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 think that Falcon saw her standing there, in the moonlight, and that for a fatal instant he was confused."

O'Sullivan paused once more.

"You owe your life to her, lad," he said, his hand on Lachlan's shoulder, "but perhaps it will be best if she never knows."

The two Muskogee warriors kept watch over Falcon's body that night lest some wandering wolfpack should find the place; and next morning, before Jolie had awakened, they laid him in a shallow trench dug with tomahawks and piled stones upon the spot. Almayne leaned on his long rifle, frowning and scornful, while Mr. O'Sullivan spoke a few words of prayer over the grave; but Lachlan, remembering a day when he had stood by Falcon's side on the Good Fortune's deck in the midst of blood and death, seemed to hear once more a great voice booming above the gale.

O'Sullivan ended his prayer and stood, a small, plump, white-headed figure in torn black kneebreeches and mud-stained white shirt, gazing down at the mound of stones at his feet.

"He was an evil man," the little Irishman said slowly, "but, by Paul, he was a swordsman!"

With this brief epitaph they left Lance Falcon.