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 "Spare me your remonstrances, Señor," he exclaimed. "My mind is made up and I shall come. If Don Joachim values my services to him here, he will not seek to thwart me."

"Your services have indeed been valuable, Captain Falcon," Lachlan murmured. "I make no doubt they will be suitably rewarded."

"As to that," replied Falcon briskly, "I ask but little—though I might ask much, not only for what I have done for the King of Spain in Charles Town, but also for what I have refrained from doing to him upon the seas. I carry letters of marque, as you doubtless know. But since my bargain with Montiano I have touched no Spanish ship; and some that I might have taken were well worth the taking."

Lachlan smiled. Here was a new lead, worth following.

"And your work in Charles Town?" he asked not too eagerly. "You were mistaken in your surmise as to my commandant's object in sending me on this voyage. His real object was to learn from you how our interests prosper here."

"The time is not yet ripe," Falcon answered. "It is not ripe, but it is ripening. The defences of Charles Town are weak and they are not being strengthened. The Cherokees grow more and more angry. They will rise when Spain gives the word. The aid you have promised them at Fort Prince George" He paused and seemed to ponder for a moment.

"But let that wait, Sefor Ruy," he said at last. "I