and she returned to each a
+      reassuring pressure from the large protecting instinct of her maternal
+      little heart. Presently the car glided into an open space of bright light,
+      and stopped. The transition from the darkness of the tunnel at first
+      dazzled their eyes. It was like a dream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were in a circular cavern from which three other tunnels, like the
+      one they had passed through, diverged. The walls, lit up by fifty or sixty
+      candles stuck at irregular intervals in crevices of the rock, were of
+      glittering quartz and mica. But more remarkable than all were the inmates
+      of the cavern, who were ranged round the walls,&mdash;men who, like their
+      attendants, seemed to be of extra stature; who had blackened faces, wore
+      red bandana handkerchiefs round their heads and their waists, and carried
+      enormous knives and pistols stuck in their belts. On a raised platform
+      made of a packing-box on which was rudely painted a skull and cross-bones,
+      sat the chief or leader of the band covered with a buffalo robe; on either
+      side of him were two small barrels marked &ldquo;Grog&rdquo; and &ldquo;Gunpowder.&rdquo; The
+      children stared and clung closer to Polly. Yet, in spite of these
+      desperate and warlike accessories, the strangers bore a singular
+      resemblance to &ldquo;Christy Minstrels&rdquo; in their blackened faces and attitudes
+      that somehow made them seem less awful. In particular, Polly was impressed
+      with the fact that even the most ferocious had a certain kindliness of
+      eye, and showed their teeth almost idiotically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Welcome!&rdquo; said the leader,&mdash;&ldquo;welcome to the Pirates' Cave! The Red
+      Rover of the North Fork of the Stanislaus River salutes the Queen of the
+      Pirate Isle!&rdquo; He rose up and made an extraordinary bow. It was repeated by
+      the others with more or less exaggeration, to the point of one humorist
+      losing his balance!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, thank you very much,&rdquo; said Polly timidly, but drawing her little
+      flock closer to her with a small protecting arm; &ldquo;but could you&mdash;would
+      you&mdash;please&mdash;tell us&mdash;what time it is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are approaching the middle of Next Week,&rdquo; said the leader gravely;
+      &ldquo;but what of that? Time is made for slaves! The Red Rover seeks it not!
+      Why should the Queen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think we must be going,&rdquo; hesitated Polly, yet by no means displeased
+      with the recognition of her rank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not until we have paid homage to Your Majesty,&rdquo; returned the leader.
+      &ldquo;What ho! there! Let Brother Step-and-Fetch-It pass the Queen around that
+      we may do her honor.&rdquo; Observing that Polly shrank slightly back, he added:
+      &ldquo;Fear nothing; the man who hurts a hair of Her Majesty's head dies by this
+      hand. Ah! ha!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The others all said ha! ha! and danced alternately on one leg and then on
+      the other, but always with the same dark resemblance to Christy Minstrels.
+      Brother Step-and-Fetch-It, whose very long beard had a confusing
+      suggestion of being a part of the leader's buffalo robe, lifted her gently
+      in his arms and carried her to the Red Rovers in turn. Each one bestowed a
+      kiss upon her cheek or forehead, and would have taken her in his arms, or
+      on his knees, or otherwise lingered over his salute, but they were sternly
+      restrained by their leader. When the solemn rite was concluded,
+      Step-and-Fetch-It paid his own courtesy with an extra squeeze of the curly
+      head, and deposited her again in the truck, a little frightened, a little
+      astonished, but with a considerable accession to her dignity. Hickory and
+      Patsey looked on with stupefied amazement. Wan Lee alone remained stolid
+      and unimpressed, regarding the scene with calm and triangular eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will Your Majesty see the Red Rovers dance?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, if you please,&rdquo; said Polly, with gentle seriousness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will Your Majesty fire this barrel of gunpowder, or tap this breaker of
+      grog?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I thank you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is there no command Your Majesty would lay upon us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, please,&rdquo; said Polly, in a failing voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is there anything Your Majesty has lost? Think again! Will Your Majesty
+      deign to cast your royal eyes on this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He drew from under his buffalo robe what seemed like a long tress of blond
+      hair, and held it aloft. Polly instantly recognized the missing scalp of
+      her hapless doll.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you please, sir, it's Lady Mary's. She's lost it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And lost it&mdash;Your Majesty&mdash;only to find something more
+      precious. Would Your Majesty hear the story?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A little alarmed, a little curious, a little self-anxious, and a little
+      induced by the nudges and pinches of her companions, the Queen blushingly
+      signified her royal assent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Enough. Bring refreshments. Will Your Majesty prefer wintergreen,
+      peppermint, rose, or acidulated drops? Red or white? Or perhaps Your
+      Majesty will let me recommend these bull's-eyes,&rdquo; said the leader, as a
+      collection of sweets in a hat were suddenly produced from the barrel
+      labeled &ldquo;Gunpowder&rdquo; and handed to the children.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen,&rdquo; he continued, in a silence broken only by the gentle sucking of
+      bull's-eyes. &ldquo;Many years ago the old Red Rovers of these parts locked up
+      all their treasures in a secret cavern in this mountain. They used spells
+      and magic to keep it from being entered or found by anybody, for there was
+      a certain mark upon it made by a peculiar rock that stuck out of it, which
+      signified what there was below. Long afterwards, other Red Rovers who had
+      heard of it came here and spent days and days trying to discover it,
+      digging holes and blasting tunnels like this, but of no use! Sometimes
+      they thought they discovered the magic marks in the peculiar rock that
+      stuck out of it, but when they dug there they found no treasure. And why?
+      Because there was a magic spell upon it. And what was that magic spell?
+      Why, this! It could only be discovered by a person who could not possibly
+      know that he or she had discovered it; who never could or would be able to
+      enjoy it; who could never see it, never feel it, never, in fact, know
+      anything at all about it! It wasn't a dead man, it wasn't an animal, it
+      wasn't a baby!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; said Polly, jumping up and clapping her hands, &ldquo;it was a Dolly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Majesty's head is level! Your Majesty has guessed it!&rdquo; said the
+      leader, gravely. &ldquo;It was Your Majesty's own dolly, Lady Mary, who broke
+      the spell! When Your Majesty came down the slide, the doll fell from your
+      gracious hand when your foot slipped. Your Majesty recovered Lady Mary,
+      but did not observe that her hair had caught in a peculiar rock, called
+      the 'Outcrop,' and remained behind! When, later on, while sitting with
+      your attendants at the mouth of the tunnel, Your Majesty discovered that
+      Lady Mary's hair was gone, I overheard Your Majesty, and dispatched the
+      trusty Step-and-Fetch-It to seek it at the mountain side. He did so, and
+      found it clinging to the rock, and beneath it&mdash;the entrance to the
+      Secret Cave!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Patsey and Hickory, who, failing to understand a word of this explanation,
+      had given themselves up to the unconstrained enjoyment of the sweets,
+      began now to apprehend that some change was impending, and prepared for
+      the worst by hastily swallowing what they had in their mouths, thus
+      defying enchantment, and getting ready for speech. Polly, who had closely
+      followed the story, albeit with the embellishments of her own imagination,
+      made her eyes rounder than ever. A bland smile broke on Wan Lee's face, as
+      to the children's amazement, he quietly disengaged himself from the group
+      and stepped before the leader.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Melican man plenty foolee Melican chillern. No foolee China boy! China
+      boy knowee you. YOU no Led Lofer. YOU no Pilat&mdash;you allee same
+      tunnel-man&mdash;you Bob Johnson! Me shabbee you! You dressee up allee
+      same as Led Lofer&mdash;but you Bob Johnson&mdash;allee same. My fader
+      washee washee for you. You no payee him. You owee him folty dolla! Me
+      blingee you billee. You no payee billee! You say, 'Chalkee up, John.' You
+      say, 'Bimeby, John.' But me no catchee folty dolla!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A roar of laughter followed, in which even the leader apparently forgot
+      himself enough to join. But the next moment springing to his feet he
+      shouted, &ldquo;Ho! ho! A traitor! Away with him to the deepest dungeon beneath
+      the castle moat!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hickory and Patsey began to whimper, but Polly, albeit with a tremulous
+      lip, stepped to the side of her little Pagan friend. &ldquo;Don't you dare touch
+      him,&rdquo; she said with a shake of unexpected determination in her little
+      curly head; &ldquo;if you do, I'll tell my father, and he will slay you! All of
+      you&mdash;there!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your father! Then you are NOT the Queen!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a sore struggle to Polly to abdicate her royal position; it was
+      harder to do it with befitting dignity. To evade the direct question she
+      was obliged to abandon her defiant attitude. &ldquo;If you please, sir,&rdquo; she
+      said hurriedly, with an increasing color and no stops, &ldquo;we're not always
+      Pirates, you know, and Wan Lee is only our boy what brushes my shoes in
+      the morning, and runs of errands, and he doesn't mean anything bad, sir,
+      and we'd like to take him back home with us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Enough,&rdquo; said the leader, changing his entire manner with the most sudden
+      and shameless inconsistency. &ldquo;You shall go back together, and woe betide
+      the miscreant who would prevent it! What say you, brothers? What shall be
+      his fate who dares to separate our noble Queen from her faithful Chinese
+      henchman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He shall die!&rdquo; roared the others, with beaming cheerfulness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what say you&mdash;shall we see them home?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will!&rdquo; roared the others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before the children could fairly comprehend what had passed, they were
+      again lifted into the truck and began to glide back into the tunnel they
+      had just quitted. But not again in darkness and silence; the entire band
+      of Red rovers accompanied them, illuminating the dark passage with the
+      candles they had snatched from the walls. In a few moments they were at
+      the entrance again. The great world lay beyond them once more with rocks
+      and valleys suffused by the rosy light of the setting sun. The past seemed
+      like a dream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But were they really awake now? They could not tell. They accepted
+      everything with the confidence and credulity of all children who have no
+      experience to compare with their first impressions and to whom the future
+      contains nothing impossible. It was without surprise, therefore, that they
+      felt themselves lifted on the shoulders of the men who were making quite a
+      procession along the steep trail towards the settlement again. Polly
+      noticed that at the mouth of the other tunnels they were greeted by men as
+      if they were carrying tidings of great joy; that they stopped to rejoice
+      together, and that in some mysterious manner their conductors had got
+      their faces washed, and had become more like beings of the outer world.
