on that grim mountain with danger all around her was no sick-hearted, trembling, pitiful creature wringing the hearts of her companions with the spectacle of her distress. Jolie was, or seemed to be, the lightest-hearted of them all. Once, in Marshall's tavern in Charles Town, Almayne had told Lachlan that she was proud and perverse and ill tempered. Perhaps he had found her so in those days when his own dislike of her had been very plain. Now, he was her slave.
Over them all she reigned as a queen. They served her because they loved her—each in his own way, they loved her. Between Falcon's dark burning passion for her and Almayne's deep joy in her lay a vast gulf. Perhaps as great a gulf separated the love that Mr. O'Sullivan bore her and the love that had been born in Lachlan McDonald for this Lady Sanguilla, as he still called her in his thoughts.
She was brave, so brave that her courage was a continuing marvel to them all. She was gay; and they wondered what this gayety must cost her who was like a caged bird unable to fly to the mate she loved. Even to Lance Falcon she was courteous, almost kind, and three of them knew that this cost her much, and they praised her in their thoughts for the spirit that enabled her thus to conquer her loathing.
And she was beautiful. She was more beautiful, they thought, during those days on Sani'gilagi, than she had ever been before. Her buckskin suit was stained and faded now, its bright embroideries
