A CORSICAN VENDETTA.

Evening Star, Issue 7307, 3 September 1887, Page 6 (Supplement)

A CORSICAN VENDETTA.

[By C. A. Gunter, the successful American play wright; ]■

CHAPTER I, WAITING.

“ Yes, I rather imagine this is the exact spot,” says Mr Burton H. Barnes, of New York, to the venerable host of the very old and very dilapidated little inn that stands on the shores of the Gulf of Ajaccio, near where the Bastia road turns Inland, and, following up the Gravona torrent, first through the orange and citron groves of the fertile Campolofo and then oyer hi Us covered with the vine and olive, is lost in the chestnut woods that hide the lower elopes of the great Monte del Oro. Nothing can be in more vivid and striking oontiast than the man and his surroundings; the light civilisation of an exponent of New York fashion of the year 1882 stands face to face with the barbaric romance of the old Corsioan scene and the mediroval picturesquextess of the Native costume of the old innkeeper, who curiously asks, in his soft, southern patois, ignoiing the French in which Mr Barnes has addressed him, “ The spot for what, Signor ? ” “The spot where there is going to be a first-class duel this morning, as soon as there is light enough to kill. ” “ To kill what! ”

“ Each other ! Don’t you know What a duel is?” Here Mr Barnes gives a short dissertation on the code of honor, illustrating his French with vigorous pantomimic action.

“Ah ! a kind of vendetta ,” says the old man, brightening. “ Yes, a civilised vendetta. You know what that is, [’ve no doubt,” " My father, the fisherman, fell in one,” says the Corsican, moodily; “he was drowned.”

“ And the ma.n who killed your father ?” asks the American, with some interest. " Was drowned also. lam the son of my father. My father’s slayer was the last of their accursed family, so now I sleep in peace. Would the gentleman like breakfast ?” and trade overcomes his romance.

“ Yes; place a table for me, Mateo —I think that’s what you called yourself—out her# on the portico. Give me a flask of your best chianii, some fruit, and something to eat, if you’ve got anything not stuffed with chestnuts. I’ll make myself comfortable till the time comes.”

“ Eggs?” triumphantly suggests the host. ” Yes. Eggs don’t taste of chestnuts.” As Mateo goes in to attend to this order, Mr Barnes mutters to himself “Always best to take things easy till it’s time to act,” and, sinking lasily upon the most comfortable stool he can find, gazes meditatively over the exquisite scene that the early morning light is just making distinctly beautiful.

The portico of the inn faces the bay, and is only separated from its torpid ripples by a few feet of shingle and rocks that run out into the blue water. This is now just brightening in the morning sun, rising over the white peaks of the Corsican mountains, that, as usual, in spring, are shrouded in mists. Far out to sea, the lateen sails of fishing boats look like seagulls’ wings ; in the harbor a score or so of feluccas and eperonares from Sardinia and Sicily are hardly moving under the lazy breeze ; while the dark low hull of an English gunboat, which has put into Ajaccio to purchase some supplies of poultry and fruit for her officers’ mess, is giving out from her short funnel a black cloud of smoke that indicates that she will soon be under way for Alexandria to assist at Arabi Pasha’s downfall.

Mr Barnes looks gloomily at her as he says to himself: “ Wish that beggar would sail before her time ; it would perhaps save me making a fool of myself.” Then rolling a cigarette, he turns, and, looking inland up the Bastia road, continues : “No sign of Marina yet. 1 sent the courier for her at ten o’clock last night. If Corsican horseflesh can do it, she should be here In time. But Corsican horseflesh is at best only polopony horseflesh ; the roads are slow, and (looking at his watch) it is seven o’clock now. If I can’t stop these fellows making fools of themselves, and anything happens to him, Heaven pity her ! it’s a hard world.”