+      When they neared the settlement the excitement seemed to have become
+      greater; people rushed out to shake hands with the men who were carrying
+      them, and overpowered even the children with questions they could not
+      understand. Only one sentence Polly could clearly remember as being the
+      burden of all congratulations. &ldquo;Struck the old lead at last!&rdquo; With a faint
+      consciousness that she knew something about it, she tried to assume a
+      dignified attitude on the leader's shoulders, even while she was beginning
+      to be heavy with sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then she remembered a crowd near her father's house, out of which her
+      father came smiling pleasantly on her, but not interfering with her
+      triumphal progress until the leader finally deposited her in her mother's
+      lap in their own sitting-room. And then she remembered being &ldquo;cross,&rdquo; and
+      declining to answer any questions, and shortly afterwards found herself
+      comfortably in bed. Then she heard her mother say to her father:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It really seems too ridiculous for anything, John; the idea of those
+      grown men dressing themselves up to play with children.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ridiculous or not,&rdquo; said her father, &ldquo;these grown men of the Excelsior
+      mine have just struck the famous old lode of Red Mountain, which is as
+      good as a fortune to everybody on the Ridge, and were as wild as boys! And
+      they say it never would have been found if Polly hadn't tumbled over the
+      slide directly on top of the outcrop, and left the absurd wig of that
+      wretched doll of hers to mark its site.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that,&rdquo; murmured Polly sleepily to her doll as she drew it closer to
+      her breast, &ldquo;is all that they know of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
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+</pre>
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+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Queen of the Pirate Isle, by Bret Harte
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Queen of the Pirate Isle
+
+Author: Bret Harte
+
+Release Date: May 27, 2006 [EBook #2798]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE QUEEN OF THE PIRATE ISLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+THE QUEEN OF THE PIRATE ISLE
+
+by Bret Harte
+
+
+
+I first knew her as the Queen of the Pirate Isle. To the best of my
+recollection she had no reasonable right to that title. She was only
+nine years old, inclined to plumpness and good humor, deprecated
+violence, and had never been to sea. Need it be added that she did NOT
+live in an island and that her name was Polly?
+
+Perhaps I ought to explain that she had already known other experiences
+of a purely imaginative character. Part of her existence had been passed
+as a Beggar Child,--solely indicated by a shawl tightly folded round her
+shoulders, and chills; as a Schoolmistress, unnecessarily severe; as a
+Preacher, singularly personal in his remarks, and once, after reading
+one of Cooper's novels, as an Indian Maiden. This was, I believe, the
+only instance when she had borrowed from another's fiction. Most of the
+characters that she assumed for days and sometimes weeks at a time were
+purely original in conception; some so much so as to be vague to the
+general understanding. I remember that her personation of a certain Mrs.
+Smith, whose individuality was supposed to be sufficiently represented
+by a sunbonnet worn wrong side before and a weekly addition to her
+family, was never perfectly appreciated by her own circle although she
+lived the character for a month. Another creation known as "The Proud
+Lady"--a being whose excessive and unreasonable haughtiness was
+so pronounced as to give her features the expression of extreme
+nausea--caused her mother so much alarm that it had to be abandoned.
+This was easily effected. The Proud Lady was understood to have died.
+Indeed, most of Polly's impersonations were got rid of in this way,
+although it by no means prevented their subsequent reappearance. "I
+thought Mrs. Smith was dead," remonstrated her mother at the posthumous
+appearance of that lady with a new infant. "She was buried alive and kem
+to!" said Polly with a melancholy air. Fortunately, the representation
+of a resuscitated person required such extraordinary acting, and was,
+through some uncertainty of conception, so closely allied in facial
+expression to the Proud Lady, that Mrs. Smith was resuscitated only for
+a day.
+
+The origin of the title of the Queen of the Pirate Isle may be briefly
+stated as follows:--
+
+An hour after luncheon, one day, Polly, Hickory Hunt, her cousin, and
+Wan Lee, a Chinese page, were crossing the nursery floor in a Chinese
+junk. The sea was calm and the sky cloudless. Any change in the weather
+was as unexpected as it is in books. Suddenly a West Indian Hurricane,
+purely local in character and unfelt anywhere else, struck Master
+Hickory and threw him overboard, whence, wildly swimming for his life
+and carrying Polly on his back, he eventually reached a Desert Island in
+the closet. Here the rescued party put up a tent made of a table-cloth
+providentially snatched from the raging billows, and, from two o'clock
+until four, passed six weeks on the island, supported only by a piece
+of candle, a box of matches, and two peppermint lozenges. It was at this
+time that it became necessary to account for Polly's existence among
+them, and this was only effected by an alarming sacrifice of their
+morality; Hickory and Wan Lee instantly became PIRATES, and at once
+elected Polly as their Queen. The royal duties, which seemed to be
+purely maternal, consisted in putting the Pirates to bed after a day of
+rapine and bloodshed, and in feeding them with licorice water through a
+quill in a small bottle. Limited as her functions were, Polly performed
+them with inimitable gravity and unquestioned sincerity. Even when her
+companions sometimes hesitated from actual hunger or fatigue and forgot
+their guilty part, she never faltered. It was her real existence; her
+other life of being washed, dressed, and put to bed at certain hours by
+her mother was the ILLUSION.
+
+Doubt and skepticism came at last,--and came from Wan Lee! Wan Lee of
+all creatures! Wan Lee, whose silent, stolid, mechanical performance of
+a pirate's duties--a perfect imitation like all his household work--had
+been their one delight and fascination!
+
+It was just after the exciting capture of a merchantman, with the
+indiscriminate slaughter of all on board,--a spectacle on which the
+round blue eyes of the plump Polly had gazed with royal and maternal
+tolerance,--and they were burying the booty, two tablespoons and a
+thimble, in the corner of the closet, when Wan Lee stolidly rose.
+
+"Melican boy pleenty foolee! Melican boy no Pilat!" said the little
+Chinaman, substituting "l's" for "r's" after his usual fashion.
+
+"Wotcher say?" said Hickory, reddening with sudden confusion.
+
+"Melican boy's papa heap lickee him--s'pose him leal Pilat," continued
+Wan Lee doggedly. "Melican boy Pilat INSIDE housee. Chinee boy Pilat
+OUTSIDE housee. First chop Pilat."
+
+Staggered by this humiliating statement, Hickory recovered himself in
+character. "Ah! Ho!" he shrieked, dancing wildly on one leg, "Mutiny and
+Splordinashun! 'Way with him to the yard-arm."
+
+"Yald-alm--heap foolee! Alee same clothes-horse for washee washee."
+
+It was here necessary for the Pirate Queen to assert her authority,
+which, as I have before stated, was somewhat confusingly maternal.
+
+"Go to bed instantly without your supper," she said seriously. "Really,
+I never saw such bad pirates. Say your prayers, and see that you're up
+early to church tomorrow."
+
+It should be explained that in deference to Polly's proficiency as a
+preacher, and probably as a relief to their uneasy consciences, Divine
+Service had always been held on the Island. But Wan Lee continued:--
+
+"Me no shabbee Pilat INSIDE housee; me shabbee Pilat OUTSIDE housee.
+S'pose you lun away longside Chinee boy--Chinee boy make you Pilat."
+
+Hickory softly scratched his leg; while a broad, bashful smile almost
+closed his small eyes. "Wot?" he asked.
+
+"Mebbe you too flightened to lun away. Melican boy's papa heap lickee."
+
+This last infamous suggestion fired the corsair's blood. "Dy'ar think
+we daresen't?" said Hickory desperately, but with an uneasy glance at
+Polly. "I'll show yer to-morrow."
