These two persons were an engagé of Captain Drake and a stranger.
As for the Captain, he was absent at the moment.
The filibuster's eye flashed at the sight of the stranger, and an ill-omened smile curled his pale lips.
As for the latter, he was seated at a table in the middle of the room, and quietly breakfasting on a piece of cold bacon, washed down by a bottle of Bordeaux,—a wine, let us remark, parenthetically, which, though unknown in Paris till the reign of Louis XV., when the Duc de Richelieu brought it into fashion on his return from the government of Guyenne—had been for a long time appreciated in America.
The stranger was of rather tall stature, with a pale face, and ascetic features, thin, bony, and angular; but his noble manners indicated a high rank in society, which rank his simple and even more than modest costume tried in vain to conceal.
On the filibuster's entrance, the stranger, without raising his head, took a side-glance at him from under his long velvety eyelashes, and again became absorbed or appeared to be so, in the contemplation of the capital breakfast set before him.
Everything was in common among the filibusters, everyone took from the other, whether he was at home or not, anything he wanted, arms, gunpowder, clothes or food, and the person from whom it was taken had no right to protest or make the slightest observation; this was not merely admitted and tolerated, but was regarded as a right which all took advantage of without the slightest scruple.
Montbarts, after looking round the room, took a chair, seated himself unceremoniously opposite the stranger, and turning to the engagé, said—
"Bring me some breakfast—I am hungry."
The other, without venturing the slightest remark, immediately prepared to obey.