With a sigh, Mr Barnes goes off into a brown study, meditating what a fool he has been to come to Corsica, moufflon shooting, when he might just as well have been shooting some other wild animal, on some other part of the earth’s surface. Mr Barnes is not a typical New Yorker. At first sight he is always suspected of being what is now contemptuously called a dude ; but if his dress from its elaboration, almost to the point of affectation, might make an observer suppose him one, his bearing and manner would in a very short time prove that ho Was also a man, and a man who knew and understood both the world and himself pretty thoroughly. Mr Barnes’s occupation in the twenty-eight years of his life has been killing time. Being blessed with an ample fortune, he has never earned his own living \ though he once thought he ought to have a profession, and studied surgery till he discovered that the deathrate of the world was ten a-yoar to every practising physician; whereupon, glad of the excuse, Mr Barnes said he would let his ten men live, and refused to take out his diploma. Being compelled to kill time, he has mostly killed It by killing wild animals. A crack shot of the New York Rifle Club, he has once or twice saved an international match by literally having no nerves at the critical moment when it was absolutely necessary to shoot a bull’s eye to win ; consequently, before dangerous game, especially tigers, Mr Barnes is very deadly. Not averse to the chase in any form, he would gladly have hunted in the preserves of Belgravia and Fifth Avenue, for he had the entrie to both English and American society, but he despised a long flirtation with its imperceptible advances and calculated manoeuvres, which he stigmatised as ■“ Snaring canary birds and not true sport.’ Too. languid to dance in a ball-room, he would climb the Rocky Mountains to kill a big-horn ; consequently, when over a game of baccarat at a Parisian club, a passing acquaintance, Count Musso Danella, a Corsican, invited him to visit his estates on the island for the purpose of killing moufflon, Mr Barnes accepted, and within the three weeks preceding the day we meet him, bad shot all the moufflon he desired, travelled generally over the island, but had missed seeing what he was most curious about—-a vendetta in actual progress, and was at Ajaccio, en route for France, when he became engaged in the morning adventure that now occupies him, not on his own account, but for the sake of a young lady he had met in the interior of the island. The next estate to that of his host in the fair valley of the Gravona, below the farspreading chestnut and beech woods of Bocognano, was one belonging to a family in whose veins flows the blood most honored and most loved in all Corsica, that of the old-time patriot and liberator, Pasquale Paoli, and the young lady was one of tiic last of that ancient name.

Count Musso Danella was the guardian of both the girl and her brother, —and had invited Barnes to visit, with him, his young ward who had just returned from an Italian boarding-school, in order to meet her brother, a young naval officer in the service of the French Republic, expected home from a three years’ cruise, “ She will return to school no more; they write they will not have her back,” says the Count as they ride up the avenue of olive trees, toward the low, Corsican house. “ Indeed ! Why ? ” asks Barnes. “ Per Bacco! she is too Corsican for them; she loves liberty too well. She ran away from school to hear Gerster sing in Florence one night, and threatened her painting master with an unknown vengeance if he dared to desecrate, with daubs from his noschool modern Italian brush, a painting she had just finished. The Italian sent his picture unaltered to me with his complaint; I sent Marina’s picture to the Salon, and when it received an honorable mention, 1 threw the Italian’s complaint into the fire!”

“ A picture from a girl receive mention at the Paris Salon?” Mr Barnes gasps in unbelief. “I think it was as much the subject as the treatment which secured its success; for with true girlish vanity she had painted herself,” lampis the Count, as they enter the house. The next instant Barnes sees

the original, and then only wonders that the copy, if half a likeness, did not gain the gold medal oi the year. As she rises to receive them, the girl drapes her modern Parisian dress about her like some old Grecian robe, and outlines a form perfect as her face, which is of the imst bewildering, dazzling, Southern beauty, animated by a soul that, shining through it with changing piquancy of expression, makes it indescribable. To love her would have been to love, perhaps, within the hour a Juliet and Madonna; and, perchance, in one dread moment of her life, a Lady Macbeth all strangely beautiful and each Marina Paoli.

Barnes, whose descriptive adjectives arc limited, called her “ a stunner,” and was right us regards his own sensations, for she simply appalled him, not perhaps when he first saw her—but afterwards. As she comes toward them with a smile of welcome, the Count presuming on his guardianship is about to kiss her lips; the smile changes to a flash of hauteur as she coldly says : “ I’ve grown older now—my hand, please.” While the man of the world with his forty years of Parisian life that cost him fifty, smiling behind his white teeth, bends over her fingers, Barnes suddenly thinks that Musso loves her ; and that the young girl with her sex’s instinct has placed a rampart between his passion and herself.

