interested, less warm in her interest, and less pained in the event of
an unfortunate result.

Clasping the gorgeous chain about her neck, his arm again gently
encircled her waist, her head drooped upon her bosom--she did not
speak--she appeared scarcely to feel. For a moment, life and all its
pulses seemed resolutely at a stand; and with some apprehensions, the
youth drew her to his bosom, and spoke with words full of tenderness.
She made no answer to his immediate speech; but her hands, as if
unconsciously, struck the spring which locked the casket that hung upon
the chain, and the miniature lay open before her, the dim light of the
moon shining down upon it. She reclosed it suddenly, and undoing it from
the chain, placed it with a trembling hand in his own; and with an
effort of calm and quiet playfulness, reminded him of the unintended
gift. He received it, but only to place it again in her hand, reuniting
it to the chain.

"Keep it," said he, "Miss Munro--keep it until I return to reclaim it.
It will be as safe in your hands--much safer, indeed, than in mine. She
whose features it describes will not chide, that, at a moment of peril,
I place it in the care of one as gentle as herself."

Her eyes were downcast, as, again receiving it, she inquired with a
girlish curiosity, "Is her name Edith, Mr. Colleton, of whom these
features are the likeness!"

The youth, surprised by the question, met the inquiry with another.

"How know you?--wherefore do you ask?"

She saw his astonishment, and with a calm which had not, during the
whole scene between them, marked her voice or demeanor, she replied
instantly:--

"No matter--no matter, sir. I know not well why I put the
question--certainly with no object, and am now more than answered."

The youth pondered over the affair in silence for a few moments,
but desirous of satisfying the curiosity of the maiden, though on
a subject and in relation to one of whom he had sworn himself to
silence--wondering, at the same time, not less at the inquiry than the
knowledge which it conveyed, of that which he had locked up, as he
thought, in the recesses of his own bosom--was about to reply, when a
hurried step, and sudden noise from the upper apartment of the house,
warned them of the dangers of further delay. The maiden interrupted with
rapid tones the speech he was about to commence:--

"Fly, sir--fly. There is no time to be lost. You have lingered too long
already. Do not hesitate longer--you have heard the determination of
Rivers--this disappointment will only make him more furious. Fly, then,
and speak not. Take the left road at the fork: it leads to the river. It
is the dullest, and if they pursue, they will be most likely to fall
into the other."

"Farewell, then, my good, my protecting angel--I shall not forget
you--have no apprehensions for me--I have now but few for myself. Yet,
ere I go--" and he bent down, and before she was conscious of his
design, his lips were pressed warmly to her pale and beautiful forehead.
"Be not vexed--chide me not," he murmured--"regard me as a brother--if I
live I shall certainly become one. Farewell!"

Leaping with a single bound to his saddle, he stood erect for a moment,
then vigorously applying his spurs, he had vanished in an instant from
the sight. She paused in the doorway until the sounds of his hurrying
progress had ceased to fall upon her ears; then, with a mournful spirit
and heavy step, slowly re-entered the apartment.

CHAPTER XX.

THE OUTLAW AND HIS VICTIM.

Lucy Munro re-entered the dwelling at a moment most inopportune. It was
not less her obvious policy than desire--prompted as well by the
necessity of escaping the notice and consequent suspicions of those whom
she had defrauded of their prey, as by a due sense of that delicate
propriety which belonged to her sex, and which her education, as the
reader will have conjectured, had taught her properly to estimate--that
made her now seek to avoid scrutiny or observation at the moment of her
return. Though the niece, and now under the sole direction and authority
of Munro, she was the child of one as little like that personage in
spirit and pursuit as may well be imagined. It is not necessary that we
should dwell more particularly upon this difference. It happened with
the two brothers, as many of us have discovered in other cases, that
their mental and moral make, though seemingly under the same tutorship,
was widely dissimilar. The elder Munro, at an early period in life,
broke through all restraints--defied all responsibilities--scorned all
human consequences--took no pride or pleasure in any of its domestic
associations--and was only known as a vicious profligate, with whom
nothing might be done in the way of restraint or reformation. When grown
to manhood, he suddenly left his parental home, and went, for a time, no
one could say whither. When heard of, it appeared from all accounts that
his licentiousness of habit had not deserted him: still, however, it had
not, as had been anticipated, led to any fearful or very pernicious
results. Years passed on, the parents died, and the brothers grew more
than ever separate; when, in different and remote communities, they each
took wives to themselves.

The younger, Edgar Munro, the father of Lucy, grew prosperous in
business--for a season at least--and, until borne down by a rush of
unfavorable circumstances, he spared neither pains nor expense in the
culture of the young mind of that daughter whose fortunes are now
somewhat before us. Nothing which might tend in the slightest to her
personal improvement had been withheld; and the due feminine grace and
accomplishment which followed these cares fitted the maiden for the most
refined intellectual converse, and for every gentle association. She was
familiar with books; had acquired a large taste for letters; and a vein
of romantic enthusiasm, not uncommon to the southern temperament, and
which she possessed in a considerable degree, was not a little sharpened
and exaggerated by the works which fell into her hands.

Tenderly loved and gently nurtured by her parents, it was at that period
in her life in which their presence and guardianship were most seriously
needed, that she became an orphan; and her future charge necessarily
devolved upon an uncle, between whom and her father, since their early
manhood, but little association of any kind had taken place. The one
looked upon the other as too licentious, if not criminally so, in his
habits and pursuits; he did not know their extent, or dream of their
character, or he had never doubted for an instant; while he, in turn, so
estimated, did not fail to consider and to style his more sedate brother
an inveterate and tedious proser; a dull sermonizer on feelings which he
knew nothing about, and could never understand--one who prosed on to the
end of the chapter, without charm or change, worrying all about him with
exhortations to which they yielded no regard.

The parties were fairly quits, and there was no love lost between them.
They saw each other but seldom, and, when the surviving brother took up
his abode in the _new purchase_, as the Indian acquisitions of modern
times have been usually styled, he was lost sight of, for a time,
entirely, by his more staid and worthy kinsman.

Still, Edgar Munro did not look upon his brother as utterly bad. A wild
indifference to social forms, and those staid customs which in the
estimation of society become virtues, was, in his idea, the most serious
error of which Walter had been guilty. In this thought he persisted to
the last, and did not so much feel the privations to which his death
must subject his child, in the belief and hope that his brother would
not only be able but willing to supply the loss.

In one respect he was not mistaken. The afflictions which threw the
niece of Walter a dependant upon his bounty, and a charge upon his
attention, revived in some measure his almost smothered and in part
forgotten regards of kindred; and with a tolerably good grace he came
forward to the duty, and took the orphan to the asylum, such as it was,
to which his brother's death-bed prayer had recommended her. At first,
there was something to her young mind savoring of the romance to which
she had rather given herself up, in the notion of a woodland cottage,
and rural sports, and wild vines gadding fantastically around secluded
bowers; but the reality--the sad reality of such a home and its
associations--pressed too soon and heavily upon her to permit her much
longer to entertain or encourage the dream of that glad fancy in which
she originally set out.

The sphere to which she was transferred, it was soon evident, was
neither grateful to the heart nor suited to the mind whose education had
been such as hers; and the spirit of the young maiden, at all times
given rather to a dreamy melancholy than to any very animated impulses,
put on, in its new abiding-place, a garb of increased severity, which at
certain moments indicated more of deep and settled misanthropy than any
mere constitutionality of habit.

Munro was not at all times rude of speech and manner; and, when he
pleased, knew well how so to direct himself as to sooth such a
disposition. He saw, and in a little while well understood, the temper
of his niece; and, with a consideration under all circumstances rather
creditable, he would most usually defer, with a ready accommodation of
his own, to her peculiarities. He was pleased and proud of her
accomplishments; and from being thus proud, so far as such an emotion
could consistently comport with a life and a licentiousness such as his,
he had learned, in reality, to love the object who could thus awaken a
sentiment so much beyond those inculcated by all his other habits. To
her he exhibited none of the harsh manner which marked his intercourse
with all other persons; and in his heart sincerely regretted, and sought
to avoid the necessity which, as we have elsewhere seen, had made him
pledge her hand to Rivers--a disposition of it which he knew was no less
galling and painful to her than it was irksome yet unavoidable to
himself.

Unhappily, however, for these sentiments, he was too much under the
control and at the mercy of his colleague to resist or refuse his
application for her person; and though for a long time baffling, under
various pretences, the pursuit of that ferocious ruffian, he felt that
the time was at hand, unless some providential interference willed it
otherwise, when the sacrifice would be insisted on and must be made; or
probably her safety, as well as his own, might necessarily be
compromised. He knew too well the character of Rivers, and was too much
in his power, to risk much in opposition to his will and desires: and,
as we have already heard him declare, from having been at one time, and
in some respects, the tutor, he had now become, from the operation of
circumstances, the mere creature and instrument of that unprincipled
wretch.

Whatever may have been the crimes of Munro beyond those already
developed--known to and in the possession of Rivers--and whatever the
nature of those ties, as well of league as of mutual risk, which bound
the parties together in such close affinity, it is not necessary that we
should state, nor, indeed, might it be altogether within our compass or
capacity to do so. Their connection had, we doubt not, many
ramifications; and was strengthened, there is little question, by a
thousand mutual necessities, resulting from their joint and
frequently-repeated violations of the laws of the land. They were both
members of an irregular club, known by its constituents in Georgia as
the most atrocious criminal that ever offended society or defied its
punishments; and the almost masonic mysteries and bond which
distinguished the members provided them with a pledge of security which
gave an added impetus to their already reckless vindictiveness against
man and humanity. In a country, the population of which, few and far
between, is spread over a wide, wild, and little-cultivated territory,
the chances of punishment for crime, rarely realized, scarcely
occasioned a thought among offenders; and invited, by the impunity which
marked their atrocities, their reiterated commission. We have digressed,
however, somewhat from our narrative, but thus much was necessary to the
proper understanding of the portions immediately before us, and to the
consideration of which we now return.

The moment was inopportune, as we have already remarked, at which Lucy
Munro endeavored to effect her return to her own apartment. She was
compelled, for the attainment of this object, to cross directly over the
great hall, from the room adjoining and back of which the little
shed-room projected in which she lodged. This hall was immediately
entered upon from the passage-way, leading into the court in front, and
but a few steps were necessary for its attainment. The hall had but a
single outlet besides that through which she now entered, and this led
at once into the adjoining apartment, through which only could she make
her way to her own. Unhappily, this passage also contained the stairway
flight which led into the upper story of the building; and, in her haste
to accomplish her return, she had penetrated too far to effect her
retreat, when a sudden change of direction in the light which Rivers
carried sufficed to develop the form of that person, at the foot of the
stairs, followed by Munro, just returning from the attempt which she had
rendered fruitless, and now approaching directly toward her.

Conscious of the awkwardness of her situation, and with a degree of
apprehension which now for the first time seemed to paralyze her
faculties, she endeavored, but with some uncertainty and hesitation of
manner, to gain the shelter of the wall which stretched dimly beside
her; a hope not entirely vain, had she pursued it decisively, since the
lamp which Rivers carried gave forth but a feeble ray, barely adequate
to the task of guiding the footsteps of those who employed it. But the
glance of the outlaw, rendered, it would seem, more malignantly
penetrating from his recent disappointment, detected the movement; and
though, from the imperfectness of the light, uncertain of the object,
with a ready activity, the result of a conviction that the
long-sought-for victim was now before him, he sprang forward, flinging
aside the lamp as he did so, and grasping with one hand and with rigid
gripe the almost-fainting girl: the other, brandishing a bared knife,
was uplifted to strike, when her shrieks arrested the blow.

Disappointed in not finding the object he sought, the fury of the outlaw
was rather heightened than diminished when he discovered that his arm
only encircled a young and terrified female; and his teeth were gnashed
in token of the bitter wrath in his bosom, and angry curses came from
his lips in the undisguised vexation of his spirit. In the meantime,
Munro advanced, and the lamp having been dashed out in the onset of
Rivers, they were still ignorant of the character of their prisoner,
until, having somewhat recovered from her first alarm, and struggling
for deliverance from the painful gripe which secured her arm, she
exclaimed--

"Unhand me, sir--unhand me, on the instant. What mean you by this
violence?"

