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 He paused, his eyebrows lifted, and, at Lachlan's nod, proceeded briskly:

"Of course, it was necessary for me to lay hold of you at once. It was a clever game that you played as Don Ruy Ortiz and you played it well; aye, and fought well, too, they tell me, after you had put me to sleep. In truth, it grieves me to interfere with the designs of so promising a young man. But you learned too much here in this cabin that night, and, although you could hardly prove your tale, I thought it best to get my hands on you before you could go to the Governor with your story of Captain Lance Falcon as an agent of the Spaniards. In the nick of time, Mistress Jolie Stanwicke's black boy, who is in my pay, brought me word that at a certain hour yeu would be in the Stanwicke garden. This was a stgoke of fortune. It is a secluded secret place, safe from the public eye. I regretted the necessity of rough work in the lady's presence, but that could not be helped."

He refilled his glass and drained it; then, perceiving that Lachlan's glass stood empty, he leaned forward and filled it also.

"Drink, sir," he exclaimed with a gleam of strong white teeth under his thick, reddish-brown moustache. "Drink while you may! Since no travellers return from that mysterious country, we do not know whether or not they quaff wine there to the thrumming of the angels' harps."

He smiled more broadly. "Your pardon," he said,