"Or perhaps to leeward for other cargo," answered the other, somewhat
haughtily.

The hint was sufficient, and the English officer saw that, let his trade
be what it might, he had one to deal with who was master of his own
business, and who feared no one.

It was nearly night when Maud Leonardo reappeared, expressing profound
surprise at what had occurred, and feigning well-assumed grief and
regret, so honestly, too, as to deceive all parties who observed her.
But her secret chagrin could hardly be expressed. Indeed, her father,
who knew her better than any one else, saw that there was something
wrong in his daughter's spirit, that some event had seriously annoyed
and moved her. He knew the child possessed of much of her mother's wild,
revengeful disposition, and though even he never for a moment suspected
her unnatural treachery, yet he resolved to watch her.

The negroes she had joined in the attack were completely routed and
disheartened, and fearing the power and cunning of Don Leonardo,
retreated far inland and incorporated themselves with the tribes that
gather their wild and precarious living in the depths of the jungle.





CHAPTER X.

THE DUEL.