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"Is it usual, Captain Ratlin," asked the young and beautiful girl, "for vessels on the coast to so dread meeting each other as to deliberately alter their course when this seems likely to be the case?" "Trade is peculiar on this coast, and men-of-warsmen take extraordinary liberties on board such vessels as they happen to overhaul," was the reply.
The new comers were hospitably entertained by Don Leonardo, white the officer who had led them, and whose insignia of rank betrayed his station as captain, was introduced into the more private apartments of the place, where were the ladies and Captain Ratlin, the latter trying to re-assure them, and to quiet their fears on account of the late fearful business of the fight.
"Do I, mother?" she answered, vacantly. This was just after she had returned from the meeting with Captain Ratlin as already described, and whether, she had been crying or not, the reader will probably know what feelings moved her heart.
Ratlin as one whom he had met before, and that Maud, his daughter, also sprang forward to meet him with unmistakable tokens of delight. On his part, both were cordially greeted, and they spoke together like people whose time was precious and whose business required despatch. Mrs.
"It matters not," was the magnanimous reply; for Captain Ratlin was too generous to betray the Quadroon to her father, though she had proved thus treacherous to him. As he now recognized himself to be a prisoner, and had been told by Captain Bramble that he must go forthwith on board his ship as such, he desired to say a few words to Mrs.
For on ship-board they were under his care, and besides, as she admitted to her mother, she had good reason for supposing that Captain Will Ratlin, for thus the mother knew him still, was at Bay Salo, as Don Leonardo's factory was called on the coast. Thus it was that they were once more on this spot.
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.
Probably Maud herself would have never thought seriously about the matter had she not felt how much the English girl surpassed her in beauty, in accomplishment, and in all that might attract the interest of one like Captain Ratlin. Jealousy is a subtle poison, and the Quadroon was feeding upon it greedily, while its baleful effect was daily becoming more and more manifest in her behaviour.
He felt that he had been overreached by Captain Ratlin, and also that he had good grounds of suspecting his successful rival of being either directly or indirectly engaged in the illegal trade of the coast, and, determined, if possible, to discover his secret, he again became a frequent visitor of Don Leonardo's house, where he was sure to meet him constantly.
Maud, with the fleetness of an antelope, had ran by the land-path from the spot of the contest, and reached home nearly as quick as the boat containing her father and Captain Ratlin had done, and now, as she saw her hated white rival leaning upon his arm, so pale, so confiding, and he addressing her with such tender assurance, a fresh wound to her already rankled and goaded feelings was imparted, and once more she swore a fearful and quick revenge.
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