"Ha! it is you then, fair mistress, that have done this work. It is you
that have meddled in the concerns of men, prying into their plans, and
arresting their execution. By my soul, I had not thought you so ready or
so apt; but how do you reconcile it to your notions of propriety to be
abroad at an hour which is something late for a coy damsel? Munro, you
must look to these rare doings, or they will work you some difficulty in
time to come."

Munro advanced and addressed her with some sternness--"Why are you
abroad, Lucy, and at this hour? why this disquietude, and what has
alarmed you?--why have you left your chamber?"

The uncle did not obtain, nor indeed did he appear to expect, any answer
to his inquiries. In the meanwhile, Rivers held possession of her arm,
and she continued fruitlessly struggling for some moments in his grasp,
referring at length to the speaker for that interference which he now
appeared slow to manifest.

"Oh, sir! will you suffer me to be treated thus--will you not make this
man undo his hold, and let me retire to my chamber?"

"You should have been there long before this, Lucy," was the reply, in a
grave, stern accent. "You must not complain, if, found thus, at
midnight, in a part of the building remote from your chamber, you should
be liable to suspicions of meddling with things which should not concern
you."

"Come, mistress--pray answer to this. Where have you been to-night--what
doing--why abroad? Have you been eavesdropping--telling tales--hatching
plots?"

The natural ferocity of Rivers's manner was rather heightened by the
tone which he assumed. The maiden, struggling still for the release for
which her spirit would not suffer her to implore, exclaimed:--

"Insolent! By what right do you ask me these or any questions? Unhand
me, coward--unhand me. You are strong and brave only where the feeble
are your opponents."

But he maintained his grasp with even more rigidity than before; and she
turned towards the spot at which stood her uncle, but he had left the
apartment for a light.

"Your speech is bold, fair mistress, and ill suits my temper. You must
be more chary of your language, or you will provoke me beyond my own
strength of restraint. You are my property--my slave, if I so please it,
and all your appeals to your uncle will be of no effect. Hark you! you
have done that to-night for which I am almost tempted to put this dagger
into your heart, woman as you are! You have come between me and my
victim--between me and my enemy. I had summed up all my wrongs,
intending their settlement to-night. You have thwarted all my hopes--you
have defrauded me of all my anticipations. What is it prevents me from
putting you to death on the spot? Nothing. I have no fears, no loves, to
hold and keep me back. I live but for revenge, and that which stays and
would prevent me from its enjoyment, must also become its victim."

At this moment, Munro returned with a lamp. The affrighted girl again
appealed to him, but he heeded her not. He soon left the passage, and
the outlaw proceeded:--

"You love this youth--nay, shrink not back; let not your head droop in
shame; he is worthy of your love, and for this, among other things, I
hate him. He is worthy of the love of others, and for this, too, I hate
him. Fool that you are, he cares not for you. 'Spite of all your aid
to-night, he will not remember you to-morrow--he has no thought of
you--his hope is built upon--he is wedded to another.

"Hear me, then! your life is in my hands, and at my mercy. There are
none present who could interfere and arrest the blow. My dagger is even
now upon your bosom--do you not feel it? At a word--a single suggestion
of my thought--it performs its office, and for this night's defeat I am
half revenged. You may arrest my arm--you may procure your release--even
more--you may escape from the bondage of that union with me for which
your uncle stands pledged, if you please."

"Speak--say--how!" was the eager exclamation of the maiden when this
last suggestion met her ears.

"Put me on the scent--say on what route have you sent this boy, that I
may realize the revenge I so often dream of."

"Never, never, as I hope to live. I would rather you should strike me
dead on the spot."

"Why, so I will," he exclaimed furiously, and his arm rose and the
weapon descended, but he arrested the stroke as it approached her.

"No! not yet. There will be time enough for this, and you will perhaps
be more ready and resigned when I have got rid of this youth in whom you
are so much interested. I need not disguise my purpose to you--you must
have known it, when conspiring for its defeat; and now, Lucy, be
assured, I shall not slumber in pursuit of him. I may be delayed, my
revenge may be protracted, but I shall close with him at last. With
holding the clue which you may unfold, can not serve him very greatly;
and having it in your hands, you may serve yourself and me. Take my
offer--put me on his route, so that he shall not escape me, and be free
henceforward from pursuit, or, as you phrase it, from persecution of
mine."

"You offer highly, very highly, Guy Rivers, and I should be tempted to
anything, save this. But I have not taken this step to undo it. I shall
give you no clue, no assistance which may lead to crime and to the
murder of the innocent. Release my hand, sir, and suffer me to retire."

"You have the means of safety and release in your own hands--a single
condition complied with, and, so far as I am concerned, they are yours.
Where is he gone--where secreted! What is the route which you have
advised him to take? Speak, and to the point, Lucy Munro, for I may not
longer be trifled with."

"He is safe, and by this time, I hope, beyond your reach. I tell you
thus much, because I feel that it can not yield you more satisfaction
than it yields to me."

"It is in vain, woman, that you would trifle with and delay me; he can
not escape me in the end. All these woods are familiar to me, in night
as in day, as the apartment in which we stand; and towards this boy I
entertain a feeling which will endue me with an activity and energy as
unshrinking in the pursuit as the appetite for revenge is keen which
gives them birth and impulse. I hate him with a sleepless, an
unforgiving hate, that can not be quieted. He has dishonored me in the
presence of these men--he has been the instrument through which I bear
this badge, this brand-stamp on my cheek--he has come between my passion
and its object--nay, droop not--I have no reference now to you, though
you, too, have been won by his insidious attractions, while he gives you
no thought in return--he has done more than this, occasioned more than
this, and wonder not that I had it in my heart at one moment to-night to
put my dagger into your bosom, since through you it had been defrauded
of its object. But why tremble--do you not tell me he is safe?"

"I do! and for this reason I tremble. I tremble with joy, not fear. I
rejoice that through my poor help he is safe. I did it all. I sought
him--hear me, Guy Rivers, for in his safety I feel strong to speak--I
sought him even in his chamber, and felt no shame--I led the way--I
guided him through all the avenues of the house--when you ascended the
stairs we stood over it in the closet which is at its head. We beheld
your progress--saw, and counted every step you took; heard every word
you uttered; and more than once, when your fiend soul spoke through your
lips, in horrible threatenings, my hand arrested the weapon with which
the youth whom you now seek would have sent you to your long account,
with all your sins upon your head. I saved you from his blow; not
because you deserved to live, but because, at that moment, you were too
little prepared to die."

It would be difficult to imagine--certainly impossible to describe, the
rage of Rivers, as, with an excited spirit, the young girl, still
trembling, as she expressed it, from joy, not fear, avowed all the
particulars of Colleton's escape. She proceeded with much of the fervor
and manner of one roused into all the inspiration of a holy defiance of
danger:--

"Wonder not, therefore, that I tremble--my soul is full of joy at his
escape. I heed not the sneer and the sarcasm which is upon your lips and
in your eyes. I went boldly and confidently even into the chamber of the
youth--I aroused him from his slumbers--I defied, at that moment of
peril, what were far worse to me than your suspicions--I defied such as
might have been his. I was conscious of no sin--no improper thought--and
I called upon God to protect and to sanction me in what I had
undertaken. He has done so, and I bless him for the sanction."

She sunk upon her knees as she spoke, and her lips murmured and parted
as if in prayer, while the tears--tears of gladness--streamed warmly and
abundantly from her eyes. The rage of the outlaw grew momently darker
and less governable. The white foam collected about his mouth--while his
hands, though still retaining their gripe upon hers, trembled almost as
much as her own. He spoke in broken and bitter words.

"And may God curse you for it! You have dared much, Lucy Munro, this
hour. You have bearded a worse fury than the tiger thirsting after
blood. What madness prompts you to this folly? You have heard me avow my
utter, uncontrollable hatred of this man--my determination, if possible,
to destroy him, and yet you interpose. You dare to save him in my
defiance. You teach him our designs, and labor to thwart them yourself.
Hear me, girl! you know me well--you know I never threaten without
execution. I can understand how it is that a spirit, feeling at this
moment as does your own, should defy death. But, bethink you--is there
nothing in your thought which is worse than death, from the terrors of
which, the pure mind, however fortified by heroic resolution, must still
shrink and tremble? Beware, then, how you chafe me. Say where the youth
has gone, and in this way retrieve, if you can, the error which taught
you to connive at his escape."

"I know not what you mean, and have no fears of anything you can do. On
this point I feel secure, and bid you defiance. To think now, that,
having chiefly effected the escape of the youth, I would place him again
within your power, argues a degree of stupidity in me that is wantonly
insulting. I tell you he has fled, by this time, beyond your reach. I
say no more. It is enough that he is in safety; before a word of mine
puts him in danger, I'll perish by your hands, or any hands."

"Then shall you perish, fool!" cried the ruffian; and his hand, hurried
by the ferocious impulse of his rage, was again uplifted, when, in her
struggles at freedom, a new object met his sight in the chain and
portrait which Ralph had flung about her neck, and which, now falling
from her bosom, arrested his attention, and seemed to awaken some
recognition in his mind. His hold relaxed upon her arm, and with eager
haste he seized the portrait, tearing it away with a single wrench from
the rich chain to which it was appended, and which now in broken
fragments was strewed upon the floor.

Lucy sprang towards him convulsively, and vainly endeavored at its
recovery. Rivers broke the spring, and his eyes gazed with serpent-like
fixedness upon the exquisitely beautiful features which it developed.
His whole appearance underwent a change. The sternness had departed from
his face which now put on an air of abstraction and wandering, not
usually a habit with it. He gazed long and fixedly upon the portrait,
unheeding the efforts of the girl to obtain it, and muttering at
frequent intervals detached sentences, having little dependence upon one
another:--

"Ay--it is she," he exclaimed--"true to the life--bright, beautiful,
young, innocent--and I--But let me not think!"--

Then turning to the maid--

"Fond fool--see you the object of adoration with him whom you so
unprofitably adore. He loves _her_, girl--she, whom I--but why should I
tell it you? is it not enough that we have both loved and loved in vain;
and, in my revenge, you too shall enjoy yours."

"I have nothing to revenge, Guy Rivers--nothing for you, above all
others, to revenge. Give me the miniature; I have it in trust, and it
must not go out of my possession."

She clung to him as she spoke, fruitlessly endeavoring at the recovery
of that which he studiously kept from her reach. He parried her efforts
for a while with something of forbearance; but ere long his original
temper returned, and he exclaimed, with all the air of the demon:--

"Why will you tempt me, and why longer should I trifle? You cannot have
the picture--it belongs, or should belong, as well as its original, to
me. My concern is now with the robber from whom you obtained it. Will
you not say upon what route he went? Will you not guide me--and,
remember well--there are some terrors greater to your mind than any
threat of death. Declare, for the last time--what road he took."

The maiden was still, and showed no sign of reply. Her eye wandered--her
spirit was in prayer. She was alone with a ruffian, irresponsible and
reckless, and she had many fears.

"Will you not speak?" he cried--"then you must hear. Disclose the fact,
Lucy--say, what is the road, or what the course you have directed for
this youth's escape, or--mark me! I have you in my power--my fullest
power--with nothing to restrain my passion or my power, and--"

She struggled desperately to release herself from his grasp, but he
renewed it with all his sinewy strength, enforcing, with a vicelike
gripe, the consciousness, in her mind, of the futility of all her
physical efforts.

"Do you not hear!" he said. "Do you comprehend me."

"Do your worst!" she cried. "Kill me! I defy your power and your
malice!"

"Ha! but do you defy my passions. Hark ye, if ye fear not death, there
is something worse than death to so romantic a damsel, which shall teach
ye fear. Obey me, girl--report the route taken by this fugitive, or by
all that is black in hell or bright in heaven, I--"

And with a whisper, he hissed the concluding and cruel threat in the
ears of the shuddering and shrinking girl. With a husky horror in her
voice, she cried out:--

"You dare not! monster as you are, you dare not!" then shrieking, at the
full height of her voice--"Save me, uncle! save me! save me!"

"Save you! It is he that dooms you! He has given you up to any fate that
I shall decree!"

"Liar! away! I defy you. You dare not, ruffian! Your foul threat is but
meant to frighten me."

The creeping terrors of her voice, as she spoke, contradicted the tenor
of her speech. Her fears--quite as extreme as he sought to make
them--were fully evinced in her trembling accents.

