Friends and relations now began to search for one another in the crowd, which broke quickly into knots, each contriving how to enjoy together the plenty that was to descend upon them. My grandfather’s eye at this juncture was again attracted by the old Genoese woman. When the crowd shouted, she screened her eyes with her withered hand, and, with her nostril spread, her chin fallen, in her eagerness gazed towards the sea—but presently shook her head, discerning nothing. Then she plucked by the arm a joyful Spaniard.

“Es verdad? Por Dios, es verdad?” she cried; “jura! jura!”—(Is it true? Swear by Heaven it is true.)

“Si, si,” said the Spaniard, pointing; “es verdad” (’tis true). “You may see them yourself.”

Instantly the old woman, for the last time, drew forth her treasured crust, and began to devour it, muttering, as she tore away each mouthful, “Mas mañana! mas mañana!” (I shall have more to-morrow—more to-morrow!)

After the crowd had partially dispersed, Owen was returning to his quarters to breakfast, when, as he paused to open the door, he heard a voice he thought he knew crying out in affright in the rooms opposite, where Von Dessel resided. Presently the door of the quarters was opened, and the flushed and frightened face of Esther Lazaro appeared, as she struggled to escape from Von Dessel, who held her arm.

“Señor, señor, speak to the gentleman!” she cried to Owen.

“Leetle foolish girl,” said Von Dessel, grinning a smile on seeing him; “she frightens at nothing. Come in, child”—trying to shut the door.

“Why don’t you let her alone?” said Owen; “don’t you see she doesn’t like you?”

“Pouf!” said the captain. “We all have trouble with them sometimes—you must know that well.”

“No, by Jupiter!” cried Frank Owen. “If I couldn’t gain them willingly, they might go to the devil for me. But you hurt her—pray let her go—you must indeed.”

“Do you mind your own affair,” said the captain, “and don’t meddle;” and, exerting his strength, he drew Esther in, and partially succeeded in shutting the door—she calling the while again on Owen to help her. Frank stepped forward, and, putting his foot against the door, sent it into the room, causing Captain Von Dessel, who was behind it, to stagger back with some violence, and to quit his hold of Esther, who ran down stairs.

“Very good, sir,” said the captain, stalking grimly out of his room, pale with rage. “You have thought right to interfere with me, and to insult me. By Gott! I will teach you better, young man. Shall we say in one hour, sir, in the Fives’ Court?”

Owen nodded. “At your pleasure,” said he, and, entering his own quarters, shut the door.

Meanwhile my grandfather walked about with the telescope he had brought with him to look after the fleet under his arm, enjoying the unusual sight of happy faces around him. And he has remarked it as a singular feature of humanity, that this prospect of relief from physical want inspired a far more deep and universal joy than he had witnessed in any public rejoicings arising from such causes as loyalty or patriotism evinced at a coronation or the news of a great victory, or the election of a popular candidate; and hence my grandfather takes occasion to express a fear that human nature is, except among the rarer class of souls, more powerfully and generally influenced by its animal propensities than by more refined causes.

He was so engrossed with the philanthropic pursuit of enjoying the joy of the multitude, and the philosophic one of extracting moral reflections therefrom, that he quite forgot he had not breakfasted. He was just beginning to be reminded of the circumstance by a feeling of hollowness in the region of the stomach, and to turn his steps homeward, when a light hand was laid on his arm. My grandfather turned, and beheld the face of the young Jewess looking wistfully in his.

She began at first to address him in Spanish—the language she spoke most naturally; but, quickly perceiving her mistake on hearing the extraordinary jargon in which he replied (for it is a singular fact that nobody but Carlota, who taught him, could understand my grandfather’s Spanish), she exchanged it for his own tongue. She told him in a few hurried words of the quarrel Owen had incurred on her account with Von Dessel, and of the challenge she had overheard given by the latter, beseeching the Major to hasten to prevent the result.

“In the Fives’ Court! in an hour!” said my grandfather. “When did this happen?”

Esther thought nearly an hour ago—she had been almost so long seeking my grandfather.

“I’ll go, child—I’ll go at once,” said the Major. “With Von Dessel, too, as if he could find nobody else to quarrel with but the best swordsman in the garrison. ‘Souls and bodies,’ quoted my grandfather, ‘hath he divorced three.’”

With every stride he took, the Major’s uneasiness was augmented. At any time his anxiety would have been extreme while peril threatened Frank; but now, when he was calculating on him as a companion at many a well-spread table, when they might forget their past miseries, it peculiarly affected him.

“To think,” muttered my grandfather, “that these two madmen should choose a time when everybody is going to be made so happy, by getting plenty to eat, to show their gratitude to Providence by cutting one another’s throats!”

The danger to Owen was really formidable; for, though a respectable swordsman, he was no unusual proficient in the graceful art, while his opponent was not only, as my grandfather had said, the best swordsman in the garrison, but perhaps the best at that time in the army. As a student in Germany he had distinguished himself in some sanguinary duels; and since his arrival in Gibraltar, a Spanish gentleman, a very able fencer, had fallen beneath his arm.

“God grant,” said my grandfather to himself, as he neared the Fives’ Court, “that we may settle this without the perdition of souls. Frank, my dear boy, we could better spare a better man!”

On attempting to enter the Fives’ Court he was stopped by the marker, posted at the door. “It was engaged,” he said, “for a private match.”

“Ay, ay,” said my grandfather, pushing past him; “a pretty match, indeed! Ay, ay—pray God we can stop it!”

Finding the inner door locked, the Major, who was well acquainted with the locality—for, when he had nothing else particular to do, he would sometimes mark for the players for a rubber or two—ascended the stairs to the gallery.

About the centre of the court stood the combatants. All preliminaries had been gone through—for they were stripped to their shirts—and the seconds (one a German, the adjutant of Hardenberg’s regiment—the other, one Lieutenant Rushton, an old hand at these affairs, and himself a fire-eater) stood by, each with a spare sword in his hand. In a corner was the German regimental surgeon, his apparatus displayed on the floor, ready for an emergency. Rushton fully expected Owen to fall, and only hoped he might escape without a mortal wound. Von Dessel himself seemed of the same opinion, standing square and firm as a tower, scarcely troubling himself to assume an attitude, but easy and masterly withal. Both contempt and malice were expressed for his antagonist in his half-shut eyes and the sardonic twist of the corners of his mouth.

“Owen, Owen, my boy!” shouted my grandfather, rushing to the front of the gallery, and leaning over, as the swords crossed—“stop, for God’s sake. You mustn’t fight that