Daughter of the Sun | Page 8

to his senses, as full of low music as before. He shook
himself as though rousing from a trance.
"I do not play at dice with ladies, Señora," he said bluntly.
"Did you bluff, after all?" she asked curiously. She seemed sincere in
her question; he fancied a note of disappointment in her tone. It was as
though she had said before, "Here is a man who is not afraid of big
stakes," and as though now she were revising her estimate of him.
"Men will call you Big Mouth," she added. "And I, I will laugh in your
face."
"Where is the money you would wager against mine?" demanded Jim,
thinking he saw the short easy way out.
Already she was prepared for the question. In her gloved hand was a
little hand bag, a trifle in black leather the size of a man's purse. She

opened it and spilled the contents on the table. Poured out into the
mellow lamp light a long glorious string of pearls appeared, each
separate lustrous gem glowing with its silvery sheen, satiny and
tremulous with its shining loveliness.
"Holy God!" gasped Twisty Barlow.
"There is the worth of your money many times over," came the quiet
assurance in the low voice like liquid music.
"If they are real pearls," muttered Kendric. "And not just imitations."
She made no reply. He felt that from the shelter of the broad hat brim a
pair of inscrutable eyes were smiling scornfully.
"Can't I tell real pearls like them, when I see 'em?" cried Twisty Barlow
excitedly. He leaned forward and caught the great necklace up in his
eager hands. "What would I be wantin' that steamer in San Diego Bay
for if I didn't know?" He held them up to the lamp light; he fingered
them one after the other; he put them down at the end reverently and
with a great sigh. "The worth of them, Headlong, my boy," he said
shakily, "would make your pile look sick."
"And yet I'd bet a thousand they're phony," burst from Kendric. Then
he caught himself up short. Suppose they were or were not? A woman
was offering to play him and he was holding back; he was making
excuses, the second already; in his own ears his words, sensible though
they were, began to ring like the petty talk of a hedger. "Turn out the
die, Señora," he said abruptly. "As you say, one throw and ace high."
With her left hand she quietly shook the box, setting the white cube
dancing therein. "You lose, Jim," said Monte at his elbow before the
cast was made. "Look out for left-handers." Then she made her throw
and turned up an ace.
Kendric caught up box and die and threw. And again he had turned the
deuce, the lowest number on the die. He heard her laugh as she drew
money and jewels toward her. All low music, ruining a man's blood,

thrilling him after that strange perturbing fashion.
CHAPTER II
IN WHICH A SPELL IS WORKED AND AN EXPEDITION IS
BEGUN
For a moment she and Jim Kendric stood facing each other with only
the little table and its cargo of treasure separating them, engulfed in a
great silence. He saw her eyes; they were like pools of lambent
phosphorescence in the black shadow of her hair. He glimpsed in them
an eloquence which mystified him; it was as though through her eyes
her heart or her mind or her soul were reaching out toward his but
speaking a tongue foreign to his understanding. Her gaze was steady
and penetrating and held him motionless. Nor, though he did not at the
time notice, did any man in the room stir until she, turning swiftly, at
last broke the charm. She went out through the rear door, Ruiz Rios at
her heels.
When the door closed after them Kendric chanced to note Twisty
Barlow at his elbow. A queer expression was stamped on the rigid
features of the sailorman. Plainly Barlow, intrigued into a profound
abstraction, was alike unconscious of his whereabouts or of the
attention which he was drawing. His eyes stared and strained after the
vanished Mexican and his companion; he, too, had been fascinated; he
was like a man in a trance. Now he started and brushed his hand across
his eyes and, moving jerkily, hurried to the door and went out. Kendric
followed him and laid a restraining hand upon his shoulder.
"Easy, old boy," he said quietly. Barlow started at the touch of his hand
and stood frowning and fingering his forelock. "I know what's burning
hot in your fancies. Remember they may be paste, after all. And
anyway they're not treasure trove."
"You mean those pearls might be fake?" Barlow laughed strangely.
"And you