It was one of the laws of the ship, that if any quarrel arose between any two of the crew, there should be no contention on board the ship, but that when they next approached an island, they should, with their friends, land in a boat, and settle the quarrel in a duel on the shore. The artist was so grossly incited by one of the pirates, that he either challenged him, or accepted a challenge from him to fight a duel. Frank would not have had her husband, on any account, refuse the hostile meeting. Public sentiment was such among the pirates, that had he done this, there would have been no end to the insults and abuse he would have received as a reward. Frank was in a state of great agitation and anxiety for the fate of her lover. She was an admirable swordsman, and no one of the piratic crew was a truer shot with the pistol. Her love was so passionate that she felt that she could not live without that husband, whose union with her was so enhanced by the attractions which secrecy and romance give. She was far more ready to peril her own life than to have his endangered. She therefore deliberately provoked such a quarrel with the pirate who was soon to have a hostile meeting with her husband, as to compel him to an immediate and angry challenge. Adroitly she succeeded in having the time appointed for their meeting two hours before the duel was to be fought with her husband. In her intensely excited frame of mind she resolved to make sure work of it. They were to meet at but a few paces distance, discharge their pistols at each other, and then, with drawn swords, advance and fight until one or the other was effectually disabled or killed. The pistols were discharged. Neither of them was seriously wounded. They then crossed swords. There was a fierce clashing of the weapons for a few minutes and then the agile Frank passed her sword through the body of her adversary, and he fell before her a bloody corpse. Such rencontres were too common with that ship’s crew, and Frank had been too conversant all her days with such scenes of blood to have it produce any serious impression upon her mind. With much composure she wiped her crimsoned sword and returned to the ship, exulting in the thought that she had saved her husband’s life. The attachment between Frank and her lover before this seems to have been very strong. But this event bound them more firmly together than ever before.