“Suppose, for instance, that I do not like Captain Bramble, then is he a fitting match for me?”

“Not like him, my child?”

“Yes, mother, not like him.”

“Why, is he not gentlemanly?”

“Yes.”

“And of good family?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“And handsome, and—­”

“Hold, mother, you need not extend the catalogue.  Captain Bramble can never be my husband,” she said, in a mild but determined tone that her mother understood very well.

But Captain Bramble himself could not seem to understand this, notwithstanding she was perfectly frank and open with him.  He seemed to be running away with the idea that if he could but get rid of Captain Ratlin, in some way, he should then have a clear field, and be able to win her hand under the peculiar circumstances surrounding her.  Thus moved, he redoubled his watchfulness touching the captain’s movements, satisfied that he should be able ere long to detect him in some intrigue, as to running a cargo of slaves, and doubtless under such circumstances that he could arrest and detain him, if not, by some lucky chance, even have him tried and adjudged upon by the English commission upon the coast.

To suppose that Captain Ratlin did not understand entirely the motives and conduct of his enemy and would-be rival, would be to give him less credit for discernment than he deserved.  He understood the matter very well, and, indeed, bore with assumed patience, for Miss Huntington’s sake, many impertinences that he would otherwise have instantly asserted.  But he marked out for himself a course, and he resolved to adhere to it.  Captain Bramble was not only a suitor of Miss Huntington’s, but an old and intimate friend, as he learned from her family, and therefore he should avoid all quarrel whatever with him, and so he did on his own part; but the English officer, enraged by his apparent success, took every occasion to disparage the character of Captain Ratlin, and even before Miss Huntington’s own face, declared him no gentleman.

“You are very severe, Captain Bramble,” said the lady, “upon a person whom you acknowledge you have not yet known a single calendar month.”

“It is long enough, quite long enough, Miss Huntington, to read the character of such an unprincipled fellow as this nondescript captain.”

“I have known him about twice as long as you, Captain Bramble,” replied Miss Huntington, calmly, “and I have not only formed a very different opinion of him, but have good reasons to feel satisfied of the correctness of my judgment.”

“I perceive that Miss Huntington has taken him under her protection,” replied the discomfited officer, sarcastically, as he seized his hat and left her.

While in this spirit, the two rivals met in the open space before the hose of Don Leonardo, when the English officer vented some coarse and scurrillous remarks upon Captain Ratlin, whose eyes flashed fire, and who seized his traducer by the throat and bent him nearly double to the earth, with an ease that showed his superior physical strength to be immense, but as though impressed with some returning sense, Captain Ratlin released his grasp and said: