gaudy red scarves on their heads glowing in the sun. He held his mare to a slow walk so that they might draw well ahead, but his eyes followed them until they disappeared around a bend of the road. They were rather ridiculous figures on their trotting nags, these equestrian mariners, but to Lachlan they brought visions of far seas, golden cities of the Indies, the glittering lights of London. From them his thoughts roamed to their leader, that Lance Falcon, half soldier of fortune, half sea captain, of whose exploits on many seas and in many lands strange tales were told in the waterfront taverns. And from Lance Falcon they passed to another figure scarcely less glamorous—a slim, dandified exquisite from London, befrilled and periwigged, dressed in the extreme of the English fashion, whom he had seen that morning mincing along the street towards the Governor's Mansion.
His thoughts played with these men. Here was Romance! Here were mind-pictures of far-off wonderful seaports of the fabulous East; of fleets and armies and treasure ships and Old-World castles and tall towers; of courts and kings and high-born silken ladies whose eyes outshone their jewels.
It was April, the flood tide of spring, the season of dreams. For a while Lachlan McDonald dreamed. He turned his mare presently and rode slowly back to his lodging in town. That evening he dined alone. Having paid his score, he sat for a time in Marshall's
