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 give me satisfaction for this base insult, or by the heaven above us I will shoot you like a dog!"
"As you will, sir. I have spoken openly, and I shall abide by my word. I am no boaster, nor do I expect any especial favor at the hands of the lady whom you have named; but I repeat, sir, that my respect for her renders her friend safe from any injury that I might otherwise, in just indignation, inflict."
Little did either know that the object of their remarks had been a silent but trembling witness of the entire scene, from the first taunting word Captain Bramble had spoken.
Early the subsequent morning, even before the sun had risen, a boat might have been seen pulling from the side of the English sloop-of-war, propelled by the stout arms of a couple of seamen, while two persons sat in the stern, a closer examination of whom would have revealed them to be the captain of the ship and surgeon. At the same moment there shot out from a little nook or bay in the rear of the barracoons, a light skiff propelled by a single oarsman, who rowed his bark in true seamen style, cross-handed, while a second party sat in the stern. The rower was Captain Ratlin, and his companion was the swarthy and fierce-looking Don Leonardo. That the same purpose guided the course of either boat was apparent from the fact that both were headed for the same jutting point of land that formed a sort of cape on the harbor's southern side.
"That is the fellow, he who pulls the oars," said Captain Bramble to his surgeon.
"He must be a vulgar chap, and pulls those instruments as though bred to the business."
"Not so very vulgar, either," said the other; "the fellow has seen the world and has his notions of honor, and knows how to behave, that is plain enough."
"Egad, he shoots that skiff ahead like an arrow; the fellow could make his fortune as a ferryman," continued the surgeon, facetiously.