he well knew, would
ensure to him both safety and success. Without the certainty of this,
Carlos Santander would have been the last man to provoke such an
encounter; for, with all his air of _bravache_, he was the veriest of
cowards.

CHAPTER SIX.

"TO THE SALUTE!"

The thick "swamp-fog" still hovered above the Crescent City, when a
carriage, drawn by two horses, rolled out through one of its suburbs,
and on along the Shell Road, and in the direction of Lake Pontchartrain.

It was a close carriage--a hackney--with two men upon the driver's seat,
and three inside. Of these last, one was Captain Florence Kearney, and
another Lieutenant Francis Crittenden, both officers of the
filibustering band, with _titles_ not two days old. Now on the way
neither to Texas nor Mexico, but to the shore of Lake Pontchartrain,
where many an affair of honour has been settled by the spilling of much
blood. A stranger in New Orleans, and knowing scarce a soul, Kearney
had bethought him of the young fellow who had been elected
first-lieutenant, and asked him to act as his second. Crittenden, a
Kentuckian, being one of those who could not only stand fire, but _eat_
it, if the occasion called, eagerly responded to the appeal; and they
were now _en route_ along the Shell Road to meet Carlos Santander and
whoever he might have with him.

The third individual inside the carriage belonged to that profession,
one of whose members usually makes the third in a duel--the doctor. He
was a young man who, in the capacity of surgeon, had attached himself to
the band of filibusters.

Besides the mahogany box balanced upon his thigh there was another lying
on the spare bit of cushion beside him, opposite to where Crittenden
sat. It was of a somewhat different shape; and no one who had ever seen
a case of duelling pistols could mistake it for aught else--for it was
such.

As it had been arranged that swords were to be the weapons, and a pair
of these were seen in a corner of the carriage, what could they be
wanting with pistols?

It was Kearney who put this question; now for the first time noticing
what seemed to him a superfluous armament. It was asked of Crittenden,
to whom the pistols belonged, as might have been learnt by looking at
his name engraved on the indented silver plate.

"Well," answered the Kentuckian, "I'm no great swordsman myself. I
usually prefer pistols, and thought it might be as well to bring a pair
along. I di