As Mr Barnes is introduced, her smile is back again; she exclaims, “An American ! a freeman ! you can kiss my hand also ! ” “ You like Republicans? ” “I hate tyrants and despise slaves. I should only bow to a Russian or a Turk, but an American—it is different! ”

“I’m glad I’m an American,” says Mr Barnes, kissing her hand; and that kiss gave him interest enough in her life to make him turn out of his way, on the day we first see him, to do her service. They are friends at mice. The girl sings him a strain or two from an opera, accompanying herself on a mandolin. Then, from Italian music, she turns to that of her own island, and chants some old native ballads which are all Lamenli relating to the vendetta—for in Corsica there are no other local songs. This leads to her explaining to Mr Barnes what the vendetta really is ; that it is considered a sacred duty to avenge one of the family who falls by another’s hand; that the “ Rimheeco ” is a reproach which is spoken or sung to him who forgets the wrong of kindred, and a Corsican who did not listen to it would be forever despised. With this she chants a Rimheeco with a wild pathos that shows, though educated in the civilisation of the Continent, Marina Paoli is still in spirit a Corsican. With some curiosity he asks her whether there has ever been a vendetta in her family. “ Not for three generations,” says the girl, “ but it always comes in the third, and that is ours. There are only three of usold Tomasso, who serves me so faithfully and who is my foster-father and would avenge my wrongs as his own ; myself, and Antonio, my brother” (her eyes take an expectant look), “ the only one of my blood I have to love, whose letter I shall soon receive telling me when I shall place my kiss upon him. Ah ! I hear horses’ hoofs ! Mia Madre! if it is he ! ”

Her face brightens with a great joy and she darts out into the portico. After a pause the Count says : “ Would you like to sec the picture of the Parisian Salon?”

He draws aside a curtain, disclosing a canvas that, as Barnes throws the lamplight on it, develops into a portrait of Marina in the costume of a Corsican peasant with its brilliantly colored mandile and short skirt, that give to her graceful figure even additional charms; but her face has a dreamy expression, as if her soul was far away from her body, and her eyes look intensely strained, seeking some one that comes not. The attitude is one of expectant passion. Underneath is written “ WAITING ! ”

“ Ah, waiting for her lover! I understand ! ” laughs Barnes. “No ! Waiting for her brother. He is the only being Marina loves. The two children grew up, as it were, in each other’s arms ; until three years ago their lives were one. And now she awaits his coming like an expectant bride. There is no room in her heart for any other Jove!” remarked Mnsso moodily. The words have hardly left him, when Marina enters like one inspired. “ See,” she cries, “his letter! my Antonio’s letter!” and she kisses it. “He will be in Corsica to-morrow, and the next day” (a sigh of longing) “ with me ! I have sent old Tomasso to light fires of good omen on the hills, so that our shepherds on the higher ranges of del Oro may know their master is returning, and come to give him welcome. I shall wear that dress when next I see him.” She points to the picture. “He loved me best as one of his own people.” “We had better go,” whispers Danella to our American. “ She will now think only of her brother. ” As they take their leave, the Count asks for the bunch of white laurel flowers the girl wears. But she plucks them from her bosom and thrusts them into the hands of the astonished Barnes. Danella scowls threateningly at the young man. Marina noticing, says quickly with a laugh : “ Do not be jealous ; Mr Barnes will take them for me to Ajaccio, and, if he sees my brother, give Antonio the flowers of his native land and tell him that Marina, who is waiting, sent them, and will rest no more until he gives them back to her. Understand yon are not even to smell them ; their perfume is all for my brother.” As the two men ride away she stands looking after them, her eyes beaming with expectation. Backed by the fire-light that streams from the open panes past the iron gratings that defend all windows in this unquiet country, she forms a picture of joy and love that is almost medieval in its intensity. “By George! They don’t manufacture such girls in Fifth Avenue! ” said Mr Barnes.

“No ! Civilisation would stunt the growth of such a heart. Marina has the two great native passions—love of country and love of family ; but there are none like her, not even in Corsica. While her brother lives she will love no other man ”

“ But if she should ?” suggests laughingly the American.

“ Not while I live !” cried the Corsican, with a muttered oath and a sudden sinister contraction of his face that tells Barnes his secret. “ But you take the road to Ajaccio, and it leaves mine here.” On which the two men part with many a kindly farewell, for, though Barnes despises a man who cannot keep his temper, and the Count has the passions of the lower regions, they have been good comrades for their three weeks’ shooting, and have bagged much game, which makes all sportsmen feel kindly to one another.