"Frighten you!" answered the ruffian. "Frighten you! why, not so
difficult a matter either! But it is as easy to do, as to threaten--to
make you feel as to make you fear--and why not? why should you not
become the thing at once for which you have been long destined? Once
certainly mine, Lucy Munro, you will abandon the silly notion that you
can be anything to Ralph Colleton! Come!--"

Her shrieks answered him. He clapped his handkerchief upon her mouth.

"Uncle! uncle! save me!"

She was half stifled--she felt breath and strength failing. Her brutal
assailant was hauling her away, with a force to which she could no
longer oppose resistance; and with a single half-ejaculated prayer--"Oh,
God! be merciful!" she sunk senselessly at his feet, even as a falling
corse.

CHAPTER XXI.

"THOU SHALT DO NO MURDER!"

Even at this moment, Munro entered the apartment. He came not a moment
too soon. Rivers had abused his opportunity thus far; and it is not to
be doubted that he would have forborne none of the advantages which his
brute strength afforded him over the feeble innocent, were it not for
the interposition of the uncle. He _had_ lied, when he had asserted to
the girl the sanction of the uncle for his threatened crime. Munro was
willing that his niece should become the _wife_ of the outlaw, and
barely willing to consent even to this; but for anything less than
this--base as he was--he would sooner have braved every issue with the
ruffian, and perished himself in defence of the girl's virtue. He had
his pride of family, strange to say, though nursed and nestled in a
bosom which could boast no other virtue.

The moment he saw the condition of Lucy, with the grasp of Rivers still
upon her, he tore her away with the strength of a giant.

"What have you been doing, Guy?"

His keen and suspicious glance of eye conveyed the question more
significantly.

"Nothing! she is a fool only!"

"And you have been a brute! Beware! I tell you, Guy Rivers, if you but
ruffle the hair of this child in violence, I will knife you, as soon as
I would my worst enemy."

"Pshaw! I only threatened her to make her confess where she had sent
Colleton or hidden him."

"Ay, but there are some threats, Guy, that call for throat-cutting. Look
to it. We know each other; and you know that, though I'm willing you
should _marry_ Lucy, I'll not stand by and see you harm her; and, with
my permission you lay no hands on her, until you are married."

"Very well!" answered the ruffian sullenly, and turning away, "see that
you get the priest soon ready. I'll wait upon neither man nor woman over
long! You sha'n't trifle with me much longer."

To this speech Munro made no answer. He devoted himself to his still
insensible niece, whom he raised carefully from the floor, and laid her
upon a rude settee that stood in the apartment. She meanwhile remained
unconscious of his care, which was limited to fanning her face and
sprinkling water upon it.

"Why not carry her to her chamber--put her in bed, and let us be off?"
said Rivers.

"Wait awhile!" was the answer.

The girl had evidently received a severe shock. Munro shook his head,
and looked at Rivers angrily.

"See to it, Guy, if any harm comes to her."

"Pshaw!" said the other, "she is recovering now."

He was right. The eyes of the sufferer unclosed, but they were
vacant--they lacked all intelligence. Munro pulled a flask of spirits
from his pocket, and poured some into her lips. They were livid, and her
cheeks of ashy paleness.

"She recovers--see!"

The teeth opened and shut together again with a sudden spasmodic energy.
The eyes began to receive light. Her breathing increased.

"She will do now," muttered Munro. "She will recover directly. Get
yourself ready, Guy, and prepare to mount, while I see that she is put
to bed. It's now a necessity that we should push this stranger to the
wall, and silence him altogether. I don't oppose you now, seeing that
we've got to do it."

"Ay," quoth Rivers, somewhat abstractedly--for he was a person of
changing and capricious moods--"ay! ay! it has to be done! Well! we will
do it!--as for her!"

Here he drew nigh and grasped the hand of the only half-conscious
damsel, and stared earnestly in her face. Her eyes opened largely and
wildly upon him, then closed again; a shudder passed over her form, and
her hand was convulsively withdrawn from his grasp.

"Come, come, let her alone, and be off," said Munro. "As long as you are
here, she'll be in a fit! See to the horses. There's no use to wait. You
little know Lucy Munro if you reckon to get anything out of her. You may
strike till doomsday at her bosom, but, where she's fixed in principle,
she'll perish before she yields. Nothing can move her when she's
resolved. In that she's the very likeness of her father, who was like a
rock when he had sworn a thing."

"Ha! but the rock may be split, and the woman's will must be made to
yield to a superior. I could soon--"

He took her hand once more in his iron grasp.

"Let her go, Guy!" said Munro sternly. "She shall have no rough usage
while I'm standing by. Remember that! It's true, she's meddled in
matters that didn't concern her, but there is an excuse. It was
womanlike to do so, and I can't blame her. She's a true woman, Guy--all
heart and soul--as noble a young thing as ever broke the world's
bread--too noble to live with such as we, Guy; and I only wish I had so
much man's strength as to be worthy of living with such as she."

"A plague on her nobility! It will cut all our throats, or halter us;
and your methodistical jargon only encourages her. Noble or not, she has
been cunning enough to listen to our private conversation; has found out
all our designs; has blabbed everything to this young fellow, and made
him master of our lives. Yes! would you believe it of her nobleness and
delicacy, that she has this night visited him in his very chamber?"

"What!"

"Yes! indeed! and she avows it boldly."

"Ah! if she avows it, there's no harm!"

"What! no harm?"

"I mean to _her_. She's had no bad purpose in going to his chamber. I
see it all!"

"Well, and is it not quite enough to drive a man mad, to think that the
best designs of a man are to be thwarted, and his neck put in danger, by
the meddling of a thing like this? She has blabbed all our secrets--nay,
made him listen to them--for, even while we ascended the stairs to his
chamber, they were concealed in the closet above the stairway, watched
all our movements, and heard every word we had to say."

"And you _would_ be talking," retorted the landlord. The other glared at
him ferociously, but proceeded:--

"I heard the sound--their breathing--I told you at the time that I heard
something stirring in the closet. But you had your answer. For an
experienced man, Munro, you are duller than an owl by daylight."

"I'm afraid so," answered the other coolly. "But it's too late now for
talk. We must be off and active, if we would be doing anything. I've
been out to the stable, and find that the young fellow has taken off his
horse. He has been cool enough about it, for saddle and bridle are both
gone. He's had time enough to gear up in proper style, while you were so
eloquent along the stairs. I reckon there was something to scare him off
at last, however, for here's his dirk--I suppose it's his--which I found
at the stable-door. He must have dropped it when about to mount."

"'Tis his!" said Rivers, seizing and examining it. "It is the weapon he
drew on me at the diggings."

"He has the start of us--"

"But knows nothing of the woods. It is not too late. Let us be off. Lucy
is recovering, and you can now leave her in safety. She will find the
way to her chamber--or to _some_ chamber. It seems that she has no
scruples in going to any."

"Stop that, Guy! Don't slander the girl."

"Pooh! are you going to set up for a sentimentalist?"

"No: but if you can't learn to stop talking, I shall set you down as a
fool! For a man of action, you use more of an unnecessary tongue than
any living man I ever met. For God's sake, sink the lawyer when you're
out of court! It will be high time to brush up for a speech when you are
in the dock, and pleading with the halter dangling in your eyes. Oh,
don't glare upon me! He who flings about his arrows by the handful
mustn't be angry if some of them are flung back."

"Are you ready?"

"Ay, ready!--She's opening her eyes. We can leave her now.--What's the
course?"

"We can determine in the open air. He will probably go west, and will
take one or other of the two traces at the fork, and his hoofs will soon
tell us which. Our horses are refreshed by this, and are in readiness.
You have pistols: see to the flints and priming. There must be no
scruples now. The matter has gone quite too far for quiet, and though
the affair was all mine at first, it is now as perfectly yours."

As Rivers spoke, Munro drew forth his pistols and looked carefully at
the priming. The sharp click of the springing steel, as the pan was
thrown open, now fully aroused Lucy to that consciousness which had been
only partial in the greater part of this dialogue. Springing to her feet
with an eagerness and energy that was quite astonishing after her late
prostration, she rushed forward to her uncle, and looked appealingly
into his face, though she did not speak, while her hand grasped
tenaciously his arm.

"What means the girl?" exclaimed Munro, now apprehensive of some mental
derangement. She spoke, with a deep emphasis, but a single sentence:--

"It is written--thou shalt do no murder!"

The solemn tone--the sudden, the almost fierce action--the peculiar
abruptness of the apostrophe--the whitely-robed, the almost spiritual
elevation of figure--all so dramatic--combined necessarily to startle
and surprise; and, for a few moments, no answer was returned to the
unlooked-for speech. But the effect could not be permanent upon minds
made familiar with the thousand forms of human and strong energies.
Munro, after a brief pause, replied--

"Who speaks of murder, girl? Why this wild, this uncalled-for
exhortation?"

"Not wild, not uncalled-for, uncle, but most necessary. Wherefore would
you pursue the youth, arms in your hands, hatred in your heart, and
horrible threatenings upon your lips? Why put yourself into the hands of
this fierce monster, as the sharp instrument to do his vengeance and
gratify his savage malignity against the young and the gentle? If you
would do no murder, not so he. He will do it--he will make you do it,
but he will have it done. Approach me not--approach me not--let me
perish, rather! O God--my uncle, let him come not near me, if you would
not see me die upon the spot!" she exclaimed, in the most terrified
manner, and with a shuddering horror, as Rivers, toward the conclusion
of her speech, had approached her with the, view to an answer. To her
uncle she again addressed herself, with an energy which gave additional
emphasis to her language:--

"Uncle--you are my father now--you will not forget the dying prayer of a
brother! My prayer is his. Keep that man from me--let me not see
him--let him come not near me with his polluted and polluting breath!
You know not what he is--you know him but as a stabber--as a hater--as a
thief! But were my knowledge yours--could I utter in your ears the foul
language, the fiend-threatenings which his accursed lips uttered in
mine!--but no--save me from him is all I ask--protect the poor
orphan--the feeble, the trampled child of your brother! Keep me from the
presence of that bad man!"

As she spoke, she sank at the feet of the person she addressed, her
hands were clasped about his knees, and she lay there shuddering and
shrinking, until he lifted her up in his arms. Somewhat softened by his
kindness of manner, the pressure upon her brain of that agony was
immediately relieved, and a succession of tears and sobs marked the
diminished influence of her terrors. But, as Rivers attempted something
in reply, she started--

"Let me go--let me not hear him speak! His breath is pollution--his
words are full of foul threats and dreadful thoughts. If you knew all
that I know--if you feared what I fear, uncle--you would nigh slay him
on the spot."

This mental suffering of his niece was not without its influence upon
her uncle, who, as we have said before, had a certain kind and degree of
pride--pride of character we may almost call it--not inconsistent with
pursuits and a condition of life wild and wicked even as his. His eye
sternly settled upon that of his companion, as, without a word, he bore
the almost lifeless girl into the chamber of his wife, who, aroused by
the clamor, had now and then looked forth upon the scene, but was too
much the creature of timidity to venture entirely amid the disputants.
Placing her under the charge of the old lady, Munro uttered a few
consolatory words in Lucy's ear, but she heard him not. Her thoughts
evidently wandered to other than selfish considerations at that moment,
and, as he left the chamber, she raised her finger impressively:--

"Do no murder, uncle! let him not persuade you into crime; break off
from a league which compels you to brook a foul insult to those you are
bound in duty to protect."

"Would I could!" was his muttered sentence as he left the chamber. He
felt the justice of the counsel, but wore the bewildered expression of
countenance of one conscious of what is right, but wanting courage for
its adoption.

"She has told you no foolish story of me?" was the somewhat anxious
speech of Rivers upon the reappearance of the landlord.

"She has said nothing in plain words, Guy Rivers--but yet quite enough
to make me doubt whether you, and not this boy we pursue, should not
have my weapon in your throat. But beware! The honor of that child of
Edgar Munro is to me what would have been my own; and let me find that
you have gone a tittle beyond the permitted point, in speech or action,
and we cut asunder. I shall then make as little bones of putting a
bullet through your ribs as into those of the wild bullock of the hills.
_I_ am what I am: my hope is that _she_ may always be the pure creature
which she now is, if it were only that she might pray for me."

