n and dear comrades, you must be hoarse, let us drink!'

This first trait of eccentricity could not fail to enlist universal
applause.

Commissioned by him to lead the column, Stradling could not do
otherwise than to take the road to the Royal Salmon. It was on this
occasion that he appeared there before the expiration of the three
days: but he had not addressed a word to Catherine, scarcely turned
his eyes towards her. Nevertheless the circumstances were favorable to
his suit.

Then a millionaire, William Dampier had immediately declared his
intentions to treat at his own expense the whole company and even the
whole town, if the town would do him the honor to drink with him.
Catherine at once took him into favor. When she heard him praise his
friend and companion, the brave Captain Stradling, she felt for the
latter, not an emotion of tenderness, but a sentiment of respect and
even of good-will. Dampier, excited by his audience, did not fail,
like other conquerors by land and sea, to recount some of his great
deeds. Among others, he recapitulated a certain affair in which he and
his friend Stradling had captured a Spanish galleon, laden with
piastres. From this moment the beautiful Kitty became more thoughtful,
and began to see that the scar was becoming to the face of this good
captain. After drinking, when Dampier, still escorted by his _fidus
Achates_, came to settle his account with the hostess, he chucked her
familiarly under the chin, as was his custom with landladies in the
four quarters of the globe. From any one else, the proud Catherine
would not have suffered such a liberty; to this, she replied only by a
graceful reverence, and, while the hero and paymaster of the _fete_
shook a rouleau of gold upon her counter, she said, hastily bending
towards Stradling:

'To-morrow!' accompanying this word with an expressive look and her
most gracious smile.

The enamored Stradling, always impassible, contented himself with
replying:

'It is well!'

The day following, the third, the important day, that which Catherine
already regarded as her day of betrothal, early in the morning, she
dressed herself in her best attire, not doubting the impatience of the
captain. Before noon, the latter entered the inn and went directly up
to the landlady.

She received him carelessly and coldly; she was nervous, she had not
had time for reflection; she did not know what the captain wished; if
he would let her alone for the p