As Barnes rides down the beautiful valley that is watered by the white rapids of the Gravona rushing towards the sea, he smells the perfume of the laurel flowers and sees the fires of welcome lighted upon the hills, and knows that any kindness done to the brother will make the sister his friend; and, though his common sense forbids him to love a volcano, he would do much to gain her esteem.

The next evening he is in Ajaccio, and, thoughtful of his message to Antonio, lounges into the local club, which, with the traditional hospitality of all Corsica, is open to foreigners, thinking to find him.

There are but few visitors at that most quiet of all clubs “the Circle of Ajaccio,” and Barnes at first thinks there are none ; but soon angry voices come to him from the next room, followed by a couple of good round home-made Anglo-Saxon oaths that no foreigner could imitate. Glancing in, he sees two French officers, and an English one, who evidently belongs to some British man-o’-war in the harbor, as he wears the naval uniform of that country. The matter of their dispute is the Egyptian question, which up to this time makes very bad blood between the two countries; and, in 1882, before the bombardment of Alexandria, was the cause of even more decided and bitter feeling than now. The controversy has been brought about by an extremely clever cartoon in the London ‘Punch,’that is lying on the table of the Club. This picture represents a gigantic palm tree laden with Egyptian cocoanuts, that France, in the costume of a French officer, is shaking so that the fruit will fall right into the open and capacious jaws of

the British Hon, who is reclining lazily beneath its branches. As Mr Barnes looks in, the climax is readied by the French officer calling the Englishman a liar, ana the next instant getting knocked down for his trouble. The Frenchman gathers himself together, which takes some little time, as the blow was straight from the shoulder, rises, and is about to spring at his opponent, when his comrade stops him, saying “ Not now !” The assaulted man restrains himself, bows and presents his card, in the eagerness of the moment drawing two from his case. The Englishman takes one, leaving the other on the table, and then says “ You must excuse my giving my card in return.” “A b;avc man!” thinks Barnes. “Ho has courage enough to refuse a duel.” “ And you are an English officer?” says the Frenchman, with a sneer, “ And it is because I am an English officer that 1 refuse. To send or accept a challenge is against the orders of the British Admiralty.” “ Not quite so brave as I thought him ; he fears the British Admiralty,” mutters Barnes. “Ah ! you dare not! ” says the Frenchman. “ You are only fit to fight Egyptians.” “lam very well able to murder you if you wish it,” replies the Englishman ; “ and if you put it on the ground of courage, I’ll face both you and a court-martial together.” A meeting is arranged for the next morning at eight sharp, at the little inn by the shore, called II Pescatori, for the Englishman’s ship sails at nine. Then the men leave the club, the French officer remarking “ Demain! dla vwrt! ” This affair would not have interested Mr Barnes greatly—he had once looked on a duel between two cowboys in Texas, and had seen enough blood shed at that meeting between those vagabonds of the wilderness to make him wish never to see another; but, happening a few minutes afterwards to stroll into the room where the dispute had taken place, he picked up the card from the table. After one hasty glance at it, and then another to be absolutely sure, he went hurriedly out into the street, and, ten minutes after, a Corsican boy, instructed to ride for his life, was spurring wildly into the darkness up the Bastia road with a despatch for Musso Uanella. The next morning Mr Barnes hurried to the inn of II Pescatori for the sake of the girl ho had seen waiting so expectantly the coming of her brother ; for the card he had picked up in the Ajaccio Club was—

M. Antonio Paoli, Sous Lieutenant Marine Fransais

CHAPTER 11. COMING. Mr Barnes divides his time on the little balcony of the inn where we first meet him between alternately gazing impatiently up the Bastia road for the dust of moving horses, glancing at his watch and looking at the English gunboat, in hopes she will sail; all the time industriously smoking cigarettes. He is interrupted while rolling the third of these little soothers of human nature by the return of Mateo with his breakfast.

“ Put it on that table there.” “Signor, this is the shady side of the balcony,” says the innkeeper.

“ But the other has the view. That’s the ticket. Now those fellows can’t conic here and kill each other, by any chance, without my getting my eye on them. That’s better chianli than I thought you had in the island.” Saying this, Mr Barnes proceeds to make his breakfast with a very tolerable appetite. Mateo anxiously waits near him, and at last asks eagerly : “ Do you think these men who arc to kill each other will come soon ?”

“ Yes; hut what does that matter to you ?” “They might want some breakfast also. They might be hungry before they kill each other.”