"She has mistaken me, Munro--"

"Say no more, Guy. She has not _much_ mistaken you, or I have. Let us
speak no more on this subject; you know my mind, and will be
advised.--Let us now be off. The horses are in readiness, and waiting,
and a good spur will bring us up with the game. The youth, you say, has
money about him, a gold watch, and--"

The more savage ruffian grinned as he listened to these words. They
betrayed the meaner motives of action in the case of the companion, who
could acknowledge the argument of cupidity, while insensible to that of
revenge.

"Ay! enough to pay you for your share in the performance Do your part
well, and you shall have all that he carries--gold, watch, trinkets,
horse, everything. I shall be quite content to take--his life! Are you
satisfied? Are there any scruples now?"

"No! none! I have no scruples! But to cut a throat, or blow out a man's
liver with a brace of bullets, is a work that should be well paid for.
The performance is by no means so agreeable that one should seek to do
it for nothing."

Guy Rivers fancied himself a nobler animal than his companion, as he
felt that he needed not the mercenary motive for the performance of the
murderous action.

They were mounted, the horses being ready for them in the rear of the
building.

"Round the hollow. We'll skirt the village, and not go through it," said
Munro. "We may gain something on the route to the fork of the roads by
taking the blind track by the red hill."

"As you will. Go ahead!"

A few more words sufficed to arrange the route, and regulate their
pursuit, and a few moments sufficed to send them off in full speed over
the stony road, both with a common and desperate purpose, but each moved
by arguments and a passion of his own.

In her lonely chamber, Lucy Munro, now recovered to acutest
consciousness, heard the tread of their departing hoofs; and, clasping
her hands, she sank upon her knees, yielding up her whole soul to silent
prayer. The poor girl never slept that night.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE BLOODY DEED.

Let us leave the outlaws to their progress for a brief space, while we
gather up and pursue for awhile some other clues of our story.

We have witnessed the separation of Mark Forrester from his sweetheart,
at the place of trysting. The poor fellow had recovered some of his
confidence in himself and fortune, and was now prepared to go forth with
a new sentiment of hope within his bosom. The sting was in a degree
taken from his conscience--his elastic and sanguine temperament
contributed to this--and with renewed impulses to adventure, and with
new anticipations of the happiness that we all dream to find in life;
the erring, but really honest fellow, rode fearlessly through the dim
forests, without needing more auspicious lights than those of the
kindling moon and stars. The favor of old Allen, the continued love of
Kate, the encouragements of young Colleton, his own feeling of the
absence of any malice in his heart, even while committing his crime, and
the farther fact that he was well-mounted, and speeding from the region
where punishment threatened--all these were influences which conspired
to lessen, in his mind, the griefs of his present privation, and the
lonely emotions which naturally promised to accompany him in his
solitary progress.

His course lay for the great Southwest--the unopened forests, and mighty
waters of the Mississippi valley. Here, he was to begin a new life.
Unknown, he would shake off the fears which his crime necessarily
inspired. Respited from death and danger, he would atone for it by
penitence and honest works. Kate Allen should be his solace, and there
would be young and lovely children smiling around his board. Such were
the natural dreams of the young and sanguine exile.

"But who shall ride from his destiny?" saith the proverb. The wing of
the bird is no security against the shaft of the fowler, and the helmet
and the shield keep not away the draught that is poisoned. He who wears
the greaves, the gorget, and the coat-of-mail, holds defiance to the
storm of battle; but he drinks and dies in the hall of banqueting. What
matters it, too, though the eagle soars and screams among the clouds,
halfway up to heaven--flaunting his proud pinions, and glaring with
audacious glance in the very eye of the sun--death waits for him in the
quiet of his own eyry, nestling with his brood. These are the goodly
texts of the Arabian sage, in whose garden-tree, so much was he the
beloved of heaven, the birds came and nightly sang for him those solemn
truths--those lessons of a perfect wisdom--which none but the favored of
the Deity are ever permitted to hear. They will find a sufficient
commentary in the fortune of the rider whom we have just beheld setting
out from his parting with his mistress, on his way of new adventure--his
heart comparatively light, and his spirit made buoyant with the throng
of pleasant fancies which continually gathered in his thought.

The interview between Forrester and his mistress had been somewhat
protracted, and his route from her residence to the road in which we
find him, being somewhat circuitous, the night had waned considerably
ere he had made much progress. He now rode carelessly, as one who
mused--his horse, not urged by its rider, became somewhat careful of his
vigor, and his gait was moderated much from that which had marked his
outset. He had entered upon the trace through a thick wood, when the
sound of other hoofs came down upon the wind; not to his ears, for,
swallowed up in his own meditations, his senses had lost much of their
wonted acuteness. He had not been long gone from the point of the road
in which we found him, when his place upon the same route was supplied
by the pursuing party, Rivers and Munro. They were both admirably
mounted, and seemed little to regard, in their manner of using them, the
value of the good beasts which they bestrode--driving them as they did,
resolutely over fallen trees and jutting rocks, their sides already
dashed with foam, and the flanks bloody with the repeated application of
the rowel. It was soon evident that farther pursuit at such a rate would
be impossible: and Munro, as well for the protection of the horses, as
with a knowledge of this necessity, insisted upon a more moderated and
measured pace.

Much against his own will, Rivers assented, though his impatience
frequent found utterance in words querulously sarcastic. The love of
gain was a besetting sin of the landlord, and it was by this passion
that his accomplice found it easy, on most occasions, to defeat the
suggestions of his better judgment. The tauntings of the former,
therefore, were particularly bestowed upon this feature in his
character, as he found himself compelled to yield to the requisition of
the latter, with whom the value of the horses was no small
consideration.

"Well, well," said Rivers, "if you say so, it must be so; though I am
sure, if we push briskly ahead, we shall find our bargain in it. You too
will find the horse of the youth, upon which you had long since set your
eyes and heart, a full equivalent, even if we entirely ruin the
miserable beasts we ride."

"The horse you ride is no miserable beast," retorted the landlord, who
had some of the pride of a southron in this particular, and seemed
solicitous for the honor of his stud--"you have jaded him by your
furious gait, and seem entirely insensible to the fact that our progress
for the last half hour, continued much longer, would knock up any
animal. I'm not so sure, too, Guy, that we shall find the youngster, or
that we shall be able to get our own bargain out of him when found. He's
a tough colt, I take it, and will show fight unless you surprise him."

"Stay--hear you nothing now, as the wind sets up from below? Was not
that the tramping of a horse?"

They drew up cautiously as the inquiry was put by Rivers, and pausing
for a few minutes, listened attentively. Munro dismounted, and laying
his ear to the ground, endeavored to detect and distinguish the distant
sounds, which, in that way, may be heard with far greater readiness; but
he arose without being satisfied.

"You hear nothing?"

"Not a sound but that which we make ourselves. Your ears to-night are
marvellous quick, but they catch nothing. This is the third time
to-night you have fancied sounds, and heard what I could not; and I
claim to have senses in quite as high perfection as your own."

"And without doubt you have; but, know you not, Munro, that wherever the
passions are concerned, the senses become so much more acute; and,
indeed, are so many sentinels and spies--scouring about perpetually, and
with this advantage over all other sentinels, that they then never
slumber. So, whether one hate or love, the ear and the eye take heed of
all that is going on--they minister to the prevailing passion, and seem,
in their own exercise, to acquire some of the motive and impulse which
belong to it."

"I believe this in most respects to be the case. I have observed it on
more than one occasion myself, and in my own person. But, Guy, in all
that you have said, and all that I have seen, I do not yet understand
why it is that you entertain such a mortal antipathy to this young man,
more than to many others who have at times crossed your path. I now
understand the necessity for putting him out of the way; but this is
another matter. Before we thought it possible that he could injure us,
you had the same violent hatred, and would have destroyed him at the
first glance. There is more in this, Guy, than you have been willing to
let out; and I look upon it as strange, to say nothing more, that I
should be kept so much in the dark upon the subject."

Rivers smiled grimly at the inquiry, and replied at once, though with
evident insincerity,--

"Perhaps my desire to get rid of him, then, arose from a presentiment
that we should have to do it in the end. You know I have a gift of
foreseeing and foretelling."

"This won't do for me, Guy; I know you too well to regard you as one
likely to be influenced by notions of this nature--you must put me on
some other scent."

"Why, so I would, Wat, if I were assured that I myself knew the precise
impulse which sets me on this work. But the fact is, my hate to the boy
springs from certain influences which may not be defined by name--which
grow out of those moral mysteries of our nature, for which we can
scarcely account to ourselves; and, by the operation of which, we are
led to the performance of things seemingly without any adequate cause or
necessity. A few reflections might give you the full force of this. Why
do some men shrink from a cat? There is an instance now in John Bremer;
a fellow, you know, who would make no more ado about exchanging
rifle-shots with his enemy at twenty paces, than at taking dinner; yet a
black cat throws him into fits, from which for two days he never
perfectly recovers. Again--there are some persons to whom the perfume of
flowers brings sickness, and the song of a bird sadness. How are we to
account for all these things, unless we do so by a reference to the
peculiar make of the man? In this way you may understand why it is that
I hate this boy, and would destroy him. He is my black cat, and his
presence for ever throws me into fits."

"I have heard of the things of which you speak, and have known some of
them myself; but I never could believe that the _nature_ of the person
had been the occasion. I was always inclined to think that circumstances
in childhood, of which the recollection is forgotten--such as great and
sudden fright to the infant, or a blow which affected the brain, were
the operating influences. All these things, however, only affect the
fancies--they beget fears and notions--never deep and abiding
hatred--unquiet passion, and long-treasured malignity, such as I find in
you on this occasion."

"Upon this point, Munro, you may be correct. I do not mean to say that
hatred and a desire to destroy are consequent to antipathies such as you
describe; but still, something may be said in favor of such a notion. It
appears to me but natural to seek the destruction of that which is
odious or irksome to any of our senses. Why do you crush the crawling
spider with your heel? You fear not its venom; inspect it, and the
mechanism of its make, the architecture of its own fabrication, are, to
the full, as wonderful as anything within your comprehension; but yet,
without knowing why, with an impulse given you, as it would seem, from
infancy, you seek its destruction with a persevering industry, which
might lead one to suppose you had in view your direst enemy."

"This is all very true; and from infancy up we do this thing, but the
cause can not be in any loathsomeness which its presence occasions in
the mind, for we perceive the same boy destroying with measured torture
the gaudiest butterfly which his hat can encompass."

"_Non sequitur_," said Rivers.

"What's that? some of your d----d law gibberish, I suppose. If you want
me to talk with you at all, Guy, you must speak in a language I
understand."

"Why, so I will, Wat. I only meant to say, in a phrase common to the
law, and which your friend Pippin makes use of a dozen times a day, that
it did not follow from what you said, that the causes which led to the
death of the spider and the butterfly were the same. This we may know by
the manner in which they are respectively destroyed. The boy, with much
precaution and an aversion he does not seek to disguise in his attempts
on the spider, employs his shoe or a stick for the purpose of slaughter.
But, with the butterfly, the case is altogether different. He first
catches, and does not fear to hold it in his hand. He inspects it
closely, and proceeds to analyze that which his young thought has
already taught him is a beautiful creation of the insect world. He
strips it, wing by wing of its gaudy covering; and then, with a feeling
of ineffable scorn, that so wealthy a noble should go unarmed and
unprotected, he dashes him to the ground, and terminates his sufferings
without further scruple. The spider, having a sting, he is compelled to
fear, and consequently taught to respect. The feelings are all perfectly
natural, however, which prompt his proceedings. The curiosity is common
and innate which impels him to the inspection of the insect; and that
feeling is equally a natural impulse which prompts him to the death of
the spider without hesitation. So with me--it is enough that I hate this
boy, though possessed of numberless attractions of mind and person.
Shall I do him the kindness to inquire whether there be reason for the
mood which prompts me to destroy him?"

"You were always too much for me, Guy, at this sort of argument, and you
talk the matter over ingeniously enough, I grant; but still I am not
satisfied, that a mere antipathy, without show of reason, originally
induced your dislike to this young man. When you first sought to do him
up, you were conscious of this, and gave, as a reason for the desire,
the cut upon your face, which so much disfigured your loveliness."

Rivers did not appear very much to relish or regard this speech, which
had something of satire in it; but he was wise enough to restrain his
feelings, as, reverting back to their original topic, he spoke in the
following manner:--

"You are unusually earnest after reasons and motives for action,
to-night: is it not strange, Munro, that it has never occasioned
surprise in your mind, that one like myself, so far superior in numerous
respects to the men I have consented to lead and herd with, should have
made such my profession?"