+
+The entrance of Polly's mother at this moment put an end to Polly's
+authority and dispersed the pirate band, but left Wan Lee's proposal and
+Hickory's rash acceptance ringing in the ears of the Pirate Queen. That
+evening she was unusually silent. She would have taken Bridget,
+her nurse, into her confidence, but this would have involved a long
+explanation of her own feelings, from which, like all imaginative
+children, she shrank. She, however, made preparation for the proposed
+flight by settling in her mind which of her two dolls she would take. A
+wooden creature with easy-going knees and movable hair seemed to be more
+fit for hard service and any indiscriminate scalping that might turn up
+hereafter. At supper, she timidly asked a question of Bridget. "Did
+ye ever hear the loikes uv that, ma'am?" said the Irish handmaid with
+affectionate pride. "Shure the darlint's head is filled noight and
+day with ancient history. She's after asking me now if Queens ever run
+away!" To Polly's remorseful confusion here her good father, equally
+proud of her precocious interest and his own knowledge, at once
+interfered with an unintelligible account of the abdication of various
+queens in history until Polly's head ached again. Well meant as it was,
+it only settled in the child's mind that she must keep the awful secret
+to herself and that no one could understand her.
+
+The eventful day dawned without any unusual sign of importance. It was
+one of the cloudless summer days of the Californian foothills, bright,
+dry, and, as the morning advanced, hot in the white sunshine. The
+actual, prosaic house in which the Pirates apparently lived was a mile
+from a mining settlement on a beautiful ridge of pine woods sloping
+gently towards a valley on the one side, and on the other falling
+abruptly into a dark deep olive gulf of pine-trees, rocks, and patches
+of red soil. Beautiful as the slope was, looking over to the distant
+snow peaks which seemed to be in another world than theirs, the children
+found a greater attraction in the fascinating depths of a mysterious
+gulf, or canyon, as it was called, whose very name filled their ears
+with a weird music. To creep to the edge of the cliff, to sit upon
+the brown branches of some fallen pine, and, putting aside the dried
+tassels, to look down upon the backs of wheeling hawks that seemed to
+hang in mid-air was a never-failing delight. Here Polly would try to
+trace the winding red ribbon of road that was continually losing itself
+among the dense pines of the opposite mountains; here she would listen
+to the far-off strokes of a woodman's axe, or the rattle of some heavy
+wagon, miles away, crossing the pebbles of a dried-up watercourse. Here,
+too, the prevailing colors of the mountains, red and white and green,
+most showed themselves. There were no frowning rocks to depress the
+children's fancy, but everywhere along the ridge pure white quartz bared
+itself through the red earth like smiling teeth; the very pebbles they
+played with were streaked with shining mica like bits of looking-glass.
+The distance was always green and summer-like, but the color they most
+loved, and which was most familiar to them, was the dark red of the
+ground beneath their feet everywhere. It showed itself in the roadside
+bushes; its red dust pervaded the leaves of the overhanging laurel;
+it colored their shoes and pinafores; I am afraid it was often seen in
+Indian-like patches on their faces and hands. That it may have often
+given a sanguinary tone to their fancies I have every reason to believe.
+
+It was on this ridge that the three children gathered at ten o'clock
+that morning. An earlier flight had been impossible on account of Wan
+Lee being obliged to perform his regular duty of blacking the shoes
+of Polly and Hickory before breakfast,--a menial act which in the pure
+republic of childhood was never thought inconsistent with the loftiest
+piratical ambition. On the ridge they met one "Patsey," the son of a
+neighbor, sun-burned, broad-brimmed hatted, red-handed, like themselves.
+As there were afterwards some doubts expressed whether he joined the
+Pirates of his own free will, or was captured by them, I endeavor to
+give the colloquy exactly as it occurred:--
+
+Patsey: "Hallo, fellers."
+
+The Pirates: "Hello!"
+
+Patsey: "Goin' to hunt bars? Dad seed a lot o' tracks at sun-up."
+
+The Pirates (hesitating): "No--o--"
+
+Patsey: "I am; know where I kin get a six-shooter?"
+
+The Pirates (almost ready to abandon piracy for bear-hunting, but
+preserving their dignity): "Can't! We've runn'd away for real pirates."
+
+Patsey: "Not for good!"
+
+The Queen (interposing with sad dignity and real tears in her round
+blue eyes): "Yes!" (slowly and shaking her head). "Can't go back again.
+Never! Never! Never! The--the--eye is cast!"
+
+Patsey (bursting with excitement): "No-o! Sho'o! Wanter know."
+
+The Pirates (a little frightened themselves, but tremulous with
+gratified vanity): "The Perleese is on our track!"
+
+Patsey: "Lemme go with yer!"
+
+Hickory: "Wot'll yer giv?"
+
+Patsey: "Pistol and er bananer."
+
+Hickory (with judicious prudence): "Let's see 'em."
+
+Patsey was off like a shot; his bare little red feet trembling under
+him. In a few minutes he returned with an old-fashioned revolver known
+as one of "Allen's pepper-boxes" and a large banana. He was at once
+enrolled, and the banana eaten.
+
+As yet they had resolved on no definite nefarious plan. Hickory, looking
+down at Patsey's bare feet, instantly took off his own shoes. This bold
+act sent a thrill through his companions. Wan Lee took off his cloth
+leggings, Polly removed her shoes and stockings, but, with royal
+foresight, tied them up in her handkerchief. The last link between them
+and civilization was broken.
+
+"Let's go to the Slumgullion."
+
+"Slumgullion" was the name given by the miners to a certain soft,
+half-liquid mud, formed of the water and finely powdered earth that
+was carried off by the sluice-boxes during gold-washing, and eventually
+collected in a broad pool or lagoon before the outlet. There was a
+pool of this kind a quarter of a mile away, where there were "diggings"
+worked by Patsey's father, and thither they proceeded along the ridge
+in single file. When it was reached they solemnly began to wade in its
+viscid paint-like shallows. Possibly its unctuousness was pleasant
+to the touch; possibly there was a fascination in the fact that their
+parents had forbidden them to go near it, but probably the principal
+object of this performance was to produce a thick coating of mud on the
+feet and ankles, which, when dried in the sun, was supposed to harden
+the skin and render their shoes superfluous. It was also felt to be
+the first real step towards independence; they looked down at their
+ensanguined extremities and recognized the impossibility of their ever
+again crossing (unwashed) the family threshold.
+
+Then they again hesitated. There was a manifest need of some
+well-defined piratical purpose. The last act was reckless and
+irretrievable, but it was vague. They gazed at each other. There was a
+stolid look of resigned and superior tolerance in Wan Lee's eyes.
+
+Polly's glance wandered down the side of the slope to the distant little
+tunnels or openings made by the miners who were at work in the bowels of
+the mountain. "I'd like to go into one of them funny holes," she said to
+herself, half aloud.
+
+Wan Lee suddenly began to blink his eyes with unwonted excitement.
+"Catchee tunnel--heap gold," he said quickly. "When manee come outside
+to catchee dinner--Pilats go inside catchee tunnel! Shabbee! Pilats
+catchee gold allee samee Melican man!"
+
+"And take perseshiun," said Hickory.
+
+"And hoist the Pirate flag," said Patsey.
+
+"And build a fire, and cook, and have a family," said Polly.
+
+The idea was fascinating to the point of being irresistible. The eyes of
+the four children became rounder and rounder. They seized each other's
+hands and swung them backwards and forwards, occasionally lifting their
+legs in a solemn rhythmic movement known only to childhood.
+
+"It's orful far off!" said Patsey with a sudden look of dark importance.
+"Pap says it's free miles on the road. Take all day ter get there."
+
+The bright faces were overcast.
+
+"Less go down er slide!" said Hickory boldly.
+
+They approached the edge of the cliff. The "slide" was simply a sharp
+incline zigzagging down the side of the mountain used for sliding
+goods and provisions from the summit to the tunnel-men at the different
+openings below. The continual traffic had gradually worn a shallow gully
+half filled with earth and gravel into the face of the mountain which
+checked the momentum of the goods in their downward passage, but
+afforded no foothold for a pedestrian. No one had ever been known to
+descend a slide. That feat was evidently reserved for the Pirate band.
+They approached the edge of the slide, hand in hand, hesitated, and the
+next moment disappeared.
+
+Five minutes later the tunnel-men of the Excelsior mine, a mile below,
+taking their luncheon on the rude platform of debris before their
+tunnel, were suddenly driven to shelter in the tunnel from an apparent
+rain of stones, and rocks, and pebbles, from the cliffs above. Looking
+up, they were startled at seeing four round objects revolving and
+bounding in the dust of the slide, which eventually resolved themselves
+into three boys and a girl. For a moment the good men held their breath
+in helpless terror. Twice one of the children had struck the outer edge
+of the bank, and displaced stones that shot a thousand feet down into
+the dizzy depths of the valley; and now one of them, the girl, had
+actually rolled out of the slide and was hanging over the chasm
+supported only by a clump of chamisal to which she clung!
+
+"Hang on by your eyelids, sis! but don't stir, for Heaven's sake!"
