The young man took off his hat, extended his arm toward the crowd, and said in a firm voice,—
"I swear it."
"Long live the captain!" the colonists shouted enthusiastically. "The charter—the charter!"
The reading commenced. After each article the colonists answered in one voice,—
"I swear it."
There was something imposing in the aspect of this scene. These men, with their energetic features and bronzed faces, thus assembled in the heart of the desert, surrounded by the grand scenery, swearing in the face of heaven unbounded devotion and obedience, bore a striking likeness to the famous filibusters of the sixteenth century preparing to attempt one of their bold expeditions, and swearing on the charter in the hands of Montbars the exterminator, or any other renowned chief of Tortoise Island.
When the reading was completed a fresh outbreak of shouts closed this simple ceremony of the election of a chief of adventurers in the deserts of the New World. This time—accidentally, perchance—the choice of all had fallen on the most worthy. Charles de Laville was really the only man capable of repairing the disasters of the late expedition, and leading the colony back to that prosperous path on which it was progressing previously to the death of Lhorailles.