for we understand fighting, and
the governor does not. Confine me here, will he? If he does, he'll be a
better man than I have ever known him, Michael. In a few hours I shall
be at Salem, to do what he could not, and would not, do if he could.
His love is as deep as water on a roof, no deeper. He'll think first of
himself, and afterwards of the owner of Salem or any other. Let me show
you what I mean to do once we've Salem free from danger. Come and have a
look at my chart."

Some hours later Dyck Calhoun, with his six horsemen, was within a mile
or so of Salem. They had ridden hard in the heat and were tired,
but there was high spirit in the men, for they were behind a trusted
leader--a man who ate little, but who did not disdain a bottle of
Madeira or a glass of brandy, and who made good every step of the way he
went--watchful, alert, careful, determined. They cared little what his
past had been. Jamaica was not a heaven for the good, but it was a haven
for many who had been ill-used elsewhere; where each man, as though he
were really in a new world, was judged by his daily actions and not by
any history of a hidden or an open past. As they came across country,
Dyck always ahead, they saw how he responded to every sign of life
in the bush, how he moved always with discretion where ambush seemed
possible. They knew how on his own estate he never made mistakes of
judgment; that he held the balance carefully, and that his violences,
rare and tremendous, were not outbursts of an unregulated nature. "You
can't fool Calhoun," was a common phrase in the language of Enniskillen,
and there were few in the surrounding country who would not have upheld
its truth.

Now, to-day, he was almost moodily silent, reserved and watchful. None
knew the eddies of life which struggled for mastery in him, nor of his
horrible disappointments. None knew of his love for Sheila. Yet all knew
that he had killed--or was punished for killing--Erris Boyne. None
of them had seen Sheila, but all had heard of her, and the governor's
courtship of her, and all wondered why Dyck Calhoun should be doing what
clearly the governor should do.

Somehow, in spite of the criminal record with which Calhoun's life was
stained, they had a respect for him they did not have for Lord Mallow.
Dyck's life in Jamaica was clean; and his progress as a planter had been
free from black spots. He even kept no mistress, and none had ever known
him to have to do with women,