+shouted one of the men, as two others started on a hopeless ascent of
+the cliff above them.
+
+But a light childish laugh from the clinging little figure seemed to
+mock them! Then two small heads appeared at the edge of the slide; then
+a diminutive figure, whose feet were apparently held by some invisible
+companion, was shoved over the brink and stretched its tiny arms towards
+the girl. But in vain, the distance was too great. Another laugh of
+intense youthful enjoyment followed the failure, and a new insecurity
+was added to the situation by the unsteady hands and shoulders of the
+relieving party, who were apparently shaking with laughter. Then the
+extended figure was seen to detach what looked like a small black rope
+from its shoulders and throw it to the girl. There was another little
+giggle. The faces of the men below paled in terror. Then Polly,--for it
+was 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 encompassed her. Beyond the pleasant
+shadows where she sat, she saw the great world of mountain and valley
+through a dreamy haze that seemed to rise from the depths below and
+occasionally hang before the cavern like a veil. Long waves of spicy
+heat rolling up the mountain from the valley brought her the smell of
+pine-trees and bay, and made the landscape swim before her eyes. She
+could hear the far-off cry of teamsters on some unseen road; she could
+see the far-off cloud of dust following the mountain stagecoach, whose
+rattling wheels she could not hear. She felt very lonely, but was not
+quite afraid; she felt very melancholy, but was not entirely sad; and
+she could have easily awakened her sleeping companions if she wished.
+
+No; she was a lone widow with nine children, six of whom were already in
+the lone churchyard on the hill, and the others lying ill with measles
+and scarlet fever beside her. She had just walked many weary miles that
+day, and had often begged from door to door for a slice of bread for the
+starving little ones. It was of no use now--they would die! They would
+never see their dear mother again. This was a favorite imaginative
+situation of Polly's, but only indulged when her companions were asleep,
+partly because she could not trust confederates with her more serious
+fancies, and partly because they were at such times passive in her
+hands. She glanced timidly around. Satisfied that no one could observe
+her, she softly visited the bedside of each of her companions, and
+administered from a purely fictitious bottle spoonfuls of invisible
+medicine. Physical correction in the form of slight taps, which they
+always required, and in which Polly was strong, was only withheld now
+from a sense of their weak condition. But in vain; they succumbed to the
+fell disease,--they always died at this juncture,--and Polly was left
+alone. She thought of the little church where she had once seen a
+funeral, and remembered the nice smell of the flowers; she dwelt with
+melancholy satisfaction of the nine little tombstones in the graveyard,
+each with an inscription, and looked forward with gentle anticipation to
+the long summer days when, with Lady Mary in her lap, she would sit on
+those graves clad in the deepest mourning. The fact that the unhappy
+victims at times moved as it were uneasily in their graves, or snored,
+did not affect Polly's imaginative contemplation, nor withhold the tears
+that gathered in her round eyes.
+
+Presently, the lids of the round eyes began to droop, the landscape
+beyond began to be more confused, and sometimes to disappear entirely
+and reappear again with startling distinctness. Then a sound of rippling
+water from the little stream that flowed from the mouth of the tunnel
+soothed her and seemed to carry her away with it, and then everything
+was dark.
+
+The next thing that she remembered was that she was apparently being
+carried 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 feel and hear that
+they were accompanied, and once or twice a faint streak of light from
+the side of the tunnel showed her gigantic shadows walking slowly
+on either side of the gliding car. She felt the little hands of her
+associates seeking hers, and knew they were awake and conscious, and
+she returned to each a reassuring pressure from the large protecting
+instinct of her maternal little heart. Presently the car glided into
+an open space of bright light, and stopped. The transition from the
+darkness of the tunnel at first dazzled their eyes. It was like a dream.
+
+They were in a circular cavern from which three other tunnels, like the
+one they had passed through, diverged. The walls, lit up by fifty or
+sixty candles stuck at irregular intervals in crevices of the rock, were
+of glittering quartz and mica. But more remarkable than all were the
+inmates of the cavern, who were ranged round the walls,--men who, like
+their attendants, seemed to be of extra stature; who had blackened
+faces, wore red bandana handkerchiefs round their heads and their
+waists, and carried enormous knives and pistols stuck in their belts.
+On a raised platform made of a packing-box on which was rudely painted a
+skull and cross-bones, sat the chief or leader of the band covered with
+a buffalo robe; on either side of him were two small barrels marked
+"Grog" and "Gunpowder." The children stared and clung closer to Polly.
+Yet, in spite of these desperate and warlike accessories, the strangers
+bore a singular resemblance to "Christy Minstrels" in their blackened
+faces and attitudes that somehow made them seem less awful. In
+particular, Polly was impressed with the fact that even the most
+ferocious had a certain kindliness of eye, and showed their teeth almost
+idiotically.
+
+"Welcome!" said the leader,--"welcome to the Pirates' Cave! The Red
+Rover of the North Fork of the Stanislaus River salutes the Queen of the
+Pirate Isle!" He rose up and made an extraordinary bow. It was repeated
+by the others with more or less exaggeration, to the point of one
+humorist losing his balance!
+
+"Oh, thank you very much," said Polly timidly, but drawing her little
+flock closer to her with a small protecting arm; "but could you--would
+you--please--tell us--what time it is?"
+
+"We are approaching the middle of Next Week," said the leader gravely;
+"but what of that? Time is made for slaves! The Red Rover seeks it not!
+Why should the Queen?"
+
+"I think we must be going," hesitated Polly, yet by no means displeased
+with the recognition of her rank.
+
+"Not until we have paid homage to Your Majesty," returned the leader.
+"What ho! there! Let Brother Step-and-Fetch-It pass the Queen around
+that we may do her honor." Observing that Polly shrank slightly back,
+he added: "Fear nothing; the man who hurts a hair of Her Majesty's head
+dies by this hand. Ah! ha!"
+
+The others all said ha! ha! and danced alternately on one leg and then
+on the other, but always with the same dark resemblance to Christy
+Minstrels. Brother Step-and-Fetch-It, whose very long beard had a
+confusing suggestion of being a part of the leader's buffalo robe,
+lifted her gently in his arms and carried her to the Red Rovers in turn.
+Each one bestowed a kiss upon her cheek or forehead, and would have
+taken her in his arms, or on his knees, or otherwise lingered over
+his salute, but they were sternly restrained by their leader. When the
+solemn rite was concluded, Step-and-Fetch-It paid his own courtesy
+with an extra squeeze of the curly head, and deposited her again in the
+truck, a little frightened, a little astonished, but with a considerable
+accession to her dignity. Hickory and Patsey looked on with stupefied
+amazement. Wan Lee alone remained stolid and unimpressed, regarding the
+scene with calm and triangular eyes.
+
+"Will Your Majesty see the Red Rovers dance?"
+
+"No, if you please," said Polly, with gentle seriousness.
+
+"Will Your Majesty fire this barrel of gunpowder, or tap this breaker of
+grog?"
+
+"No, I thank you."
+
+"Is there no command Your Majesty would lay upon us?"
+
+"No, please," said Polly, in a failing voice.
+
+"Is there anything Your Majesty has lost? Think again! Will Your Majesty
+deign to cast your royal eyes on this?"
+
+He drew from under his buffalo robe what seemed like a long tress of
+blond hair, and held it aloft. Polly instantly recognized the missing
+scalp of her hapless doll.
+
+"If you please, sir, it's Lady Mary's. She's lost it."
+
+"And lost it--Your Majesty--only to find something more precious. Would
+Your Majesty hear the story?"
+
+A little alarmed, a little curious, a little self-anxious, and a
+little induced by the nudges and pinches of her companions, the Queen
+blushingly signified her royal assent.
+
+"Enough. Bring refreshments. Will Your Majesty prefer wintergreen,
+peppermint, rose, or acidulated drops? Red or white? Or perhaps Your
+Majesty will let me recommend these bull's-eyes," said the leader, as
+a collection of sweets in a hat were suddenly produced from the barrel
+labeled "Gunpowder" and handed to the children.
+
+"Listen," he continued, in a silence broken only by the gentle sucking
+of bull's-eyes. "Many years ago the old Red Rovers of these parts locked
+up all their treasures in a secret cavern in this mountain. They used
+spells and magic to keep it from being entered or found by anybody, for
+there was a certain mark upon it made by a peculiar rock that stuck out
+of it, which signified what there was below. Long afterwards, other Red
+Rovers who had heard of it came here and spent days and days trying to
+discover it, digging holes and blasting tunnels like this, but of no
+use! Sometimes they thought they discovered the magic marks in the
+peculiar rock that stuck out of it, but when they dug there they found
+no treasure. And why? Because there was a magic spell upon it. And what
+was that magic spell? Why, this! It could only be discovered by a person
+who could not possibly know that he or she had discovered it; who never
+could or would be able to enjoy it; who could never see it, never feel
+it, never, in fact, know anything at all about it! It wasn't a dead man,
+it wasn't an animal, it wasn't a baby!"
+
+"Why," said Polly, jumping up and clapping her hands, "it was a Dolly."
