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 He sipped his wine; then, pushing back his chair, swung his booted legs up on the table. He was in high good humour evidently.

"You must admit," he said pleasantly, "that my little plan was skilfully conceived and that I worked fairly fast."

He paused as though expecting a reply, but Lachlan held his tongue. There was little for him to say. He knew only that he had awakened in the dim hold of a ship at sea; that presently two seamen had brought him food, which had not only assuaged his savage appetite but had also in large measure stilled the throbbing of his head; that, hours later, two other men had conducted him from the hold to the deck whence he could see far away to the right a long low line of forest marking the coast; that he had been led without delay to the ship's cabin beside the door of which stood Captain Lance Falcon.

He knew then what he already suspected—that he was a prisoner on Falcon's brig; and he was not deceived in the slightest by the elaborate courtesy with which Falcon had ushered him into the cabin to a seat at the same table where he had sat once before. His head still ached slightly, but his mind was very active, very clear. He knew as he took his seat that the man opposite him meant to kill him.

"It was a pretty plan," Falcon continued, "yet I owed something to luck. Perhaps you have not yet quite grasped all that has happened to you?"