The negroes she had joined in the attack were completely routed and disheartened, and fearing the power and cunning of Don Leonardo, retreated far inland and incorporated themselves with the tribes that gather their wild and precarious living in the depths of the jungle.

CHAPTER X.

The duel.

Affairs in the immediate vicinity of Don Leonardo’s residence began to assume a singular and very peculiar aspect.  In the first place, there was within doors, and under his immediate roof, four new comers, nearly each of which was actuated by some contrary purpose or design.  Mrs. Huntington was exceedingly desirous to obtain passage up the coast to Sierra Leone, and thence home to England; her daughter secretly dreaded the approach of the hour that was to separate her from one whom in her unrevealed heart she devotedly loved.  Captain Ratlin was, of course, all impatience to have the English cruiser up anchor and leave the harbor, her proximity to his own fleet clipper ship being altogether too close, while, Captain Bramble felt in no haste to leave port for several reasons.  First, he had a suspicion that he should soon be able to trip up the heels of his rival, as it regarded this business on the coast; and secondly, he was very content to have Miss Huntington remain here, because he knew if she was once landed at Sierra Leone, she would directly sail for England.

Don Leonardo heartily wished them all at the bottom of the sea, or any other place except his house, with the exception, of course, of Captain Ratlin, whose business with him was seriously impeded by the presence of these parties.  Maud, too, was not a disinterested party, as the reader may well imagine, after the audacious treachery which she had already evinced; but she was comparatively passive now, and seemed quietly to bide her time for accomplishing her second resolve touching him she once loved but now hated, as well as satisfying her revengeful spirit by the misery or destruction of her rival.  We say affairs in Don Leonardo’s residence had assumed a singular and peculiar aspect, and the dull routine of everyday life that had characterized the last year was totally changed.

The singular coincidence of the meeting between Miss Huntington and her rejected lover, Captain Bramble, under such singular circumstances, led him once more to press this suit, and now, as she regarded him largely in the light of a protector, the widow quite approved of his intimacy, and indeed, as far as propriety would permit, seconded his suit with her daughter.  When in India, she had looked most favorably upon Captain Bramble’s intimacy with her child, where there were accessory circumstances to further her claims; but now she soon told her daughter in private, that Captain Bramble was a match fit and proper in all respects for such as she was.

“But, mother—­”

“Well, my child?”