+
+"Your Majesty's head is level! Your Majesty has guessed it!" said the
+leader, gravely. "It was Your Majesty's own dolly, Lady Mary, who broke
+the spell! When Your Majesty came down the slide, the doll fell from
+your gracious hand when your foot slipped. Your Majesty recovered Lady
+Mary, but did not observe that her hair had caught in a peculiar rock,
+called the 'Outcrop,' and remained behind! When, later on, while sitting
+with your attendants at the mouth of the tunnel, Your Majesty discovered
+that Lady Mary's hair was gone, I overheard Your Majesty, and dispatched
+the trusty Step-and-Fetch-It to seek it at the mountain side. He did so,
+and found it clinging to the rock, and beneath it--the entrance to the
+Secret Cave!"
+
+Patsey and Hickory, who, failing to understand a word of this
+explanation, had given themselves up to the unconstrained enjoyment of
+the sweets, began now to apprehend that some change was impending, and
+prepared for the worst by hastily swallowing what they had in their
+mouths, thus defying enchantment, and getting ready for speech. Polly,
+who had closely followed the story, albeit with the embellishments of
+her own imagination, made her eyes rounder than ever. A bland smile
+broke on Wan Lee's face, as to the children's amazement, he quietly
+disengaged himself from the group and stepped before the leader.
+
+"Melican man plenty foolee Melican chillern. No foolee China boy!
+China boy knowee you. YOU no Led Lofer. YOU no Pilat--you allee same
+tunnel-man--you Bob Johnson! Me shabbee you! You dressee up allee same
+as Led Lofer--but you Bob Johnson--allee same. My fader washee washee
+for you. You no payee him. You owee him folty dolla! Me blingee you
+billee. You no payee billee! You say, 'Chalkee up, John.' You say,
+'Bimeby, John.' But me no catchee folty dolla!"
+
+A roar of laughter followed, in which even the leader apparently forgot
+himself enough to join. But the next moment springing to his feet
+he shouted, "Ho! ho! A traitor! Away with him to the deepest dungeon
+beneath the castle moat!"
+
+Hickory and Patsey began to whimper, but Polly, albeit with a tremulous
+lip, stepped to the side of her little Pagan friend. "Don't you dare
+touch him," she said with a shake of unexpected determination in her
+little curly head; "if you do, I'll tell my father, and he will slay
+you! All of you--there!"
+
+"Your father! Then you are NOT the Queen!"
+
+It was a sore struggle to Polly to abdicate her royal position; it was
+harder to do it with befitting dignity. To evade the direct question she
+was obliged to abandon her defiant attitude. "If you please, sir," she
+said hurriedly, with an increasing color and no stops, "we're not always
+Pirates, you know, and Wan Lee is only our boy what brushes my shoes in
+the morning, and runs of errands, and he doesn't mean anything bad, sir,
+and we'd like to take him back home with us."
+
+"Enough," said the leader, changing his entire manner with the most
+sudden and shameless inconsistency. "You shall go back together, and woe
+betide the miscreant who would prevent it! What say you, brothers?
+What shall be his fate who dares to separate our noble Queen from her
+faithful Chinese henchman?"
+
+"He shall die!" roared the others, with beaming cheerfulness.
+
+"And what say you--shall we see them home?"
+
+"We will!" roared the others.
+
+Before the children could fairly comprehend what had passed, they were
+again lifted into the truck and began to glide back into the tunnel they
+had just quitted. But not again in darkness and silence; the entire band
+of Red rovers accompanied them, illuminating the dark passage with the
+candles they had snatched from the walls. In a few moments they were at
+the entrance again. The great world lay beyond them once more with rocks
+and valleys suffused by the rosy light of the setting sun. The past
+seemed like a dream.
+
+But were they really awake now? They could not tell. They accepted
+everything with the confidence and credulity of all children who have
+no experience to compare with their first impressions and to whom the
+future contains nothing impossible. It was without surprise, therefore,
+that they felt themselves lifted on the shoulders of the men who were
+making quite a procession along the steep trail towards the settlement
+again. Polly noticed that at the mouth of the other tunnels they were
+greeted by men as if they were carrying tidings of great joy; that they
+stopped to rejoice together, and that in some mysterious manner their
+conductors had got their faces washed, and had become more like beings
+of the outer world. When they neared the settlement the excitement
+seemed to have become greater; people rushed out to shake hands with
+the men who were carrying them, and overpowered even the children with
+questions they could not understand. Only one sentence Polly could
+clearly remember as being the burden of all congratulations. "Struck the
+old lead at last!" With a faint consciousness that she knew something
+about it, she tried to assume a dignified attitude on the leader's
+shoulders, even while she was beginning to be heavy with sleep.
+
+And then she remembered a crowd near her father's house, out of which
+her father came smiling pleasantly on her, but not interfering with
+her triumphal progress until the leader finally deposited her in her
+mother's lap in their own sitting-room. And then she remembered being
+"cross," and declining to answer any questions, and shortly afterwards
+found herself comfortably in bed. Then she heard her mother say to her
+father:--
+
+"It really seems too ridiculous for anything, John; the idea of those
+grown men dressing themselves up to play with children."
+
+"Ridiculous or not," said her father, "these grown men of the Excelsior
+mine have just struck the famous old lode of Red Mountain, which is as
+good as a fortune to everybody on the Ridge, and were as wild as boys!
+And they say it never would have been found if Polly hadn't tumbled over
+the slide directly on top of the outcrop, and left the absurd wig of
+that wretched doll of hers to mark its site."
+
+"And that," murmured Polly sleepily to her doll as she drew it closer to
+her breast, "is all that they know of it."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Queen of the Pirate Isle, by Bret Harte
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+
+THE QUEEN OF THE PIRATE ISLE
+
+by Bret Harte
+
+
+
+I first knew her as the Queen of the Pirate Isle.  To the best of
+my recollection she had no reasonable right to that title.  She was
+only nine years old, inclined to plumpness and good humor,
+deprecated violence, and had never been to sea.  Need it be added
+that she did NOT live in an island and that her name was Polly?
+
+Perhaps I ought to explain that she had already known other
+experiences of a purely imaginative character.  Part of her
+existence had been passed as a Beggar Child,--solely indicated by a
+shawl tightly folded round her shoulders, and chills; as a
+Schoolmistress, unnecessarily severe; as a Preacher, singularly
+personal in his remarks, and once, after reading one of Cooper's
+novels, as an Indian Maiden.  This was, I believe, the only
+instance when she had borrowed from another's fiction.  Most of the
+characters that she assumed for days and sometimes weeks at a time
+were purely original in conception; some so much so as to be vague
+to the general understanding.  I remember that her personation of a
+certain Mrs. Smith, whose individuality was supposed to be
+sufficiently represented by a sunbonnet worn wrong side before and
+a weekly addition to her family, was never perfectly appreciated by
+her own circle although she lived the character for a month.
+Another creation known as "The Proud Lady"--a being whose excessive
+and unreasonable haughtiness was so pronounced as to give her
+features the expression of extreme nausea--caused her mother so
+much alarm that it had to be abandoned.  This was easily effected.
+The Proud Lady was understood to have died.  Indeed, most of
+Polly's impersonations were got rid of in this way, although it by
+no means prevented their subsequent reappearance.  "I thought Mrs.
+Smith was dead," remonstrated her mother at the posthumous
+appearance of that lady with a new infant.  "She was buried alive
+and kem to!" said Polly with a melancholy air.  Fortunately, the
+representation of a resuscitated person required such extraordinary
+acting, and was, through some uncertainty of conception, so closely
+allied in facial expression to the Proud Lady, that Mrs. Smith was
+resuscitated only for a day.
+
+The origin of the title of the Queen of the Pirate Isle may be
+briefly stated as follows:--
+
+An hour after luncheon, one day, Polly, Hickory Hunt, her cousin,
+and Wan Lee, a Chinese page, were crossing the nursery floor in a
+Chinese junk.  The sea was calm and the sky cloudless.  Any change
+in the weather was as unexpected as it is in books.  Suddenly a
+West Indian Hurricane, purely local in character and unfelt
+anywhere else, struck Master Hickory and threw him overboard,
+whence, wildly swimming for his life and carrying Polly on his
+back, he eventually reached a Desert Island in the closet.  Here
+the rescued party put up a tent made of a table-cloth providentially
+snatched from the raging billows, and, from two o'clock until four,
+passed six weeks on the island, supported only by a piece of candle,
+a box of matches, and two peppermint lozenges.  It was at this time
+that it became necessary to account for Polly's existence among
+them, and this was only effected by an alarming sacrifice of their
+morality; Hickory and Wan Lee instantly became PIRATES, and at once
+elected Polly as their Queen.  The royal duties, which seemed to be
+purely maternal, consisted in putting the Pirates to bed after a day
+of rapine and bloodshed, and in feeding them with licorice water
+through a quill in a small bottle.  Limited as her functions were,
+Polly performed them with inimitable gravity and unquestioned
+sincerity.  Even when her companions sometimes hesitated from actual
+hunger or fatigue and forgot their guilty part, she never faltered.