“Ah, that’s what interests you,”laughs Mr Barnes. “You only look at the duello from a gastronomical and business standpoint—you’ve never seen one ?” “No. We kill in Corsica, but not in that way. Have you enjoyed a duel before, Signor?” remarks Mateo, removing the emptied egg-shells from before Ins guest and arranging the fruit. “ Yes ; once, between cowboys in Texas. They killed each other in ten seconds. It will suit mo very well never to view another.”

“ I should have liked to have seen it; it must have been grand !” mumbles the old man.

But the recollection of the most terrible sight of his life makes Mr Barnes anxious about his present episode. He rises and again looks up the road coming from the interior—not even a dust cloud—not a sign of her.

“If Marina comes, her brother can’t fight if he has any feeling for her. I couldn’t, with such a sister as that. I’d take no chances of leaving her alone in the world,” he half mutters.

Rolling another cigarette, he is about to sit down again, when, as he turns toward the water, he sees a boat rowed by a couple of stout native fishermen rapidly round one of the points of rocks that outline the little bay. A moment after, her bow, driven by a vigorous stroke or two, is well up on the shelving beach. In her stern sits the English officer of the night before, accompanied by another, who is doubtless his second.

“ The beggars are ahead of her,” Mr Barnes mutters. “I’ll have to do what I can myself. Anyhow it’s best to sec the Englishman first.” As the two officers land, and look along the beach, and then up at the inn, apparently expecting to see their antagonist, a wild thought flashes through Barnes’s brain. Marina’s brother is not yet here ; why not present himself as the brother’s representative, offer an apology from him to the Englishman, and send him back to his ship, which has already hoisted in her boats, and is evidently about to leave the harbor. A grim smile passes across his face at this novel idea ; but, even as he glances about to sec that the Corsican is not yet near enou hj to prevent his plan succeeding, he reject.-, it at a trick unworthy of him, feeling certain that if Marina ever discovered he had juggled with what she would consider her brother’s honor, she would doubtless hato him for such impertinent interference.

The next instant he has taken his line, and, impatiently tossing away his halfsmoked cigarette, he calls out: “ I say, you chaps down there ! Come up here and have some breakfast with me ! I haven’t seen an English face for a month ! I'm Barnes, of Now York !” The two British officers start in astonishment at the familiarity of his address, and one of them, the principal of the affair, after a short pause, says, taking off bis cap, and bowing in almost mock politeness: “ Much obliged for your kind invitation, but we are not hungry, and are here on an affair of business, Mister Barnes, of Now York 1”

Tho other, a more morose creature, mutters to himself: “ Curse tho infernal impudence of Barnes, of New York,” during this taking out of the boat a couple of ominous-looking packages. They think I’m a fool, cogitates Barnes, of New York, and that’s half the negotiation. An acknowledged idiot can generally drive a batter bargain than a wise man; people are not on their guard against his wisdom. That makes a great deal of what is commonly called “fool’s luck.” Mr Barnes, of New York, has the peculiar faculty of always leaving as a first impression the fact that he is an utter imbecile, though on further acquaintance most people think they have made a mistake. A moment after he shouts in reply: “That’s the business I want to see you about. Come up and have a glass of wine with me in the shade. That’ll be better than my going down with you. The shingle below, mow the sun is on it, would roast a shrimp,”

The two officers hold an undertone consultation, and then ascend the half-decayed

little wooden stairway that leads from the shore to the inn. They are both young men. One, the principal of the affair, is probably about thirty years of age, and wears the full-dress uniform of a lieutenant in Her Majesty’s Navy ; the other, who is but little over twenty, that of a midshipman in the same service. They are both generally very much the same sort of fellows who fought under Nelson, and are described by Captain Marryat, with the addition of a century's advance in refinement. The man of the night before is fair, reasonably tall, and apparently amiable ; the other, darker, shorter, and more inclined to be punctilliously bloodthirsty, as seconds in affairs of honor generally ate. He has rather a bulldog countenance, and, with the recklessness of youth, is apparently determined his principal shall smell powder. Arrived on the little balcony, the latter advances with quarter-deck decision towards Mr Barnes, who has taken another fruitless glance up the Bastia road, and speaks to the point. “You say you want to see us on this affair—what affair ?” “ His affair of honor—he’s come here to fight ? Hasn’t he ?” replies the American, indicating the principal by his glance.

