“Thank you for your endorsement,” said Cassandra, with a nod at Helen. “With such testimony I cannot see how you can refrain from taking my advice in this matter; and I tell you, ladies, that this man Kidd has made his story up out of whole cloth; the men of Hades had no more to do with our being here than we had; they were as much surprised as we are to find us gone. Kidd himself was not aware of our presence, and his object in taking us to Paris is to leave us stranded there, disembodied spirits, vagrant souls with no familiar haunts to haunt, no place to rest, and nothing before us save perpetual exile in a world that would have no sympathy for us in our misfortune, and no belief in our continued existence.” “But what, then, shall we do?” cried Ophelia, wringing her hands in despair. “It is a terrible problem,” said Cleopatra, anxiously; “and yet it does seem as if our woman’s instinct ought to show us some way out of our trouble.” “The Committee on Treachery,” said Delilah, “has already suggested a chafing-dish party, with Lucretia Borgia in charge of the lobster Newberg.” “That is true,” said Lucretia; “but I find, in going through my reticule, that my maid, for some reason unknown to me, has failed to renew my supply of poisons. I shall discharge her on my return home, for she knows that I never go anywhere without them; but that does not help matters at this juncture. The sad fact remains that I could prepare a thousand delicacies for these pirates without fatal results.” “You mean immediately fatal, do you not?” suggested Xanthippe. “I could myself prepare a cake which would in time reduce our captors to a state of absolute dependence, but of course the effect is not immediate.” “We might give a musicale, and let Trilby sing ‘Ben Bolt’ to them,” suggested Marguerite de Valois, with a giggle. “Don’t be flippant, please,” said Portia. “We haven’t time to waste on flippant suggestions. Perhaps a court-martial of these pirates, supplemented by a yard-arm, wouldn’t be a bad thing. I’ll prosecute the case.” “You forget that you are dealing with immortal spirits,” observed Cleopatra. “If these creatures were mortals, hanging them would be all right, and comparatively easy, considering that we outnumber them ten to one, and have many resources for getting them, more or less, in our power, but they are not. They have gone through the refining process of dissolution once, and there’s an end to that. Our only resource is in the line of deception, and if we cannot deceive them, then we have ceased to be women.”