+It was her real existence; her other life of being washed, dressed,
+and put to bed at certain hours by her mother was the ILLUSION.
+
+Doubt and skepticism came at last,--and came from Wan Lee!  Wan Lee
+of all creatures!  Wan Lee, whose silent, stolid, mechanical
+performance of a pirate's duties--a perfect imitation like all his
+household work--had been their one delight and fascination!
+
+It was just after the exciting capture of a merchantman, with the
+indiscriminate slaughter of all on board,--a spectacle on which the
+round blue eyes of the plump Polly had gazed with royal and
+maternal tolerance,--and they were burying the booty, two
+tablespoons and a thimble, in the corner of the closet, when Wan
+Lee stolidly rose.
+
+"Melican boy pleenty foolee!  Melican boy no Pilat!" said the
+little Chinaman, substituting "l's" for "r's" after his usual
+fashion.
+
+"Wotcher say?" said Hickory, reddening with sudden confusion.
+
+"Melican boy's papa heap lickee him--s'pose him leal Pilat,"
+continued Wan Lee doggedly.  "Melican boy Pilat INSIDE housee.
+Chinee boy Pilat OUTSIDE housee.  First chop Pilat."
+
+Staggered by this humiliating statement, Hickory recovered himself
+in character.  "Ah!  Ho!" he shrieked, dancing wildly on one leg,
+"Mutiny and Splordinashun!  'Way with him to the yard-arm."
+
+"Yald-alm--heap foolee!  Alee same clothes-horse for washee
+washee."
+
+It was here necessary for the Pirate Queen to assert her authority,
+which, as I have before stated, was somewhat confusingly maternal.
+
+"Go to bed instantly without your supper," she said seriously.
+"Really, I never saw such bad pirates.  Say your prayers, and see
+that you're up early to church tomorrow."
+
+It should be explained that in deference to Polly's proficiency as
+a preacher, and probably as a relief to their uneasy consciences,
+Divine Service had always been held on the Island.  But Wan Lee
+continued:--
+
+"Me no shabbee Pilat INSIDE housee; me shabbee Pilat OUTSIDE
+housee.  S'pose you lun away longside Chinee boy--Chinee boy make
+you Pilat."
+
+Hickory softly scratched his leg; while a broad, bashful smile
+almost closed his small eyes.  "Wot?" he asked.
+
+"Mebbe you too flightened to lun away.  Melican boy's papa heap
+lickee."
+
+This last infamous suggestion fired the corsair's blood.  "Dy'ar
+think we daresen't?" said Hickory desperately, but with an uneasy
+glance at Polly.  "I'll show yer to-morrow."
+
+The entrance of Polly's mother at this moment put an end to Polly's
+authority and dispersed the pirate band, but left Wan Lee's
+proposal and Hickory's rash acceptance ringing in the ears of the
+Pirate Queen.  That evening she was unusually silent.  She would
+have taken Bridget, her nurse, into her confidence, but this would
+have involved a long explanation of her own feelings, from which,
+like all imaginative children, she shrank.  She, however, made
+preparation for the proposed flight by settling in her mind which
+of her two dolls she would take.  A wooden creature with easy-going
+knees and movable hair seemed to be more fit for hard service and
+any indiscriminate scalping that might turn up hereafter.  At
+supper, she timidly asked a question of Bridget.  "Did ye ever hear
+the loikes uv that, ma'am?" said the Irish handmaid with affectionate
+pride.  "Shure the darlint's head is filled noight and day with
+ancient history.  She's after asking me now if Queens ever run
+away!"  To Polly's remorseful confusion here her good father,
+equally proud of her precocious interest and his own knowledge, at
+once interfered with an unintelligible account of the abdication of
+various queens in history until Polly's head ached again.  Well
+meant as it was, it only settled in the child's mind that she must
+keep the awful secret to herself and that no one could understand
+her.
+
+The eventful day dawned without any unusual sign of importance.  It
+was one of the cloudless summer days of the Californian foothills,
+bright, dry, and, as the morning advanced, hot in the white
+sunshine.  The actual, prosaic house in which the Pirates
+apparently lived was a mile from a mining settlement on a beautiful
+ridge of pine woods sloping gently towards a valley on the one
+side, and on the other falling abruptly into a dark deep olive gulf
+of pine-trees, rocks, and patches of red soil.  Beautiful as the
+slope was, looking over to the distant snow peaks which seemed to
+be in another world than theirs, the children found a greater
+attraction in the fascinating depths of a mysterious gulf, or
+canyon, as it was called, whose very name filled their ears with a
+weird music.  To creep to the edge of the cliff, to sit upon the
+brown branches of some fallen pine, and, putting aside the dried
+tassels, to look down upon the backs of wheeling hawks that seemed
+to hang in mid-air was a never-failing delight.  Here Polly would
+try to trace the winding red ribbon of road that was continually
+losing itself among the dense pines of the opposite mountains; here
+she would listen to the far-off strokes of a woodman's axe, or the
+rattle of some heavy wagon, miles away, crossing the pebbles of a
+dried-up watercourse.  Here, too, the prevailing colors of the
+mountains, red and white and green, most showed themselves.  There
+were no frowning rocks to depress the children's fancy, but
+everywhere along the ridge pure white quartz bared itself through
+the red earth like smiling teeth; the very pebbles they played with
+were streaked with shining mica like bits of looking-glass.  The
+distance was always green and summer-like, but the color they most
+loved, and which was most familiar to them, was the dark red of the
+ground beneath their feet everywhere.  It showed itself in the
+roadside bushes; its red dust pervaded the leaves of the
+overhanging laurel; it colored their shoes and pinafores; I am
+afraid it was often seen in Indian-like patches on their faces and
+hands.  That it may have often given a sanguinary tone to their
+fancies I have every reason to believe.
+
+It was on this ridge that the three children gathered at ten
+o'clock that morning.  An earlier flight had been impossible on
+account of Wan Lee being obliged to perform his regular duty of
+blacking the shoes of Polly and Hickory before breakfast,--a menial
+act which in the pure republic of childhood was never thought
+inconsistent with the loftiest piratical ambition.  On the ridge
+they met one "Patsey," the son of a neighbor, sun-burned, broad-
+brimmed hatted, red-handed, like themselves.  As there were
+afterwards some doubts expressed whether he joined the Pirates of
+his own free will, or was captured by them, I endeavor to give the
+colloquy exactly as it occurred:--
+
+Patsey: "Hallo, fellers."
+
+The Pirates: "Hello!"
+
+Patsey: "Goin' to hunt bars?  Dad seed a lot o' tracks at sun-up."
+
+The Pirates (hesitating): "No--o--"
+
+Patsey: "I am; know where I kin get a six-shooter?"
+
+The Pirates (almost ready to abandon piracy for bear-hunting, but
+preserving their dignity): "Can't!  We've runn'd away for real
+pirates."
+
+Patsey: "Not for good!"
+
+The Queen (interposing with sad dignity and real tears in her round
+blue eyes): "Yes!" (slowly and shaking her head).  "Can't go back
+again.  Never! Never! Never!  The--the--eye is cast!"
+
+Patsey (bursting with excitement): "No-o!  Sho'o!  Wanter know."
+
+The Pirates (a little frightened themselves, but tremulous with
+gratified vanity): "The Perleese is on our track!"
+
+Patsey: "Lemme go with yer!"
+
+Hickory: "Wot'll yer giv?"
+
+Patsey: "Pistol and er bananer."
+
+Hickory (with judicious prudence): "Let's see 'em."
+
+Patsey was off like a shot; his bare little red feet trembling
+under him.  In a few minutes he returned with an old-fashioned
+revolver known as one of "Allen's pepper-boxes" and a large banana.
+He was at once enrolled, and the banana eaten.
+
+As yet they had resolved on no definite nefarious plan.  Hickory,
+looking down at Patsey's bare feet, instantly took off his own
+shoes.  This bold act sent a thrill through his companions.  Wan
+Lee took off his cloth leggings, Polly removed her shoes and
+stockings, but, with royal foresight, tied them up in her
+handkerchief.  The last link between them and civilization was
+broken.
+
+"Let's go to the Slumgullion."
+
+"Slumgullion" was the name given by the miners to a certain soft,
+half-liquid mud, formed of the water and finely powdered earth that
+was carried off by the sluice-boxes during gold-washing, and
+eventually collected in a broad pool or lagoon before the outlet.
+There was a pool of this kind a quarter of a mile away, where there
+were "diggings" worked by Patsey's father, and thither they
+proceeded along the ridge in single file.  When it was reached they
+solemnly began to wade in its viscid paint-like shallows.  Possibly
+its unctuousness was pleasant to the touch; possibly there was a
+fascination in the fact that their parents had forbidden them to go
+near it, but probably the principal object of this performance was
+to produce a thick coating of mud on the feet and ankles, which,
+when dried in the sun, was supposed to harden the skin and render
+their shoes superfluous.  It was also felt to be the first real
+step towards independence; they looked down at their ensanguined
+extremities and recognized the impossibility of their ever again
+crossing (unwashed) the family threshold.
