“Are you for the coast, then?”
“With all speed. Our captain received important despatches in the night We shall be afloat before forty hours. Adios!”
The farewell was cordially re-echoed by Rica, who closed the window, muttering to himself, “So! all will go well at last.”
While Enrique was making all the speed towards the seashore a light calèche and four horses could accomplish, Roland was pacing with impatient steps the little plot of grass where so soon he expected to find himself in deadly conflict with his enemy.
Never was a man's mind more suited to the purpose for which he waited. Dejected, insulted, and ruined in one night, he had little to live for, and felt far less eager to be revenged of his adversary, than to rid himself of a hated existence. It was to no purpose that he could say, and say truly, that he had never cared for any of these things, of which he now saw himself stripped. His liking for Maritaña had never gone beyond great admiration for her beauty, and a certain spiteful pleasure in exciting those bursts of passion over which she exercised not the slightest control. It was caprice, not love; the delight of a schoolboy in the power to torment, without the wish to retain. His self-love, then, it was, was wounded on finding that she, with whose temper he had sported, could turn so terribly upon himself. The same feeling was outraged by Enrique, who seemed to know and exult over his defeat. These sources of bitterness, being all aggravated by the insulting manner of Don Pedro, made up a mass of indignant and angry feelings which warred and goaded him almost to madness.
The long-expected dawn broke slowly, and although, a few moments after sunrise, the whole sky became of a rich rose color, these few moments seemed like an age to the impatient thoughts of him who thirsted for his vengeance.
He walked hastily up and down the space, waiting now and again to listen, and then, disappointed, resumed his path, with some gesture of impatience. At last he heard footsteps approaching. They came nearer and nearer; and now he could hear the branches of the trees bend and crack, as some one forced a passage through them. A swelling feeling about the heart bespoke the anxiety with which he listened, when a figure appeared which even at a glance he knew to be not Enrique's. As the man approached be took off his hat respectfully and presented a letter.
“From Don Enrique?” said Roland, and then, tearing open the paper, he read,—
Amigo Mio,—Not mine the fault that I do not stand before
you now instead of these few lines; but Noronja has
received news of these Chilian fellows, and sent me to get
the craft ready for sea at once. We shall meet, then, in a
few hours; and, if so, let it be as comrades. The service
and our own rules forbid a duel so long as we are afloat and
on duty. Whatever be your humor when next we touch shore
again, rely upon finding me ready to meet it, either as an
enemy or as
Your friend,
Enrique da Cordova.
A single exclamation of disappointment broke from Roland, but the moment after all former anger was gone. The old spirit of comrade-affection began to seek its accustomed channels, and he left the spot, happy to think how different had been his feeling than if he were quitting it with the blood of his shipmate on his hands.