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+Project Gutenberg's The Queen of the Pirate Isle, by Bret Harte
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+Title:  The Queen of the Pirate Isle
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+Author:  Bret Harte
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+September, 2001  [Etext #2798]
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+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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