face full of health and vigour. Mentally I compared him with myself, as
I was after my fever and loss of blood, a poor, white-faced rat of a
lad, with stubbly brown hair on my head and only a little down on my
chin, with arms like sticks, and a dirty blanket for raiment. How could
I compare with him in any way? What chance had I against this opulent
bully who hated me and all my race, and in whose hands, even if I were
well, I should be nothing but a child?

And yet, and yet as I lay there humiliated and a mock, an answer came
into my mind, and I felt that whatever might be the case with my outward
form; in spirit, in courage, in determination and in ability, in all, in
short, that really makes a man, I was more than Pereira's equal. Yes,
and that by the help of these qualities, poor as I was and frail as I
seemed to be, I would beat him at the last and keep for myself what I
had won, the prize of Marie's love.

Such were the thoughts which passed through me, and I think that
something of the tenor of them communicated itself to Marie, who often
could read my heart before my lips spoke. At any rate, her demeanour
changed. She drew herself up. Her fine nostrils expanded and a proud
look came into her dark eyes, as she nodded her head and murmured in a
voice so low that I think I alone caught her words:

"Yes, yes, have no fear."

Pereira was speaking again (he had turned aside to strike the steel of
his tinder-box, and was now blowing the spark to a glow before lighting
his big pipe).

"By the way, Heer Allan," he said, "that is a very good mare of yours.