ve me satisfaction for this base insult, or by the
heaven above us I will shoot you like a dog!"

"As you will, sir. I have spoken openly, and I shall abide by my word. I
am no boaster, nor do I expect any especial favor at the hands of the
lady whom you have named; but I repeat, sir, that my respect for her
renders her friend safe from any injury that I might otherwise, in just
indignation, inflict."

Little did either know that the object of their remarks had been a
silent but trembling witness of the entire scene, from the first
taunting word Captain Bramble had spoken.

Early the subsequent morning, even before the sun had risen, a boat
might have been seen pulling from the side of the English sloop-of-war,
propelled by the stout arms of a couple of seamen, while two persons sat
in the stern, a closer examination of whom would have revealed them to
be the captain of the ship and surgeon. At the same moment there shot
out from a little nook or bay in the rear of the barracoons, a light
skiff propelled by a single oarsman, who rowed his bark in true seamen
style, cross-handed, while a second party sat in the stern. The rower
was Captain Ratlin, and his companion was the swarthy and fierce-looking
Don Leonardo. That the same purpose guided the course of either boat was
apparent from the fact that both were headed for the same jutting point
of land that formed a sort of cape on the harbor's southern side.

"That is the fellow, he who pulls the oars," said Captain Bramble to his
surgeon.

"He must be a vulgar chap, and pulls those instruments as though bred to
the business."

"Not so very vulgar, either," said the other; "the fellow has seen the
world and has his notions of honor, and knows how to behave, that is
plain enough."

"Egad, he shoots that skiff ahead like an arrow; the fellow could make
his fortune as a ferryman," continued the surgeon, facetiously.

"Give way, lads, give way," said the English captain, impatiently, to
his men, as he saw that the skiff would reach the point long before he
got there himself.

A short half-hour found the two rivals standing opposite to each other
at some twelve paces distance, each with a pistol in his hand. The
preliminaries had been duly arranged between the surgeon and Don
Leonardo, the latter of whom had not ceased up to the last moment to
strive and effect a reconciliation. Not that he dreaded bloodshed, it
was a pastime to him, but because it jarred so manifest