“ With whom ?” inquires the second, diplomatically. “ With Monsieur Paoli, sous lieutenantin the French Navy !” says Mr Barnes. “Ah! you came then as a friend of the Frenchman ?”

“ No ! I am here on my own hook !” “Then by what right ?” The Englishman is drawing himself up haughtily. “lama friend of his sister’s !” interrupts the American.

“ His sister!” ejaculates the second in surprise. The Englishmen look at each other, and the principal turns away with a soft look in his eyes. His second does not regard the matter in the same light, as he sneers, “Ah breakers ahead ! I guess you’re his sister’s lover, and perhaps are spoons enough on the sister to take the sister’s brother’s place !” “ 1 am not spoons on the sister, but if I did take his sister’s brother’s place in front of you, sir, you would not like it, I am Barnes, of New York !” The American finds it difficult to keep lifts temper. This peculiar repetition of “ Barnes, of New York,” evidently sets his hearer to thinking, for he suddenly exclaims: “ Not Barnes, of New York, the celebrated rifle shot, who won the International off-hand cup, and whose shooting with the pistol in Paris astonished the Frencheys so much, ‘ The Times ’ said ?”

“ That’s my name!” The answer is neither modest nor logical, but it is true, for Barnes’s skill with all kinds of firearms has made his name celebrated the world over.

“Then you’re the man who can drive tacks, split cards, and hit swinging bullets?” Both the Britons look at him with much respect. For a man to be admired in England has only to beat everybody else at some sport that calls for nerve and pluck; and Mr Barnes, in the shooting gallery or before the butts in the open field, is, to use an Americanism, “on top of tho heap.” “No ! I don’t care to stand before you,” says the second. “I’d like to have one more chance of seeing England ; as I will, in spite of those brutes of Egyptians, the cholera, and all that; but before your pistol I’d have none.”

This speech has no fear in it, it is merely a statement of fact.

“ But we must settle this matter quickly,” he goes on, “The Vulture” (he points to the gun-boat) “ will sail in half-an-hour. That Frenchman must be here in ten minutes or we return to our ship.” “Then let me give you some wine; it always makes human nature more kindly ! —Mateo ! glasses for tho gentlemen !” While this is being done, Barnes goes out of the inn, and takes another long searching gaze up the Bastia road. At first he can see no sign of moving life in the early morning light; after a time he is almost sure is a little cloud of rising dust between two hills some miles distant. If that is she, it will be fifteen minutes before Marina comes. At he turns away, two figures in French uniforms are rapidly approaching him along tho road that comes from Ajaccio; and he knows that, though the sister may be too late, the brother will bo in time. Returning to the Englishmen again, he quietly says : “ I know the interference of an outsider in such a matter as this is unusual, and may be impertinent, but before you fight the man I want to tell you of his sister.” After a moment’s pause, the principal now for the first time speaks. His voice, in contrast to his second's, is full of feeling; his manners cultured, as he says: “ His sister ? What can any man’s sister have to do with a miserable affair of this kind ? ” His voice softens on the word sister, while the other, his second, turns his eyes seaward, as if looking towards his home in old England. “ A great deal,” is the reply. “ Have you no sister ?”

“ Yes, a dear one! ” says the sailor. “But my sister in this matter takes her chance of losing a brother, and his sister must do the same. For God’s sake don’t talk to me of home and sisters, and all that, at such a moment as this. l ”

As he hastily drinks down a glass of wine to conceal an cmo'ion that does him honor, Barnes now knows that, if he makes no mistake, his point is won. “ I won’t talk to you of your sister; I’ll only speak to you of his.” And he gives them in a few words a description of the old Corsican home on the slope of the mountain ; of the young and beautiful girl he has seen only the other day; her romantic temperament, that has but one passion—her love for her brother, the only one of her blood upon earth ; and her expectation of that very day meeting him on his return from long foreign service. “ After what I have told you,” Barnes concludes, “ will you be the man to prevent that meeting ?” The question is put straight, and is answered squarely: “ God forbid ! Not if I can avoid it.” “ You can avoid it.” “How?” “ By making an apology ! ”

This is answered with equal squareness and more force by the second. “I’m d—d if he shall! I won’t let him ! ”

Mr Barnes wonders how he got on to the quarter-deck, and more, why he was selected by one who is evidently a gentleman to support him in an affair of this delicate nature.

