Lachlan was strong as the catamount is strong, but the tall man with whom he grappled—older, bulkier, heavier—seemed as strong as a mountain bear. The struggle was short. Presently Lachlan was reeling backward towards the cane thicket, hurled thither by a mighty heave of his foeman's arms as Falcon tore himself free.
Panting, dishevelled, bleeding from a scratch on his forehead, Lachlan steadied himself at the thicket's edge and stood there half-dazed, awaiting the onslaught that must come. Falcon, his sun-tanned face a flaming red, his white teeth gleaming under his thick moustache, ran to the spot where his sword had fallen. Snatching up the weapon, he started furiously forward. But the woman, rising quickly from beside the fallen man, gripped his arm.
He halted and stood breathing hard, while she spoke rapidly, pleadingly, peremptorily, in tones so low that Lachlan could distinguish only a few disconnected words. At last Falcon nodded and answered her briefly in a deep voice that had in it the rumble of thunder or the surf. Deliberately he raised her hand to his lips and kissed it, despite her effort to draw it away. Then, without another glance at Lachlan, he strode off along a winding pathway of the garden.
Lachlan watched him go, then turned to face a worse ordeal than his struggle with Lance Falcon. He knew that, acting upon a sudden inexplicable impulse, he had done an amazingly foolish thing. He