"Not at all," was the immediate and ready response of his companion.
"Not at all. This was no mystery to me, for I very well knew that you
had no choice, no alternative. What else could you have done? Outlawed
and under sentence, I knew that you could never return, in any safety or
security, whatever might be your disguise, to the society which had
driven you out--and I'm sure that your chance would be but a bad one
were you to seek a return to the old practice at Gwinnett courthouse.
Any attempt there to argue a fellow out of the halter would be only to
argue yourself into it."

"Pshaw, Munro, that is the case now--that is the necessity and
difficulty of to-day. But where, and what was the necessity, think you,
when, in the midst of good practice at Gwinnett bar, where I ruled
without competitor, riding roughshod over bench, bar, and jury, dreaded
alike by all, I threw myself into the ranks of these men, and put on
their habits? I speak not now in praise of myself, more than the facts,
as you yourself know them, will sufficiently warrant. I am now above
those idle vanities which would make me deceive myself as to my own
mental merits; but, that such was my standing there and then, I hold
indisputable."

"It is true. I sometimes look back and laugh at the manner in which you
used to bully the old judge, and the gaping jury, and your own brother
lawyers, while the foam would run through your clenched teeth and from
your lips in very passion; and then I wondered, when you were doing so
well, that you ever gave up there, to undertake a business, the very
first job in which put your neck in danger."

"You may well wonder, Munro. I could not well explain the mystery to
myself, were I to try; and it is this which made the question and doubt
which we set out to explain. To those who knew me well from the first,
it is not matter of surprise that I should be for ever in excitements of
one kind or another. From my childhood up, my temper was of a restless
and unquiet character--I was always a peevish, a fretful and
discontented person. I looked with scorn and contempt upon the humdrum
ways of those about me, and longed for perpetual change, and wild and
stirring incidents. My passions, always fretful and excitable, were
never satisfied except when I was employed in some way which enabled me
to feed and keep alive the irritation which was their and my very breath
of life. With such a spirit, how could I be what men style and consider
a good man? What folly to expect it. Virtue is but a sleepy, in-door,
domestic quality--inconsistent with enterprise or great activity. There
are no drones so perfect in the world as the truly orthodox. Hence the
usual superiority of a dissenting, over an established church. It is for
this reason, too, and from this cause, that a great man is seldom, if
ever, a good one. It is inconsistent with the very nature of things to
expect it, unless it be from a co-operation of singular circumstances,
whose return is with the comets. Vice, on the contrary, is endowed with
strong passions--a feverish thirst after forbidden fruits and waters--a
bird-nesting propensity, that carries it away from the haunts of the
crowded city, into strange wilds and interminable forests. It lives upon
adventure--it counts its years by incidents, and has no other mode of
computing time or of enjoying life. This fact--and it is undeniable with
respect to both the parties--will furnish a sufficient reason why the
best heroes of the best poets are always great criminals. Were this not
the case, from what would the interest be drawn?--where would be the
incident, if all men, pursuing the quiet paths of non-interference with
the rights, the lives, or the liberties of one another, spilt no blood,
invaded no territory, robbed no lord of his lady, enslaved and made no
captives in war? A virtuous hero would be a useless personage both in
play and poem--and the spectator or reader would fall asleep over the
utterance of stale apothegms. What writer of sense, for instance, would
dream of bringing up George Washington to figure in either of these
forms before the world--and how, if he did so, would he prevent reader
or auditor from getting excessively tired, and perhaps disgusted, with
one, whom all men are now agreed to regard as the hero of civilization?
Nor do I utter sentiments which are subjects either of doubt or
disputation. I could put the question in such a form as would bring the
million to agree with me. Look, for instance, at the execution of a
criminal. See the thousands that will assemble, day after day, after
travelling miles for that single object, to gape and gaze upon the last
agonizing pangs and paroxsyms of a fellow-creature--not regarding for an
instant the fatigue of their position, the press of the crowd, or the
loss of a dinner--totally insusceptible, it would seem, of the several
influences of heat and cold, wind and rain, which at any other time
would drive them to their beds or firesides. The same motive which
provokes this desire in the spectator, is the parent, to a certain
extent, of the very crime which has led to the exhibition. It is the
morbid appetite, which sometimes grows to madness--the creature of
unregulated passions, ill-judged direction, and sometimes, even of the
laws and usages of society itself, which is so much interested in the
promotion of characteristics the very reverse. It may be that I have
more of this perilous stuff about me than the generality of mankind; but
I am satisfied there are few of them, taught as I have been, and the
prey of like influences, whose temper had been very different from mine.
The early and operating circumstances under which I grew up, all tended
to the rank growth and encouragement of the more violent and vexing
passions. I was the victim of a tyranny, which, in the end, made me too
a tyrant. To feel, myself, and exercise the temper thus taught me, I had
to acquire power in order to secure victims; and all my aims in life,
all my desires, tended to this one pursuit. Indifferent to me, alike,
the spider who could sting, or the harmless butterfly whose only
offensiveness is in the folly of his wearing a glitter which he can not
take care of. I was a merciless enemy, giving no quarter; and with an
Ishmaelitish spirit, lifting my hand against all the tribes that were
buzzing around me."

"I believe you have spoken the truth, Guy, so far as your particular
qualities of temper are concerned; for, had I undertaken to have spoken
for you in relation to this subject, I should probably have said, though
not to the same degree, the same thing; but the wonder with me is, how,
with such feelings, you should have so long remained in quiet, and in
some respects, perfectly harmless."

"There is as little mystery in the one as in the other. You may judge
that my sphere of action--speaking of _action_ in a literal sense--was
rather circumscribed at Gwinnett courthouse: but, the fact is, I was
then but acquiring my education. I was, for the first time, studying
rogues, and the study of rogues is not unaptly fitted to make one take
up the business. _I_, at least, found it to have that effect. But, even
at Gwinnett courthouse, learning as I did, and what I did, there was one
passion, or perhaps a modified form of the ruling passion, which might
have swallowed up all the rest had time been allowed it. I was young,
and not free from vanity; particularly as, for the first time, my ears
had been won with praise and gentle flatteries. The possession of early,
and afterward undisputed talents, acquired for me deference and respect;
and I was soon tempted to desire the applauses of the swinish multitude,
and to feel a thirsting after public distinction. In short, I grew
ambitious. I soon became sick and tired of the applauses, the fame, of
my own ten-mile horizon; its origin seemed equivocal, its worth and
quality questionable, at the best. My spirit grew troubled with a
wholesale discontent, and roved in search of a wider field, a more
elevated and extensive empire. But how could I, the petty lawyer of a
county court, in the midst of a wilderness, appropriate time, find means
and opportunities even for travel? I was poor, and profits are few to a
small lawyer, whose best cases are paid for by a bale of cotton or a
negro, when both of them are down in the market. In vain, and
repeatedly, did I struggle with circumstances that for ever foiled me in
my desires; until, in a rash and accursed hour, when chance, and you,
and the devil, threw the opportunity for crime in my path! It did not
escape me, and--but you know the rest."

"I do, but would rather hear you tell it. When you speak thus, you put
me in mind of some of the stump-speeches you used to make when you ran
for the legislature."

"Ay, that was another, and not the least of the many reverses which my
ambition was doomed to meet with. You knew the man who opposed me; you
know that a more shallow and insignificant fop and fool never yet dared
to thrust his head into a deliberative assembly. But, he was rich, and I
poor. He a potato, the growth of the soil; I, though generally admitted
a plant of more promise and pretension--I was an exotic! He was a
patrician--one of the small nobility--a growth, _sui generis_, of the
place--"

"Damn your law-phrases! stop with that, if you please."

"Well, well! he was one of the great men; I was a poor plebeian, whose
chief misfortune, at that time, consisted in my not having a father or a
great-grandfather a better man than myself! His money did the work, and
I was bought and beat out of my election, which I considered certain. I
then acquired knowledge of two things. I learned duly to estimate the
value of the democratic principle, when I beheld the vile slaves, whose
votes his money had commanded, laughing in scorn at the miserable
creature they had themselves put over them. They felt not--not they--the
double shame of their doings. They felt that he was King Log, but never
felt how despicable they were as his subjects. This taught me, too, the
value of money--its wonderful magic and mystery. In the mood occasioned
by all these things, you found me, for the first time, and in a ready
temper for any villany. You attempted to console me for my defeats, but
I heard you not until you spoke of revenge. I was not then to learn how
to be vindictive: I had always been so. I knew, by instinct, how to lap
blood; you only taught me how to scent it! My first great crime proved
my nature. Performed under your direction, though without your aid, it
was wantonly cruel in its execution, since the prize desired might
readily have been obtained without the life of its possessor. You, more
merciful than myself, would have held me back, and arrested my stroke;
but that would have been taking from the repast its finish: the
pleasure, for it was such to me in my condition of mind, would have been
lost entirely. It may sound strangely even in your ears when I say so,
but I could no more have kept my knife from that man's throat than I
could have taken wing for the heavens. He was a poor coward; made no
struggle, and begged most piteously for his life; had the audacity to
talk of his great possessions, his rank in society, his wife and
children. These were enjoyments all withheld from me; these were the
very things the want of which had made me what I was--what I am--and
furiously I struck my weapon into his mouth, silencing his insulting
speech. Should such a mean spirit as his have joys which were denied to
me? I spurned his quivering carcass with my foot. At that moment I felt
myself; I had something to live for. I knew my appetite, and felt that
it was native. I had acquired a knowledge of a new luxury, and ceased to
wonder at the crimes of a Nero and a Caligula. Think you, Munro, that
the thousands who assemble at the execution of a criminal trouble
themselves to inquire into the merits of his case--into the justice of
his death and punishment? Ask they whether he is the victim of justice
or of tyranny? No! they go to see a show--they love blood, and in this
way have the enjoyment furnished to their hands, without the risk which
must follow the shedding of it for themselves."

"There is one thing, Guy, upon which I never thought to ask you. What
became of that beautiful young girl from Carolina, on a visit to the
village, when you lost your election? You were then cavorting about her
in great style, and I could see that you were well nigh as much mad
after her as upon the loss of the seat."

Rivers started at the inquiry in astonishment. He had never fancied
that, in such matters, Munro had been so observant, and for a few
moments gave no reply. He evidently winced beneath the inquiry; but he
soon recovered himself, however--for, though at times exhibiting the
passions of a demoniac, he was too much of a proficient not to be able,
in the end, to command the coolness of the villain.

"I had thought to have said nothing on this subject, Munro, but there
are few things which escape your observation. In replying to you on this
point, you will now have all the mystery explained of my rancorous
pursuit of this boy. That girl--then a mere girl--refused me, as perhaps
you know; and when, heated with wine and irritated with rejection, I
pressed the point rather too warmly, she treated me with contempt and
withdrew from the apartment. This youth is the favored, the successful
rival. Look upon this picture, Walter--now, while the moon streams
through the branches upon it--and wonder not that it maddened, and still
maddens me, to think that, for his smooth face and aristocratic airs of
superiority, I was to be sacrificed and despised. She was probably a
year younger than himself; but I saw at the time, though both of them
appeared unconscious of the fact, that she loved him then. What with her
rejection and scorn, coming at the same time with my election defeat, I
am what I am. These defeats were wormwood to my soul; and, if I am
criminal, the parties concerned in them have been the cause of the
crime."

"A very consoling argument, if you could only prove it!"

"Very likely--you are not alone. The million would say with yourself.
But hear the case as I put it, and not as it is put by the majority.
Providence endowed me with a certain superiority of mind over my
fellows. I had capacities which they had not--talents to which they did
not aspire, and the possession of which they readily conceded to me.
These talents fitted me for certain stations in society, to which, as I
had the talents pre-eminently for such stations, the inference is fair
that Providence intended me for some such stations. But I was denied my
place. Society, guilty of favoritism and prejudice, gave to others, not
so well fitted as myself for its purposes or necessities, the station in
all particulars designed for me. I was denied my birthright, and
rebelled. Can society complain, when prostituting herself and depriving
me of my rights, that I resisted her usurpation and denied her
authority? Shall she, doing wrong herself in the first instance,
undertake to punish? Surely not. My rights were admitted--my superior
capacity: but the people were rotten to the core; they had not even the
virtue of truth to themselves. They made their own governors of the
vilest and the worst. They willingly became slaves, and are punished in
more ways than one. They first create the tyrants--for tyrants are the
creatures of the people they sway, and never make themselves; they next
drive into banishment their more legitimate rulers; and the consequence,
in the third place, is, that they make enemies of those whom they exile.
Such is the case with me, and such--but hark! That surely is the tread
of a horse. Do you hear it? there is no mistake now--" and as he spoke,
the measured trampings were heard resounding at some distance, seemingly
in advance of them.