But the principal interrupts his second, saying, “You have enlisted my sympathy for the young lady you describe, but her brother is a naval officer like me. Your appeal would do equally well to his commanding officer to prevent his going into action; and how do you suppose his commanding officer would answer you ? Besides, I did not challenge the beggar; I don’t want to kill him ; I only want to protect myself.” “ And if he pops at my friend, my friend shall pop at him ! ” rejoins the second, who is now becoming excited. Barnes pays no attention to his remark, bnt waits till he catches the eye of the principal, then looking him full in the face, says “ Very well, if he kills you ? ” “ There’ll be one less Englishman for the Egyptians to shoot at! ” “ And if you kill him ? ” says Mr Barnes.

“ I have told you already I don’t want to kill him, I don’t mind taking my chance of life or death on the quarter deck along with the rest in action, though I want no private blood-stains upon me; but a man, with these foreign chaps out here, must uphold the honor of the British sailor and that flag.” He points to the beautiful ensign of his country, floating from the gaff of the distant gunboat, that wherever seen, the world over, means protection for the Anglo-Saxon race, “Situated as I am, would you apologise ?” he asked. “Yes, if I were in the wrong,” says Mr Barnes.

“ But lam not in the wrong; at least not more so than the other. This miserable affair all came about from a picture of ‘ Punch,’ intended to make men laugh, not murder each other. ”

“ Ah, yes; political cartoons, when witty, make one side laugh and the other side savage. I wonder how many murders ‘ Punch ’ and ‘ Puck ’ have produced ?” The young naval officer is now laughing at the remembrance of the picture, “ It was so awfully jolly, you see. The lazy British lion—ha ! ha! was eating all the fruit the French monkey was shaking down

to him”—and he now describes the cut to his companion, who bursts into a loud guffaw and says : “ A deuced nice mouthful it will be for the lion; I wonder how we chaps ’ull like the dish, who have to do the crunching for the lion ! ” Mr Barnes takes another look up the Bastia road; the dust cloud has left the hills and is now coming across the plain along the banks of the Gravonna; it is a little larger, consequently nearer. But the two French officers are within three minutes’ walk of the inn. He catches his man’s eye and now strikes for the last time, saying: “For some political cause, it hardly matters what now, you got into a dispute that was not personal.” “ Not till he called me a liar !”

“For which you knocked him down; you’ve had the best of the affair so far,” insinuates tho mediator.

“ You see a man has to do something when a man calls him that; he can’t swallow such a name; I can’t anyway!” rejoins the Englishman. “ Yes,” says Mr Barnes diplomatically, “ I should not like to have any one call me a liar; he might be telling the truth, you know; I should have knocked him down too, but having knocked him down I should not care to kill him.” “ Neither do I!” “ Then why not tender an apology—will you?” “ Y-e-s !” says the young man rather reluctantly after consideration. “Then you do it against my advice, and if you do send one, curse me if I’ll carry it to a crowing Parlez-vous; I wouldn’t mind so much if it wasn’t a frog-eater!” With these words the second rises, goes to the other end of the balcony, gazes at the gunboat, and whistles under his breath the air of an old sea-song.

Barnes glances after him in disgust; he likes bull-dog determination, but is too much of a cosmopolitan to have anything but contempt for bulldog brains and insular prejudice. “ Nevertheless I shall offer an apology,” say the English gentleman, after at the] English bulldog with a slight smile, “ but one that can in no way degrade me or lower the uniform I wear.” “ That’s the answer of a brave man and a brick ! ” cries the enthusiastic Barnes, grasping his hand. “ I wouldn’t have you do more.” “ But in case he should not receive my explanation ?” “He shall receive it; I’ll guarantee that he does. I have something here” (Mr Barnes is thinking of Marina’s laurel flowers) “that will make him receive any reasonable explanation.” “Ah! something from his sister,” says the Englishman. “I’m glad of that; I've no wish to injure him more than I have done, and no wish that he should injure me. My friend there is not just the man I should have liked to have brought with me on such an affair. Though true as steel and brave as any, he’s too hot-headed.” He speaks this under his breath. “The pugnacity of youth," suggests Barnes in the same tone.

