your
personal friend, I would have suffered disgrace rather than
encountered him."

With a smile, she answered:

"It all turned out right. The lieutenant was scarcely injured at all."

"Have you heard of him?"

"I have heard from him," she answered, glancing slyly at Fernando from
the corners of her roguish eyes. "He wrote me a letter which I
received to-day."

Fernando felt a pain at his heart, but it was nothing to compare with
the shame and mortification which followed. She informed him that
Lieutenant Matson was so slightly wounded, that his seconds decided on a
second fire, and sent a boat to inform them as they had left the beach,
but that, although they chased the Americans for miles, they could not
bring them back. Fernando was stunned by the information, and filled
with mortification and chagrin.

"Do you think I am afraid to meet him again?" he asked, his voice
trembling with ill-suppressed excitement.

"I don't know; but you won't, anyway--you are both my friends, and my
friends shall not fight."

Fernando made no answer, but at that moment he would very much have
liked to knock her friend on the head. Of course a second meeting with
the Briton would now have been highly pleasing to the student; but it
was out of the question. The hour on the promontory was passed in
alternating bliss and misery, and when the time came to return, he was
no nearer the subject dearest of all subjects than before.

He hastened back to the tavern, where he found his Irish friend playing
cards with the landlord and winning several weeks' board in advance.

"Terrence, it is a fine fix you got me in by hurrying away from the
sands so soon that morning," he said angrily, when he got him to
his room.

"Why, me boy, what d'ye mane?"

"That lieutenant was only slightly wounded, and that boat was chasing us
to bring us back for another shot."

"So ye've heard it at last, me frind?"

"Certainly I have, and now I will be branded as a coward."

"Lave it all to me. The Britishers are in trouble enough. Sure, haven't
ye read the Baltimore papers? Captain Conkerall is to be tried by a
court-martial for gettin' bastely drunk and goin' abroad with no garment
but his shirt, and a sheet with a hole in it." Terrence laughed until
the tears trickled down his cheeks. Fernando could not see how he could
help fighting the lieutenant again if he demanded satisfaction; but the
Irishman was quite sure the lieutenant would have enough t