"We must now use the spur, Munro; your horses have had indulgence enough
for the last hour, and we may tax them a little now."

"Well, push on as you please; but do you know anything of this route,
and what course will you pursue in doing him up?"

"Leave all that to me. As for the route, it is an old acquaintance; and
the blaze on this tree reminds me that we can here have a short cut
which will carry us at a good sweep round this hill, bringing us upon
the main trace about two miles farther down. We must take this course,
and spur on, that we may get ahead of him, and be quietly stationed when
he comes. We shall gain it, I am confident, before our man, who seems to
be taking it easily. He will have three miles at the least to go, and
over a road that will keep him in a walk half the way. We shall be there
in time."

They reached the point proposed in due season. Their victim had not yet
made his appearance, and they had sufficient time for all their
arrangements. The place was one well calculated for the successful
accomplishment of a deed of darkness. The road at the foot of the hill
narrowed into a path scarcely wide enough for the passage of a single
horseman. The shrubbery and copse on either side overhung it, and in
many places were so thickly interwoven, that when, as at intervals of
the night, the moon shone out among the thick and broken clouds which
hung upon and mostly obscured her course, her scattered rays scarcely
penetrated the dense enclosure.

At length the horseman approached, and in silence. Descending the hill,
his motion was slow and tedious. He entered the fatal avenue; and, when
in the midst of it, Rivers started from the side of his comrade, and,
advancing under the shelter of a tree, awaited his progress. He came--no
word was spoken--a single stroke was given, and the horseman, throwing
up his hands, grasped the limb which projected over, while his horse
passed from under him. He held on for a moment to the branch, while a
groan of deepest agony broke from his lips, when he fell supine to the
ground. At that moment, the moon shone forth unimpeded and unobscured by
a single cloud. The person of the wounded man was fully apparent to the
sight. He struggled, but spoke not; and the hand of Rivers was again
uplifted, when Munro rushed forward.

"Stay--away, Guy!--we are mistaken--this is not our man!"

The victim heard the words, and, with something like an effort at a
laugh, though seemingly in great agony, exclaimed--

"Ah, Munro, is that you?--I am so glad! but I'm afraid you come too
late. This is a cruel blow; and--for what? What have I done to you,
that--oh!--"

The tones of the voice--the person of the suffering man--were now
readily distinguishable.

"Good God! Rivers, what is to be the end of all this blundering?"

"Who would have thought to find _him_ here?" was the ferocious answer;
the disappointed malice of the speaker prompting him to the bitterest
feelings against the unintended victim--"why was he in the way? he is
always in the way!"

"I am afraid you've done for him."

"We must be sure of it."

"Great God! would you kill him?"

"Why not? It must be done now."

The wounded man beheld the action of the speaker, and heard the
discussion. He gasped out a prayer for life:--

"Spare me, Guy! Save me, Wat, if you have a man's heart in your bosom.
Save me! spare me! I would live! I--oh, spare me!"

And the dying man threw up his hands feebly, in order to avert the blow;
but it was in vain. Munro would have interposed, but, this time, the
murderer was too quick for him, if not too strong. With a sudden rush he
flung his associate aside, stooped down, and smote--smote fatally.

"Kate!--ah!--O God, have mercy!"

The wretched and unsuspecting victim fell back upon the earth with these
last words--dead--sent to his dread account, with all his sins upon his
head! And what a dream of simple happiness in two fond, feeble hearts,
was thus cruelly and terribly dispersed for ever!

CHAPTER XXIII.

WHAT FOLLOWED THE MURDER.

There was a dreadful pause, after the commission of the deed, in which
no word was spoken by either of the parties. The murderer, meanwhile,
with the utmost composure wiped his bloody knife in the coat of the man
whom he had slain. Boldly and coolly then, he broke the silence which
was certainly a painful one to Munro if not to himself.

"We shall hear no more of his insolence. I owed him a debt. It is paid.
If fools will be in the way of danger, they must take the consequences."

The landlord only groaned.

The murderer laughed.

"It is your luck," he said, "always to groan with devout feeling, when
you have _done_ the work of the devil! You may spare your groans, if
they are designed for repentance. They are always too late!"

"It is a sad truth, though the devil said it."

"Well, rouse up, and let's be moving. So far, our ride has been for
nothing. We must leave this carrion to the vultures. What next? Will it
be of any use to pursue this boy again to-night? What say you? We must
pursue and silence him of course; but we have pushed the brutes already
sufficiently to-night. They would be of little service to-night, in a
longer chase."

The person addressed did not immediately reply, and when he spoke, did
not answer to the speech of his companion. His reply, at length, was
framed in obedience to the gloomy and remorseful course of his thought.

"It will be no wonder, Guy, if the whole country turn out upon us. You
are too wanton in your doings. Wherefore when I told you of your error,
did you strike the poor wretch again."

The landlord, it will be seen, spoke simply with reference to policy and
expediency, and deserved as little credit for humanity as the individual
he rebuked. In this particular lay the difference between them. Both
were equally ruffianly, but the one had less of passion, less of
feeling, and more of profession in the matter. With the other, the trade
of crime was adopted strictly in subservience to the dictates of
ill-regulated desires and emotions, suffering defeat in their hope of
indulgence, and stimulating to a morbid action which became a disease.
The references of Munro were always addressed to the petty gains; and
the miserly nature, thus perpetually exhibiting itself, at the expense
of all other emotions, was, in fact, the true influence which subjected
him almost to the sole dictation of his accomplice, in whom a somewhat
lofty distaste for such a peculiarity had occasioned a manner and habit
of mind, the superiority of which was readily felt by the other. Still,
we must do the landlord the justice to say that he had no such passion
for bloodshed as characterized his companion.

"Why strike again!" was the response of Rivers. "You talk like a child.
Would you have had him live to blab? Saw you not that he knew us both?
Are you so green as to think, if suffered to escape, his tongue or hands
would have been idle? You should know better. But the fact is, he could
not have lived. The first blow was fatal; and, if I had deliberated for
an instant, I should have followed the suggestions of your humanity--I
should have withheld the second, which merely terminated his agony."

"It was a rash and bloody deed, and I would we had made sure of your man
before blindly rushing into these unnecessary risks. It is owing to your
insane love of blood, that you so frequently blunder in your object"

"Your scruples and complainings, Wat, remind me of that farmyard
philosopher, who always locked the door of his stable after the steed
had been stolen. You have your sermon ready in time for the funeral, but
not during the life for whose benefit you make it. But whose fault was
it that we followed the wrong game? Did you not make certain of the
fresh track at the fork, so that there was no doubting you?"

"I did--there was a fresh track, and our coming upon Forrester proves
it. There may have been another on the other prong of the fork, and
doubtless the youth we pursue has taken that; but you were in such an
infernal hurry that I had scarce time to find out what I did."

"Well, you will preach no more on the subject. We have failed, and
accounting for won't mend the failure. As for this bull-headed fellow,
he deserves his fate for his old insolence. He was for ever putting
himself in my way, and may not complain that I have at last put him out
of it. But come, we have no further need to remain here, though just as
little to pursue further in the present condition of our horses."

"What shall we do with the body? we can not leave it here."

"Why not?--What should we do with it, I pray? The wolves may want a
dinner to-morrow, and I would be charitable. Yet stay--where is the dirk
which you found at the stable? Give it me."

"What would you do?"

"You shall see. Forrester's horse is off--fairly frightened, and will
take the route back to the old range. He will doubtless go to old
Allen's clearing, and carry the first news. There will be a search, and
when they find the body, they will not overlook the weapon, which I
shall place beside it. There will then be other pursuers than me; and if
it bring the boy to the gallows, I shall not regret our mistake to
night."

As he spoke, he took the dagger, the sheath of which he threw at some
distance in advance upon the road, then smeared the blade with the blood
of the murdered man, and thrust the weapon into his garments, near the
wound.

"You are well taught in the profession, Guy, and, if you would let me, I
would leave it off, if for no other reason than the very shame of being
so much outdone in it. But we may as well strip him. If his gold is in
his pouch, it will be a spoil worth the taking, for he has been melting
and running for several days past at Murkey's furnace."

Rivers turned away, and the feeling which his countenance exhibited
might have been that of disdainful contempt as he replied,

"Take it, if you please--I am in no want of his money. _My_ object was
not his robbery."

The scorn was seemingly understood; for, without proceeding to do as he
proposed, Munro retained his position for a few moments, appearing to
busy himself with the bridle of his horse, having adjusted which he
returned to his companion.

"Well, are you ready for a start? We have a good piece to ride, and
should be in motion. We have both of us much to do in the next three
days, or rather nights; and need not hesitate what to take hold of
first. The court will sit on Monday, and if you are determined to stand
and see it out--a plan which I don't altogether like--why, we must
prepare to get rid of such witnesses as we may think likely to become
troublesome."

"That matter will be seen to. I have ordered Dillon to have ten men in
readiness, if need be for so many, to carry off Pippin, and a few
others, till the adjournment. It will be a dear jest to the lawyer, and
one not less novel than terrifying to him, to miss a court under such
circumstances. I take it, he has never been absent from a session for
twenty years; for, if sick before, he is certain to get well in time for
business, spite of his physician."

The grim smile which disfigured still more the visage of Rivers at the
ludicrous association which the proposed abduction of the lawyer
awakened in his mind, was reflected fully back from that of his
companion, whose habit of face, however, in this respect, was more
notorious for gravity than any other less stable expression. He carried
out, in words, the fancied occurrence; described the lawyer as raving
over his undocketed and unargued cases, and the numberless embryos lying
composedly in his pigeonholes, awaiting, with praiseworthy patience, the
moment when they should take upon them a local habitation and a name;
while he, upon whom they so much depended, was fretting with unassuaged
fury in the constraints of his prison, and the absence from that scene
of his repeated triumphs which before had never been at a loss for his
presence.

"But come--let us mount," said the landlord, who did not feel disposed
to lose much time for a jest. "There is more than this to be done yet in
the village; and, I take it, you feel in no disposition to waste more
time to-night. Let us be off"

"So say I, but I go not back with you, Wat. I strike across the woods
into the other road, where I have much to see to; besides going down the
branch to Dixon's Ford, and Wolf's Neck, where I must look up our men
and have them ready. I shall not be in the village, therefore, until
late to-morrow night--if then."

"What--you are for the crossroads, again," said Munro. "I tell you what,
Guy, you must have done with that girl before Lucy shall be yours. It's
bad enough--bad enough that she should be compelled to look to you for
love. It were a sad thing if the little she might expect to find were to
be divided between two or more."

"Pshaw--you are growing Puritan because of the dark. I tell you I have
done with _her_. I can not altogether forget what she was, nor what I
have made her; and just at this time she is in need of my assistance.
Good-night! I shall see Dillon and the rest of them by morning, and
prepare for the difficulty. My disguise shall be complete, and if you
are wise you will see to your own. I would not think of flight, for much
may be made out of the country, and I know of none better for our
purposes. Good-night!"

Thus saying, the outlaw struck into the forest, and Munro, lingering
until he was fairly out of sight, proceeded to rifle the person of
Forrester--an act which the disdainful manner and language of his
companion had made him hitherto forbear. The speech of Rivers on this
subject had been felt; and, taken in connection with the air of
authority which the mental superiority of the latter had necessarily
imparted to his address, there was much in it highly offensive to the
less adventurous ruffian. A few moments sufficed to effect the
lightening of the woodman's purse of the earnings which had been so
essential a feature in his dreams of cottage happiness; and while
engaged in this transfer, the discontent of the landlord with his
colleague in crime, occasionally broke out into words--

"He carries himself highly, indeed; and I must stand reproved whenever
it pleases his humor. Well, I am in for it now, and there is no chance
of my getting safely out of the scrape just at this moment; but the day
will come, and, by G-d! I will have a settlement that'll go near
draining his heart of all the blood in it."