+
+Then they again hesitated.  There was a manifest need of some
+well-defined piratical purpose.  The last act was reckless and
+irretrievable, but it was vague.  They gazed at each other.  There
+was a stolid look of resigned and superior tolerance in Wan Lee's
+eyes.
+
+Polly's glance wandered down the side of the slope to the distant
+little tunnels or openings made by the miners who were at work in
+the bowels of the mountain.  "I'd like to go into one of them funny
+holes," she said to herself, half aloud.
+
+Wan Lee suddenly began to blink his eyes with unwonted excitement.
+"Catchee tunnel--heap gold," he said quickly.  "When manee come
+outside to catchee dinner--Pilats go inside catchee tunnel!
+Shabbee!  Pilats catchee gold allee samee Melican man!"
+
+"And take perseshiun," said Hickory.
+
+"And hoist the Pirate flag," said Patsey.
+
+"And build a fire, and cook, and have a family," said Polly.
+
+The idea was fascinating to the point of being irresistible.  The
+eyes of the four children became rounder and rounder.  They seized
+each other's hands and swung them backwards and forwards,
+occasionally lifting their legs in a solemn rhythmic movement known
+only to childhood.
+
+"It's orful far off!" said Patsey with a sudden look of dark
+importance.  "Pap says it's free miles on the road.  Take all day
+ter get there."
+
+The bright faces were overcast.
+
+"Less go down er slide!" said Hickory boldly.
+
+They approached the edge of the cliff.  The "slide" was simply a
+sharp incline zigzagging down the side of the mountain used for
+sliding goods and provisions from the summit to the tunnel-men at
+the different openings below.  The continual traffic had gradually
+worn a shallow gully half filled with earth and gravel into the
+face of the mountain which checked the momentum of the goods in
+their downward passage, but afforded no foothold for a pedestrian.
+No one had ever been known to descend a slide.  That feat was
+evidently reserved for the Pirate band.  They approached the edge
+of the slide, hand in hand, hesitated, and the next moment
+disappeared.
+
+Five minutes later the tunnel-men of the Excelsior mine, a mile
+below, taking their luncheon on the rude platform of debris before
+their tunnel, were suddenly driven to shelter in the tunnel from an
+apparent rain of stones, and rocks, and pebbles, from the cliffs
+above.  Looking up, they were startled at seeing four round objects
+revolving and bounding in the dust of the slide, which eventually
+resolved themselves into three boys and a girl.  For a moment the
+good men held their breath in helpless terror.  Twice one of the
+children had struck the outer edge of the bank, and displaced
+stones that shot a thousand feet down into the dizzy depths of the
+valley; and now one of them, the girl, had actually rolled out of
+the slide and was hanging over the chasm supported only by a clump
+of chamisal to which she clung!
+
+"Hang on by your eyelids, sis! but don't stir, for Heaven's sake!"
+shouted one of the men, as two others started on a hopeless ascent
+of the cliff above them.
+
+But a light childish laugh from the clinging little figure seemed
+to mock them!  Then two small heads appeared at the edge of the
+slide; then a diminutive figure, whose feet were apparently held by
+some invisible companion, was shoved over the brink and stretched
+its tiny arms towards the girl.  But in vain, the distance was too
+great.  Another laugh of intense youthful enjoyment followed the
+failure, and a new insecurity was added to the situation by the
+unsteady hands and shoulders of the relieving party, who were
+apparently shaking with laughter.  Then the extended figure was
+seen to detach what looked like a small black rope from its
+shoulders and throw it to the girl.  There was another little
+giggle.  The faces of the men below paled in terror.  Then Polly,--
+for it was 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 encompassed her.  Beyond
+the pleasant shadows where she sat, she saw the great world of
+mountain and valley through a dreamy haze that seemed to rise from
+the depths below and occasionally hang before the cavern like a
+veil.  Long waves of spicy heat rolling up the mountain from the
+valley brought her the smell of pine-trees and bay, and made the
+landscape swim before her eyes.  She could hear the far-off cry of
+teamsters on some unseen road; she could see the far-off cloud of
+dust following the mountain stagecoach, whose rattling wheels she
+could not hear.  She felt very lonely, but was not quite afraid;
+she felt very melancholy, but was not entirely sad; and she could
+have easily awakened her sleeping companions if she wished.
+
+No; she was a lone widow with nine children, six of whom were
+already in the lone churchyard on the hill, and the others lying
+ill with measles and scarlet fever beside her.  She had just walked
+many weary miles that day, and had often begged from door to door
+for a slice of bread for the starving little ones.  It was of no
+use now--they would die!  They would never see their dear mother
+again.  This was a favorite imaginative situation of Polly's, but
+only indulged when her companions were asleep, partly because she
+could not trust confederates with her more serious fancies, and
+partly because they were at such times passive in her hands.  She
+glanced timidly around.  Satisfied that no one could observe her,
+she softly visited the bedside of each of her companions, and
+administered from a purely fictitious bottle spoonfuls of invisible
+medicine.  Physical correction in the form of slight taps, which
+they always required, and in which Polly was strong, was only
+withheld now from a sense of their weak condition.  But in vain;
+they succumbed to the fell disease,--they always died at this
+juncture,--and Polly was left alone.  She thought of the little
+church where she had once seen a funeral, and remembered the nice
+smell of the flowers; she dwelt with melancholy satisfaction of the
+nine little tombstones in the graveyard, each with an inscription,
+and looked forward with gentle anticipation to the long summer days
+when, with Lady Mary in her lap, she would sit on those graves clad
+in the deepest mourning.  The fact that the unhappy victims at
+times moved as it were uneasily in their graves, or snored, did not
+affect Polly's imaginative contemplation, nor withhold the tears
+that gathered in her round eyes.
+
+Presently, the lids of the round eyes began to droop, the landscape
+beyond began to be more confused, and sometimes to disappear
+entirely and reappear again with startling distinctness.  Then a
+sound of rippling water from the little stream that flowed from the
+mouth of the tunnel soothed her and seemed to carry her away with
+it, and then everything was dark.
+
+The next thing that she remembered was that she was apparently
+being carried 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 feel and hear that they were accompanied, and once
+or twice a faint streak of light from the side of the tunnel showed
+her gigantic shadows walking slowly on either side of the gliding
+car.  She felt the little hands of her associates seeking hers, and
+knew they were awake and conscious, and she returned to each a
+reassuring pressure from the large protecting instinct of her
+maternal little heart.  Presently the car glided into an open space
+of bright light, and stopped.  The transition from the darkness of
+the tunnel at first dazzled their eyes.  It was like a dream.
+
+They were in a circular cavern from which three other tunnels, like
+the one they had passed through, diverged.  The walls, lit up by
+fifty or sixty candles stuck at irregular intervals in crevices of
+the rock, were of glittering quartz and mica.  But more remarkable
+than all were the inmates of the cavern, who were ranged round the
+walls,--men who, like their attendants, seemed to be of extra
+stature; who had blackened faces, wore red bandana handkerchiefs
+round their heads and their waists, and carried enormous knives and
+pistols stuck in their belts.  On a raised platform made of a
+packing-box on which was rudely painted a skull and cross-bones,
+sat the chief or leader of the band covered with a buffalo robe; on
+either side of him were two small barrels marked "Grog" and
+"Gunpowder."  The children stared and clung closer to Polly.  Yet,
+in spite of these desperate and warlike accessories, the strangers
+bore a singular resemblance to "Christy Minstrels" in their
+blackened faces and attitudes that somehow made them seem less
+awful.  In particular, Polly was impressed with the fact that even
+the most ferocious had a certain kindliness of eye, and showed
+their teeth almost idiotically.
+
+"Welcome!" said the leader,--"welcome to the Pirates' Cave!  The
+Red Rover of the North Fork of the Stanislaus River salutes the
+Queen of the Pirate Isle!"  He rose up and made an extraordinary
+bow.  It was repeated by the others with more or less exaggeration,
+to the point of one humorist losing his balance!
+
+"Oh, thank you very much," said Polly timidly, but drawing her
+little flock closer to her with a small protecting arm; "but could
+you--would you--please--tell us--what time it is?"
+
+"We are approaching the middle of Next Week," said the leader
+gravely; "but what of that?  Time is made for slaves!  The Red
+Rover seeks it not!  Why should the Queen?"
+
+"I think we must be going," hesitated Polly, yet by no means
+displeased with the recognition of her rank.
+
+"Not until we have paid homage to Your Majesty," returned the
+leader.  "What ho! there!  Let Brother Step-and-Fetch-It pass the
+Queen around that we may do her honor."  Observing that Polly
+shrank slightly back, he added: "Fear nothing; the man who hurts a
+hair of Her Majesty's head dies by this hand.  Ah! ha!"