“ Yes. I should not have brought him, but none of my wardroom messmates could get leave. lam sorry if anything he has said annoyed you.” “ Not at all! I took it for what it was worth ?” Barnes is here interrupted by the object of their colloquy advancing to them and saying to his comrade “ You have decided to send an apology ?” “ Yes ! I shall simply say that lam sorry I knocked him down.” “ No more ? ” “ Not another word !” “ And if he does not receive it?” “ Then I’ll defend my life and my honor as best I can,” comes the reply. “ I’ll take that message with a great deal of pleasure ! ” says the second, “ Why ? ” This question is from Barnes. The answer comes straight as a shot. “ Because I know Frenchy will never receive it. Curse him ! ” With that this British mastiff produces two old-fashioned ship’s pistols of tho kind used in the last generation, and begins to examine and test them. The name of their maker, Jarvis, and the date of their manufacture, 1854, is stamped upon them. “ You’re not going to use those things?” says Mr Barnes, glancing with contempt at the weapons, and noticing their age and maker.

“Why not? They are the only ones I could get without having questions asked. They’ll hill a man as well as the best duelling pistol ever made.” “Are you much of a shot?” remarked Barnes to the principal. “ The worst in the world !” is tho reply.

“ Then you are just the man to be deadly with one of tin so.” Barnes picks up the weapons and examines them. They are simply old percussion pistols, with very large boxes, long barrels, and timber enough in their stocks to make a pair of walkingcanes. He puts them down, noting as he does so that one has scratched upon its stock, apparently done in some moment of idleness, with a knife, a name “Edwin Gerard Anstruther ’’—though the other is free from all inscription. He has been rather curious to discover who the English officer is, and notes this with sonm interest, as the two men have carefully avoided calling each other by name daring their interview with him.

Mr Barnes, however, continues : “ I’m morally certain a crack shot, if he pointed one of these things straight at his man, would miss him ; but a duffer with a pistol would be sure not to hold true, and would be very liable to blow the top of his opponent’s head off. You’re not anxious to do that, are you ?” “ No !” slowly says the Englishman. “ Then I’ll teach you how to miss him.” With that he takes a couple of sighting shots, discharging the pistols at the of the cliff that is near him, and noting with careful accuracy the places where the bullets struck. “Ah, now 1 can tell you exactly what they 'll do at twelve paces, as they both shoot pretty much the same. Their elevation is near enough, but hold either of them two feet to the right of your man and your ball ’ll go plump through him.” “ And if,” says the second with a laugh, “ you hold two feet to the left of him, how then ?”

“Then, standing where one of you must probably stand, you’d have a very fair chance of bagging one of your Corsican boatmen. ”

“Then what shall 1 do to miss him ?” inquires the lieutenant. “Shoot right straight at him and he’s safe as if he wasn’t shot at ” ; triumphantly replies Barnes. During this dissertation upon firearms, the English combatant has been looking seaward. His nautical eye has caught a sign of the immediate departure of his vessel, for he suddenly says “If my opponent doesn’t come soon he’ll not find me here. I can wait hut little longer. The Vulture is taking up her slack cable.” The second, who has been looking anxiously down the Ajaccio road and has espied the two French officers, cries quickly “ That’s your man, isn’t it?” “Yes," responds the other, and then hurriedly says, bowing politely, “ I’m much obliged to you, Mr Barnes, of Now York. You will excuse our not giving our names and asking you to forget our faces, for were this affair known—end how it may—it would mean a court-martial for both of us.” “ You can be sure I’ll forget to-morrow I ever saw you ! Not complimentary, but satisfactory,” laughs the American. The lieutenant shortly adds: “I shall remember my promise; you have my word,” Then the two Britons descend the stairs, the midshipman remarking to his companion, solto voce : “ That American Bernes, of New York, is a devilish queer bird,” So they disappear. The two men in French uniform are just entering the inn ; but the dust cloud on the Bastia road is now not two miles away. Circling into the air like a tropic water-spout, it is coming as fast as tired horses can bring it. By the aid of his field-glass Barnes discovers in this cloud moving forms; one a female figure, eager and impatient,advancing before therest. Something in its graceful pose tells him it is Marina, If he can postpone her brother’s meeting till she comes, no man with blood in his body could fight a duel if that sister implored him to desist, Barnes turns hurriedly to the man whose face tells him is the one to whom ho must address himself, but as he advances he hears him whisper to the

erect military figure that strides at his side “ Remember Andr6; it is ala mart (To be continued.)