As he spoke in bitterness he approached his horse, and flinging the
bridle over his neck, was in a little while a good distance on his way
from the scene of blood; over which Silence now folded her wings,
brooding undisturbed, as if nothing had taken place below; so little is
the sympathy which the transient and inanimate nature appears, at any
time, to exhibit, with that to the enjoyment of which it yields the
bloom and odor of leaf and flower, soft zephyrs and refreshing waters.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE FATES FAVOR THE FUGITIVE.

Let us now return to our young traveller, whose escape we have already
narrated.

Utterly unconscious of the melancholy circumstance which had diverted
his enemies from the pursuit of himself, he had followed studiously the
parting directions of the young maiden, to whose noble feeling and
fearless courage he was indebted for his present safety; and taken the
almost _blind_ path which she had hastily described to him. On this
route he had for some time gone, with a motion not extravagantly free,
but sufficiently so, having the start, and with the several delays to
which his pursuers had been subjected, to have escaped the danger--while
the vigor of his steed lasted--even had they fallen on the proper route.
He had proceeded in this way for several miles, when, at length, he came
upon a place whence several roads diverged into opposite sections of the
country. Ignorant of the localities, he reined in his horse, and
deliberated with himself for a few moments as to the path he should
pursue. While thus engaged, a broad glare of flame suddenly illumined
the woods on his left hand, followed with the shrieks, equally sudden,
seemingly of a woman.

There was no hesitation in the action of the youth. With unscrupulous
and fearless precipitation, he gave his horse the necessary direction,
and with a smart application of the rowel, plunged down the narrow path
toward the spot from whence the alarm had arisen. As he approached, the
light grew more intense, and he at length discovered a little
cottage-like dwelling, completely embowered in thick foliage, through
the crevices of which the flame proceeded, revealing the cause of
terror, and illuminating for some distance the dense woods around. The
shrieks still continued; and throwing himself from his horse, Ralph
darted forward, and with a single and sudden application of his foot,
struck the door from its hinges, and entered the dwelling just in time
to save its inmates from the worst of all kinds of death.

The apartment was in a light blaze--the drapery of a couch which stood
in one corner partially consumed, and, at the first glance, the whole
prospect afforded but little hope of a successful struggle with the
conflagration. There was no time to be lost, yet the scene was enough to
have paralyzed the nerves of the most heroic action.

On the couch thus circumstanced lay an elderly lady, seemingly in the
very last stages of disease. She seemed only at intervals conscious of
the fire. At her side, in a situation almost as helpless as her own, was
the young female whose screams had first awakened the attention of the
traveller. She lay moaning beside the couch, shrieking at intervals, and
though in momentary danger from the flames, which continued to increase,
taking no steps for their arrest. Her only efforts were taken to raise
the old woman from the couch, and to this, the strength of the young one
was wholly unequal. Ralph went manfully to work, and had the
satisfaction of finding success in his efforts. With a fearless hand he
tore down the burning drapery which curtained the windows and couch; and
which, made of light cotton stuffs, presented a ready auxiliar to the
progress of the destructive element. Striking down the burning shutter
with a single blow, he admitted the fresh air, without which suffocation
must soon have followed, and throwing from the apartment such of the
furniture as had been seized upon by the flames, he succeeded in
arresting their farther advance.

All this was the work of a few moments. There had been no word of
intercourse between the parties, and the youth now surveyed them with
looks of curious inquiry, for the first time. The invalid, as we have
said, was apparently struggling with the last stages of natural decay.
Her companion was evidently youthful, in spite of those marks which even
the unstudied eye might have discerned in her features, of a temper and
a spirit subdued and put to rest by the world's strife and trial, and by
afflictions which are not often found to crowd and to make up the
history and being of the young. Their position was peculiarly insulated,
and Ralph wondered much at the singularity of a scene to which his own
experience could furnish no parallel. Here were two lone women--living
on the borders of a savage nation, and forming the frontier of a class
of whites little less savage, without any protection, and, to his mind,
without any motive for making such their abiding-place. His wonder might
possibly have taken the shape of inquiry, but that there was something
of oppressive reserve and shrinking timidity in the air of the young
woman, who alone could have replied to his inquiries. At this time an
old female negro entered, now for the first time alarmed by the outcry,
who assisted in removing such traces of the fire as still remained about
the room. She seemed to occupy a neighboring outhouse; to which, having
done what seemed absolutely necessary, she immediately retired.

Colleton, with a sentiment of the deepest commiseration, proceeded to
reinstate things as they might have been before the conflagration, and
having done so, and having soothed, as far as he well might, the excited
apprehensions of the young girl, who made her acknowledgments in a not
unbecoming style, he ventured to ask a few questions as to the condition
of the old lady and of herself; but, finding from the answers that the
subject was not an agreeable one, and having no pretence for further
delay, he prepared to depart. He inquired, however, his proper route to
the Chestatee river, and thus obtained a solution of the difficulty
which beset him in the choice of roads at the fork.

While thus employed, however, and just at the conclusion of his labors,
there came another personage upon the scene, to whom it is necessary
that we should direct our attention.

It will be remembered that Rivers and Munro, after the murder of
Forrester, had separated--the latter on his return to the village--the
other in a direction which seemed to occasion some little
dissatisfaction in the mind of his companion. After thus separating,
Rivers, to whom the whole country was familiar, taking a shorter route
across the forest, by which the sinuosities of the main road were
generally avoided, entered, after the progress of a few miles, into the
very path pursued by Colleton, and which, had it been chosen by his
pursuers in the first instance, might have entirely changed the result
of the pursuit. In taking this course it was not the thought of the
outlaw to overtake the individual whose blood he so much desired; but,
with an object which will have its development as we continue, he came
to the cottage at the very time when, having succeeded in overcoming the
flames, Ralph was employed in a task almost as difficult--that of
reassuring the affrighted inmates, and soothing them against the
apprehension of farther danger.

With a caution which old custom had made almost natural in such cases,
Rivers, as he approached the cross-roads, concealed his horse in the
cover of the woods, advanced noiselessly, and with not a little
surprise, to the cottage, whose externals had undergone no little
alteration from the loss of the shutter, the blackened marks, visible
enough in the moonlight, around the window-frame, and the general look
of confusion which hung about it. A second glance made out the steed of
our traveller, which he approached and examined. The survey awakened all
those emotions which operated upon his spirit when referring to his
successful rival; and, approaching the cottage with extreme caution, he
took post for a while at one of the windows, the shutter of which,
partially unclosed, enabled him to take in at a glance the entire
apartment.

He saw, at once, the occasion which had induced the presence, in this
situation, of his most hateful enemy; and the thoughts were strangely
discordant which thronged and possessed his bosom. At one moment he had
drawn his pistol to his eye--his finger rested upon the trigger, and the
doubt which interposed between the youth and eternity, though it
sufficed for his safety then, was of the most slight and shadowy
description. A second time did the mood of murder savagely possess his
soul, and the weapon's muzzle fell pointblank upon the devoted bosom of
Ralph; when the slight figure of the young woman passing between, again
arrested the design of the outlaw, who, with muttered curses, uncocking,
returned the weapon to his belt.

Whatever might have been the relationship between himself and these
females, there was an evident reluctance on the part of Rivers to
exhibit his ferocious hatred of the youth before those to whom he had
just rendered a great and unquestioned service; and, though untroubled
by any feeling of gratitude on their behalf, or on his own, he was yet
unwilling, believing, as he did, that his victim was now perfectly
secure, that they should undergo any further shock, at a moment too of
such severe suffering and trial as must follow in the case of the
younger, from those fatal pangs which were destroying the other.

Ralph now prepared to depart; and taking leave of the young woman, who
alone seemed conscious of his services, and warmly acknowledged them, he
proceeded to the door. Rivers, who had watched his motions attentively,
and heard the directions given him by the girl for his progress, at the
same moment left the window, and placed himself under the shelter of a
huge tree, at a little distance on the path which his enemy was directed
to pursue. Here he waited like the tiger, ready to take the fatal leap,
and plunge his fangs into the bosom of his victim. Nor did he wait long.

Ralph was soon upon his steed, and on the road; but the Providence that
watches over and protects the innocent was with him, and it happened,
most fortunately, that just before he reached the point at which his
enemy stood in watch, the badness of the road had compelled those who
travelled it to diverge aside for a few paces into a little by-path,
which, at a little distance beyond, and when the bad places had been
rounded, brought the traveller again into the proper path. Into this
by-path, the horse of Colleton took his way; the rider neither saw the
embarrassments of the common path, nor that his steed had turned aside
from them. It was simply providential that the instincts of the horse
were more heedful than the eyes of the horseman.

It was just a few paces ahead, and on the edge of a boggy hollow that
Guy Rivers had planted himself in waiting. The tread of the young
traveller's steed, diverging from the route which he watched, taught the
outlaw the change which it was required that he should also make in his
position.

"Curse him!" he muttered. "Shall there be always something in the way of
my revenge?"

Such was his temper, that everything which baffled him in his object
heightened his ferocity to a sort of madness. But this did not prevent
his prompt exertion to retrieve the lost ground. The "turn-out" did not
continue fifty yards, before it again wound into the common road, and
remembering this, the outlaw hurried across the little copse which
separated the two routes for a space. The slow gait at which Colleton
now rode, unsuspicious of danger, enabled his enemy to gain the position
which he sought, close crouching on the edge of the thicket, just where
the roads again united. Here he waited--not many seconds.

The pace of our traveller, we have said, was slow. We may add that his
mood was also inattentive. He was not only unapprehensive of present
danger, but his thoughts were naturally yielded to the condition of the
two poor women, in that lonely abode of forest, whom he had just
rescued, in all probability, from a fearful death. Happy with the
pleasant consciousness of a good action well performed, and with spirits
naturally rising into animation, freed as they were from a late heavy
sense of danger--he was as completely at the mercy of the outlaw who
awaited him, pistol in hand, as if he lay, as his poor friend,
Forrester, so recently had done, directly beneath his knife.

And so thought Rivers, who heard the approaching footsteps, and now
caught a glimpse of his approaching shadow.

The outlaw deliberately lifted his pistol. It was already cocked. His
form was sheltered by a huge tree, and as man and horse gradually drew
nigh, the breathing of the assassin seemed almost suspended in his
ferocious anxiety for blood.

The dark shadow moved slowly along the path. The head of the horse is
beside the outlaw. In a moment the rider will occupy the same spot--and
then! The finger of the outlaw is upon the trigger--the deadly aim is
taken!--what arrests the deed? Ah! surely there is a Providence--a
special arm to save--to interpose between the criminal and his
victim--to stay the wilful hands of the murderer, when the deed seems
already done, as it has been already determined upon.

Even in that moment, when but a touch is necessary to destroy the
unconscious traveller--a sudden rush is heard above the robber. Great
wings sweep away, with sudden clatter, and the dismal hootings of an
owl, scared from his perch on a low shrub-tree, startles the
cold-blooded murderer from his propriety. With the nervous excitement of
his mind, and his whole nature keenly interested in the deed, to break
suddenly the awful silence, the brooding hush of the forest, with
unexpected sounds, and those so near, and so startling--for once the
outlaw ceased to be the master of his own powers!

The noise of the bird scared the steed. He dashed headlong forward, and
saved the life of his rider!

Yet Ralph Colleton never dreamed of his danger--never once conjectured
how special was his obligations to the interposing hand of Providence!
And so, daily, with the best of us--and the least fortunate. How few of
us ever dream of the narrow escapes we make, at moments when a breath
might kill us, when the pressure of a "bare bodkin" is all that is
necessary to send us to sudden judgment!

And the outlaw was again defeated. He had not, perhaps, been scared. He
had only been surprised--been confounded. In the first cry of the bird,
the first rush of his wings, flapping through the trees, it seemed as if
they had swept across his eyes. He lowered the pistol involuntarily--he
forgot to pull the trigger, and when he recovered himself, steed and
rider had gone beyond his reach.

"Is there a devil," he involuntarily murmured, "that stands between me
and my victim? am I to be baffled always? Is there, indeed, a God?"

He paused in stupor and vexation. He could hear the distant tramp of the
horse, sinking faintly out of hearing.

"That I, who have lived in the woods all my life, should have been
startled by an owl, and at such a moment!"

