Sandoval, negligently leaning on the table, followed with an apparently indifferent glance these various manifestations, though he was suffering from lively anxiety, and his heart beat ready to burst his chest. He was playing for a heavy stake; he knew it, for he had, with the infallible glance of all ambitious men, calculated all the chances for and against. Hence, it was only by the strength of his will that he succeeded in giving his face a marble rigidity which did not permit the supreme agony he was suffering internally to be divined. When silence was nearly re-established, and he might hope to be heard, he continued, in a firm voice: "You did me the honour to appoint me your Chief, and I believe that hitherto I have rendered myself worthy of that honour." He paused as if to await a reply. A murmur of assent gently tickled his ear. "What is he driving at?" Orson asked in a rough voice. "You shall know," said Sandoval, who overheard him. And he continued: "In the common interest, I consider it my duty this night to hand you back the authority with which you entrusted me. You have at present among you a man more capable than myself of commanding you, a man whose mere name will inspire terror in the heart of your enemies. In a word, I offer you my resignation, proposing that you should elect on the spot White Scalper as your Chief!" It was only then that Sandoval really knew the feeling of his comrades toward him. Of two hundred pirates assembled at this moment in the dining hall, two thirds pronounced immediately for him, energetically refusing the resignation he offered apparently with so much self-denial; one half the remaining third gave no sign of approval or disapproval. Thirty or forty of the bandits alone received the proposal with shouts of joy.