+
+The others all said ha! ha! and danced alternately on one leg and
+then on the other, but always with the same dark resemblance to
+Christy Minstrels.  Brother Step-and-Fetch-It, whose very long
+beard had a confusing suggestion of being a part of the leader's
+buffalo robe, lifted her gently in his arms and carried her to the
+Red Rovers in turn.  Each one bestowed a kiss upon her cheek or
+forehead, and would have taken her in his arms, or on his knees, or
+otherwise lingered over his salute, but they were sternly
+restrained by their leader.  When the solemn rite was concluded,
+Step-and-Fetch-It paid his own courtesy with an extra squeeze of
+the curly head, and deposited her again in the truck, a little
+frightened, a little astonished, but with a considerable accession
+to her dignity.  Hickory and Patsey looked on with stupefied
+amazement.  Wan Lee alone remained stolid and unimpressed,
+regarding the scene with calm and triangular eyes.
+
+"Will Your Majesty see the Red Rovers dance?"
+
+"No, if you please," said Polly, with gentle seriousness.
+
+"Will Your Majesty fire this barrel of gunpowder, or tap this
+breaker of grog?"
+
+"No, I thank you."
+
+"Is there no command Your Majesty would lay upon us?"
+
+"No, please," said Polly, in a failing voice.
+
+"Is there anything Your Majesty has lost?  Think again!  Will Your
+Majesty deign to cast your royal eyes on this?"
+
+He drew from under his buffalo robe what seemed like a long tress
+of blond hair, and held it aloft.  Polly instantly recognized the
+missing scalp of her hapless doll.
+
+"If you please, sir, it's Lady Mary's.  She's lost it."
+
+"And lost it--Your Majesty--only to find something more precious.
+Would Your Majesty hear the story?"
+
+A little alarmed, a little curious, a little self-anxious, and a
+little induced by the nudges and pinches of her companions, the
+Queen blushingly signified her royal assent.
+
+"Enough.  Bring refreshments.  Will Your Majesty prefer wintergreen,
+peppermint, rose, or acidulated drops?  Red or white?  Or perhaps
+Your Majesty will let me recommend these bull's-eyes," said the
+leader, as a collection of sweets in a hat were suddenly produced
+from the barrel labeled "Gunpowder" and handed to the children.
+
+"Listen," he continued, in a silence broken only by the gentle
+sucking of bull's-eyes.  "Many years ago the old Red Rovers of
+these parts locked up all their treasures in a secret cavern in
+this mountain.  They used spells and magic to keep it from being
+entered or found by anybody, for there was a certain mark upon it
+made by a peculiar rock that stuck out of it, which signified what
+there was below.  Long afterwards, other Red Rovers who had heard
+of it came here and spent days and days trying to discover it,
+digging holes and blasting tunnels like this, but of no use!
+Sometimes they thought they discovered the magic marks in the
+peculiar rock that stuck out of it, but when they dug there they
+found no treasure.  And why?  Because there was a magic spell upon
+it.  And what was that magic spell?  Why, this!  It could only be
+discovered by a person who could not possibly know that he or she
+had discovered it; who never could or would be able to enjoy it;
+who could never see it, never feel it, never, in fact, know
+anything at all about it!  It wasn't a dead man, it wasn't an
+animal, it wasn't a baby!"
+
+"Why," said Polly, jumping up and clapping her hands, "it was a
+Dolly."
+
+"Your Majesty's head is level!  Your Majesty has guessed it!" said
+the leader, gravely.  "It was Your Majesty's own dolly, Lady Mary,
+who broke the spell!  When Your Majesty came down the slide, the
+doll fell from your gracious hand when your foot slipped.  Your
+Majesty recovered Lady Mary, but did not observe that her hair had
+caught in a peculiar rock, called the 'Outcrop,' and remained
+behind!  When, later on, while sitting with your attendants at the
+mouth of the tunnel, Your Majesty discovered that Lady Mary's hair
+was gone, I overheard Your Majesty, and dispatched the trusty Step-
+and-Fetch-It to seek it at the mountain side.  He did so, and found
+it clinging to the rock, and beneath it--the entrance to the Secret
+Cave!"
+
+Patsey and Hickory, who, failing to understand a word of this
+explanation, had given themselves up to the unconstrained enjoyment
+of the sweets, began now to apprehend that some change was
+impending, and prepared for the worst by hastily swallowing what
+they had in their mouths, thus defying enchantment, and getting
+ready for speech.  Polly, who had closely followed the story,
+albeit with the embellishments of her own imagination, made her
+eyes rounder than ever.  A bland smile broke on Wan Lee's face, as
+to the children's amazement, he quietly disengaged himself from the
+group and stepped before the leader.
+
+"Melican man plenty foolee Melican chillern.  No foolee China boy!
+China boy knowee you.  YOU no Led Lofer.  YOU no Pilat--you allee
+same tunnel-man--you Bob Johnson!  Me shabbee you!  You dressee up
+allee same as Led Lofer--but you Bob Johnson--allee same.  My fader
+washee washee for you.  You no payee him.  You owee him folty
+dolla!  Me blingee you billee.  You no payee billee!  You say,
+'Chalkee up, John.'  You say, 'Bimeby, John.'  But me no catchee
+folty dolla!"
+
+A roar of laughter followed, in which even the leader apparently
+forgot himself enough to join.  But the next moment springing to
+his feet he shouted, "Ho! ho!  A traitor!  Away with him to the
+deepest dungeon beneath the castle moat!"
+
+Hickory and Patsey began to whimper, but Polly, albeit with a
+tremulous lip, stepped to the side of her little Pagan friend.
+"Don't you dare touch him," she said with a shake of unexpected
+determination in her little curly head; "if you do, I'll tell my
+father, and he will slay you!  All of you--there!"
+
+"Your father!  Then you are NOT the Queen!"
+
+It was a sore struggle to Polly to abdicate her royal position; it
+was harder to do it with befitting dignity.  To evade the direct
+question she was obliged to abandon her defiant attitude.  "If you
+please, sir," she said hurriedly, with an increasing color and no
+stops, "we're not always Pirates, you know, and Wan Lee is only our
+boy what brushes my shoes in the morning, and runs of errands, and
+he doesn't mean anything bad, sir, and we'd like to take him back
+home with us."
+
+"Enough," said the leader, changing his entire manner with the most
+sudden and shameless inconsistency.  "You shall go back together,
+and woe betide the miscreant who would prevent it!  What say you,
+brothers?  What shall be his fate who dares to separate our noble
+Queen from her faithful Chinese henchman?"
+
+"He shall die!" roared the others, with beaming cheerfulness.
+
+"And what say you--shall we see them home?"
+
+"We will!" roared the others.
+
+Before the children could fairly comprehend what had passed, they
+were again lifted into the truck and began to glide back into the
+tunnel they had just quitted.  But not again in darkness and
+silence; the entire band of Red rovers accompanied them,
+illuminating the dark passage with the candles they had snatched
+from the walls.  In a few moments they were at the entrance again.
+The great world lay beyond them once more with rocks and valleys
+suffused by the rosy light of the setting sun.  The past seemed
+like a dream.
+
+But were they really awake now?  They could not tell.  They
+accepted everything with the confidence and credulity of all
+children who have no experience to compare with their first
+impressions and to whom the future contains nothing impossible.  It
+was without surprise, therefore, that they felt themselves lifted
+on the shoulders of the men who were making quite a procession
+along the steep trail towards the settlement again.  Polly noticed
+that at the mouth of the other tunnels they were greeted by men as
+if they were carrying tidings of great joy; that they stopped to
+rejoice together, and that in some mysterious manner their
+conductors had got their faces washed, and had become more like
+beings of the outer world.  When they neared the settlement the
+excitement seemed to have become greater; people rushed out to
+shake hands with the men who were carrying them, and overpowered
+even the children with questions they could not understand.  Only
+one sentence Polly could clearly remember as being the burden of
+all congratulations.  "Struck the old lead at last!"  With a faint
+consciousness that she knew something about it, she tried to assume
+a dignified attitude on the leader's shoulders, even while she was
+beginning to be heavy with sleep.
+
+And then she remembered a crowd near her father's house, out of
+which her father came smiling pleasantly on her, but not
+interfering with her triumphal progress until the leader finally
+deposited her in her mother's lap in their own sitting-room.  And
+then she remembered being "cross," and declining to answer any
+questions, and shortly afterwards found herself comfortably in bed.
+Then she heard her mother say to her father:--
+
+"It really seems too ridiculous for anything, John; the idea of
+those grown men dressing themselves up to play with children."
+
+"Ridiculous or not," said her father, "these grown men of the
+Excelsior mine have just struck the famous old lode of Red
+Mountain, which is as good as a fortune to everybody on the Ridge,
+and were as wild as boys!  And they say it never would have been
+found if Polly hadn't tumbled over the slide directly on top of the
+outcrop, and left the absurd wig of that wretched doll of hers to
+mark its site."
+
+"And that," murmured Polly sleepily to her doll as she drew it
+closer to her breast, "is all that they know of it."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Queen of the Pirate Isle, by Bret Harte
+
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