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 ceased in a little frightened cry. Lachlan heard a man's voice spit forth an oath, then in a moment heard the rasp of swords. Almost at once a deeper voice flung out an exclamation of triumph. There came another cry from the woman, a short, loud cry of terror; and Lachlan, crouching an instant like a poised panther, leaped upward with outstretched hands, and, putting all his wiry strength into the effort, drew his spare, supple body to the top of the wall.

What he saw sent the blood leaping in his veins. It seemed to him that this shadowy garden was a stage set for the fulfilment of his dreams. Before him were the two men about whom his dreams had lately centred—the slim, periwigged exquisite from London whom he had seen that morning mincing towards the Governor's Mansion; and the tall, mysterious sea-wanderer, Captain Lance Falcon, whose brig, the Good Fortune, lay in the lower harbour and who, if the tavern gossips were to be believed, had cruised in the Red Sea and plundered the treasure ships of the Great Mogul. There was one other also,—a woman, slim, graceful, richly dressed in filmy white.

At a glance, while he crouched on the top of the wall behind a magnolia bough that screened him from view, Lachlan's black eyes took in these three figures in the garden, and at a glance he knew the essentials of what had happened. The gallant from London lay upon his face in the grass, and near him, its hilt almost touching his outstretched hand, lay his slender sword. Ten paces from him, erect, aloof, insolent even