Page:War Drums (1928).pdf/200

 now I think it has dawned upon you, my black-browed, evil-eyed fellow, that you have played the part of a most lamentable ass."

Falcon's full-blooded, sun-tanned face had turned a purple-red; under his moustache his white teeth gleamed; there was murder in his eyes. But Mr. O'Sullivan continued, unabashed:

"Gentle and courteous sir," he said, in tones of utmost humility, "by your gracious leave, I will put the case before you. I'm thinking you found the Governor a little slow to move, so you, being a man of action, took matters into your own hands. With your own men you galloped out of Charles Town to run Mistress Jolie Stanwicke down. There was a thing or two that you forgot, I'm thinking. You and your men are seamen, and seamen are grand upon the sea. But what I don't understand, Your Honour, and what you don't understand, Your Honour, is this: How in hell are your seamen going to track Mistress Jolie Stanwicke in the canebrakes of the Santee, and she in the charge of James Almayne, the best woodsman in Carolina?"

Mr. O'Sullivan smiled a beatific smile, the smile of a pink-cheeked, snowy-haired cherub.

"Faith, most superfluous sir," he said, "we were worried a while ago, thinking that surely you had with you some man of the woods who could follow a wilderness trail and maybe match wits with Almayne. Yes, my thick-skulled Captain, you gave me a scare, for I had understood that you had a brain. But my