t, 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:

"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 gi