Her brows darkened. A flush spread slowly over her swarthy features like a storm cloud. I knew that I was standing before the Black Lady Marmaduke, and from that moment I understood why they had given her that name. She was the very image of deep passion, yet of passion that was under control withal. She was such a leader as a man could trust himself to in full confidence of finding bravery, loyalty and—for I had no doubt of the result—victory. “Yes,” she answered. “Or Sir Evelin! Ruth and Sir Evelin! You and I must keep alive. Will you make a desperate cast for the prize? Will you stake all upon one bold throw?” The swift nervous clutch of her hand on my shoulder which accompanied her last words, and the sound of her breath, hard and rasping like a person in a trance, told me better than words why she had been probing me to the depths of my misery. I knew that the plan she was about to propose would be full to the brim of peril. “I’ll play it,” I answered, responding in every nerve to the spell of her fierce passions. “What is the cast?” “Your life.” “Explain.” “You cannot live as it is. Assume a disguise. Be someone else.” “That is easy, but to what does it lead?” “To the house of the Red Band. You have still the silver buttons that the buccaneer gave you. Take them boldly, according to your first intention, and present them to the patroon. Tell him you want to enlist in the Red Band. With you in the very center of the board, we can soon sweep it clean.” She had suggested a desperate enterprise indeed, one that took my breath away. Yet, upon consideration, I found it no more desperate than the situation as it stood at that moment. Of course I should not consent to hide myself away from danger, in which course, according to Lady Marmaduke, lay my only hope of safety. Nor could I expect to escape the patroon’s wrath in any other way. The members of the Red Band were not above the secret blow under cover of the night, and I might fall at any moment. Perhaps, after all, it was really safer for me to go boldly into the midst of my enemies than to let them come at me from a distance. Yet I hesitated. “Are you afraid?” flashed Lady Marmaduke in scornful anger. “Had I been afraid, madam, I had never hesitated,” I replied. [Illustration: “SHE THRUST HER HAND INTO THE CANDLE FLAME.”—_p. 160_ ]