“Rise, sir, you are safe from my hand; but fortunate it is for you that you can call this lady whose name you have just referred to, friend; the man whom she honors by her countenance is safe from any injury I can inflict.”

“A very chivalric speech,” replied the enraged and brow-beaten officer.  “But you shall answer for this, sir, and at once.  This is not the spot—­you must give 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 manifestly with his interests to have his friend run the risk of his life.  Both of the principals were silent.  Captain Bramble was exceedingly red in the face, and evidently felt the bitterness of anger still keenly upon him; while the open, manly features of his opponent wore the same placid aspect as had characterized them while he leaned over the side of his own ship, or gazed idly into the rippling waters that laved the dark hull.