with his arms and pack before the doors of Don Leonardo!





CHAPTER XVII.

THE POISONED BARB.




OF course, Don Leonardo was amazed to see his friend, deeming him by
this time either in an English prison or dead. He learned with amazement
the part that Maud had performed, for Charles Bramble was forced to
reveal to the father, who was eager to inquire after his daughter.
Though Charles felt not the least compunctions of conscience as to the
matter, yet he now fully realized the cause of all her enmity, though of
this he said not a word to her father. Don Leonardo cheerfully joined
the new-comer in completing his business arrangements, and Charles
Bramble found himself the rightful owner of some eight thousand dollars
in gold, the product of the goods which he had landed as his private
venture, and he also took good care to forward true bills of credit to
his owners in Cuba, for the specie which had been sent out by him to
purchase slaves.

These business arrangements consummated, he now began to think seriously
of once more revisiting the scenes of his childhood, Bramble Park. He
doubted not that Helen and her mother would arrive at their own early