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N THE green savannah in the forest, where Jock Pearson's pack train was encamped, a small gentleman with a prodigious shock of white hair was absorbed in the business of defending himself against half a dozen ruffians. The small gentleman, clad in white ruffled shirt and black knee breeches, wielded a slim, straight sword; his assailants attacked him with long, stout staffs. On all sides they hemmed him in, cursing, shouting, flourishing their weapons, and it seemed that his life was not worth a pin. But the small gentleman appeared singularly happy.

He sang shrilly as he fought, and his agility was miraculous. He was here, there, everywhere. His sword was now a circle of light like a halo around his snowy head, now a glittering streak like a horizontal dart of lightning—as quick, as keen, as elusive as the flickering tongue of a snake. Too swift for the eye to follow were the parries and thrusts of that sword, as it clattered on the staffs of his assailants, turning aside their blows, menacing their lives.

Jolie gasped as the scene burst upon her vision. The path that they had been following through the forest had turned sharply around a dense myrtle thicket, and suddenly the glade had opened before her, revealing the combat that raged there. Amaze-