Cursing the youth's good fortune, not less than his own weakness, the
fierce disappointment of Guy Rivers was such that he fairly gnashed his
teeth with vexation. At first, he thought to dash after his victim, but
his own steed had been fastened near the cottage, several hundred yards
distant, and he was winded too much for a further pursuit that night.

Colleton was, meanwhile, a mile ahead, going forward swimmingly, never
once dreaming of danger. He was thus far safe. So frequently and
completely had his enemy been baffled in the brief progress of a single
night, that he was almost led to believe--for, like most criminals, he
was not without his superstition--that his foe was under some special
guardianship. With ill-concealed anger, and a stern impatience, he
turned.

CHAPTER XXV.

SUBDUED AGONIES.

The entrance of Guy Rivers awakened no emotion among the inmates of the
dwelling; indeed, at the moment, it was almost unperceived. The young
woman happened to be in close attendance upon her parent, for such the
invalid was, and did not observe his approach, while he stood at some
little distance from the couch, surveying the scene. The old lady was
endeavoring, though with a feebleness that grew more apparent with every
breath, to articulate something, to which she seemed to attach much
importance, in the ears of the kneeling girl, who, with breathless
attention, seemed desirous of making it out, but in vain; and,
signifying by her countenance the disappointment which she felt, the
speaker, with something like anger, shook her skinny finger feebly in
her face, and the broken and incoherent words, with rapid effort but
like success, endeavored to find their way through the half-closed
aperture between her teeth. The tears fell fast and full from the eyes
of the kneeling girl, who neither sobbed nor spoke, but, with continued
and yet despairing attention, endeavored earnestly to catch the few
words of one who was on the eve of departure, and the words of whom, at
such a moment, almost invariably acquire a value never attached to them
before: as the sounds of a harp, when the chords are breaking, are said
to articulate a sweet sorrow, as if in mourning for their own fate.

The outlaw, all this while, stood apart and in silence. Although perhaps
but little impressed with the native solemnity of the scene before him,
he was not so ignorant of what was due to humanity, and not so unfeeling
in reference to the parties here interested, as to seek to disturb its
progress or propriety with tone, look, or gesture, which might make
either of them regret his presence. Becoming impatient, however, of a
colloquy which, as he saw that it had not its use, and was only
productive of mortification to one of the parties, he thought only
prudent to terminate, he advanced toward them; and his tread, for the
first time, warned them of his presence.

With an effort which seemed supernatural, the dying woman raised herself
with a sudden start in the bed, and her eyes glared upon him with a
threatening horror, and her lips parting, disclosed the broken and
decayed teeth beneath, ineffectually gnashing, while her long, skinny
fingers warned him away. All this time she appeared to speak, but the
words were unarticulated, though, from the expression of every feature,
it was evident that indignation and reproach made up the entire amount
of everything she had to express. The outlaw was not easily influenced
by anger so impotent as this; and, from his manner of receiving it, it
appeared that he had been for some time accustomed to a reception of a
like kind from the same person. He approached the young girl, who had
now risen from her knees, and spoke to her in words of comparative
kindness:--

"Well, Ellen, you have had an alarm, but I am glad to see you have
suffered no injury. How happened the fire?"

The young woman explained the cause of the conflagration, and narrated
in brief the assistance which had been received from the stranger.

"But I was so terrified, Guy," she added, "that I had not presence of
mind enough to thank him."

"And what should be the value of your spoken thanks, Ellen? The
stranger, if he have sense, must feel that he has them, and the
utterance of such things had better be let alone. But, how is the old
lady now? I see she loves me no better than formerly."

"She is sinking fast, Guy, and is now incapable of speech. Before you
came, she seemed desirous of saying something to me, but she tried in
vain to speak, and now I scarcely think her conscious."

"Believe it not, Ellen: she is conscious of all that is going on, though
her voice may fail her. Her eye is even now fixed upon me, and with the
old expression. She would tear me if she could."

"Oh, think not thus of the dying, Guy--of her who has never harmed, and
would never harm you, if she had the power. And yet, Heaven knows, and
we both know, she has had reason enough to hate, and, if she could, to
destroy you. But she has no such feeling now."

"You mistake, Ellen, or would keep the truth from me. You know she has
always hated me; and, indeed, as you say, she has had cause enough to
hate and destroy me. Had another done to me as I have done to her, I
should not have slept till my hand was in his heart."

"She forgives you all, Guy, I know she does, and God knows I forgive
you--I, who, above all others, have most reason to curse you for ever.
Think not that she can hate upon the brink of the grave. Her mind
wanders, and no wonder that the wrongs of earth press upon her memory,
her reason being gone. She knows not herself of the mood which her
features express. Look not upon her, Guy, I pray you, or let me turn
away my eyes."

"Your spirit, Ellen, is more gentle and shrinking than hers. Had you
felt like her, I verily believe that many a night, when I have been at
rest within your arms, you would have driven a knife into my heart."

"Horrible, Guy! how can you imagine such a thing? Base and worthless as
you have made me, I am too much in your power, I fear--I love you still
too much; and, though like a poison or a firebrand you have clung to my
bosom, I could not have felt for you a single thought of resentment. You
say well when you call me shrinking. I am a creature of a thousand
fears; I am all weakness and worthlessness."

"Well, well--let us not talk further of this. When was the doctor here
last?"

"In the evening he came, and left some directions, but told us plainly
what we had to expect. He said she could not survive longer than the
night; and she looks like it, for within the last few hours she has sunk
surprisingly. But have you brought the medicine?"

"I have, and some drops which are said to stimulate and strengthen."

"I fear they are now of little use, and may only serve to keep up life
in misery. But they may enable her to speak, and I should like to hear
what she seems so desirous to impart."

Ellen took the cordial, and hastily preparing a portion in a wine-glass,
according to the directions, proceeded to administer it to the gasping
patient; but, while the glass was at her lips, the last paroxysm of
death came on, and with it something more of that consciousness now
fleeting for ever. Dashing aside the nostrum with one hand, with the
other she drew the shrinking and half-fainting girl to her side, and,
pressing her down beside her, appeared to give utterance to that which,
from the action, and the few and audible words she made out to
articulate, would seem to have been a benediction.

Rivers, seeing the motion, and remarking the almost supernatural
strength with which the last spasms had endued her, would have taken the
girl from her embrace; but his design was anticipated by the dying
woman, whose eyes glared upon him with an expression rather demoniac
than human, while her paralytic hand, shaking with ineffectual effort,
waved him off. A broken word escaped her lips here and there,
and--"sin"--"forgiveness"--was all that reached the ears of her
grandchild, when her head sank back upon the pillow, and she expired
without a groan.

A dead silence followed this event. The girl had no uttered anguish--she
spoke not her sorrows aloud; yet there was that in the wobegone
countenance, and the dumb grief, that left no doubt of the deep though
suppressed and half-subdued agony of soul within. She seemed one to whom
the worst of life had been long since familiar, and who would not find
it difficult herself to die. She had certainly outlived pride and hope,
if not love; and if the latter feeling had its place in her bosom, as
without doubt it had, then was it a hopeless lingerer, long after the
sunshine and zephyr had gone which first awakened it into bloom and
flower. She knelt beside the inanimate form of her old parent, shedding
no tear, and uttering no sigh. Tears would have poorly expressed the wo
which at that moment she felt; and the outlaw, growing impatient of the
dumb spectacle, now ventured to approach and interrupt her. She rose,
meekly and without reluctance, as he spoke; with a manner which said as
plainly as words could have, said--'Command, and I obey. Bid me go even
now, at midnight, on a perilous journey, over and into foreign lands,
and I go without murmur or repining.' She was a heart-stricken, a
heart-broken, and abused woman--and yet she loved still, and loved her
destroyer.

"Ellen," said he, taking her hand, "your mother was a Christian--a
strict worshipper--one who, for the last few years of her life, seldom
put the Bible out of her hands; and yet she cursed me in her very soul
as she went out of the world."

"Guy, Guy, speak not so, I pray you. Spare me this cruelty, and say not
for the departed spirit what it surely never would have said of itself."

"But it did so say, Ellen, and of this I am satisfied. Hear me, girl. I
know something of mankind, and womankind too, and I am not often
mistaken in the expression of human faces, and certainly was not
mistaken in hers. When, in the last paroxysm, you knelt beside her with
your head down upon her hand and in her grasp, and as I approached her,
her eyes, which feebly threw up the film then rapidly closing over them,
shot out a most angry glare of hatred and reproof; while her lips
parted--I could see, though she could articulate no word--with
involutions which indicated the curse that she could not speak."

"Think not so, I pray you. She had much cause to curse, and often would
she have done so, but for my sake she did not. She would call me a poor
fool, that so loved the one who had brought misery and shame to all of
us; but her malediction was arrested, and she said it not. Oh, no! she
forgave you--I know she did--heard you not the words which she uttered
at the last?"

"Yes, yes--but no matter. We must now talk of other things, Ellen; and
first of all, you must know, then, I am about to be married."

Had a bolt from the crossbow at that moment penetrated into her heart,
the person he addressed could not have been more transfixed than at this
speech. She started--an inquiring and tearful doubt rose into her eyes,
as they settled piercingly upon his own; but the information they met
with there needed no further word of assurance from his lips. He was a
stern tyrant--one, however, who did not trifle.

"I feared as much, Guy--I have had thoughts which as good as told me
this long before. The silent form before me has said to me, over and
over again, you would never wed her whom you have dishonored. Oh, fool
that I was!--spite of her forebodings and my own, I thought--I still
think, and oh, Guy, let me not think in vain--that there would be a time
when you would take away the reproach from my name and the sin from my
soul, by making me your wife, as you have so often promised."

"You have indeed thought like a child, Ellen, if you suppose that,
situated as I am, I could ever marry simply because I loved."

"And will you not love her whom you are now about to wed?"

"Not as much as I have loved you--not half so much as I love you now--if
it be that I have such a feeling at this moment in my bosom."

"And wherefore then would you wed, Guy, with one whom you do not, whom
you can not love? In what have I offended--have I ever reproached or
looked unkindly on you, Guy, even when you came to me, stern and full of
reproaches, chafed with all things and with everybody?"

"There are motives, Ellen, governing my actions into which you must not
inquire--"

"What, not inquire, when on these actions depend all my hope--all my
life! Now indeed you are the tyrant which my old mother said, and all
people say, you are."

The girl for a moment forgot her submissiveness, and her words were
tremulous, less with sorrow than the somewhat strange spirit which her
wrongs had impressed upon her. But sue soon felt the sinking of the
momentary inspiration, and quickly sought to remove the angry scowl
which she perceived coming over the brow of her companion.

"Nay, nay--forgive me, Guy--let me not reproach--let me not accuse you.
I have not done so before: I would not do so now. Do with me as you
please; and yet, if you are bent to wed with another, and forget and
overlook your wrongs to me, there is one kindness which would become
your hands, and which I would joy to receive from them. Will you do for
me this kindness, Guy? Nay, now be not harsh, but say that you will do
it."

She seized his hand appealingly as she spoke, and her moist but
untearful eyes were fixed pleadingly upon his own. The outlaw hesitated
for a moment before he replied.

"I propose, Ellen, to do for you all that may be necessary--to provide
you with additional comforts, and carry you to a place of additional
security, where you shall live to yourself, and have good attendance."

"This is kind--this is much, Guy; but not much more than you have been
accustomed to do for me. That which I seek from you now is something
more than this; promise me that it shall be as I say."

"If it breaks not into my arrangements--if it makes me not go aside from
my path, I will certainly do it, Ellen. Speak, therefore; what is it I
can do for you?"

"It will interfere with none of your arrangements, Guy, I am sure; it
can not take you from your path, for you could not have provided for
that of which you knew not. I have your pledge, therefore--have I not?"

"You have," was the reply, while the manner of Rivers was tinctured with
something like curiosity.

"That is kind--that is as you ought to be. Hear me now, then," and her
voice sunk into a whisper, as if she feared the utterance of her own
words; "take your knife, Guy--pause not, do it quickly, lest I fear and
tremble--strike it deep into the bosom of the poor Ellen, and lay her
beside the cold parent, whose counsels she despised, and all of whose
predictions are now come true. Strike--strike quickly, Guy Rivers; I
have your promise--you can not recede; if you have honor, if you have
truth, you must do as I ask. Give me death--give me peace."

"Foolish girl, would you trifle with me--would you have me spurn and
hate you? Beware!"

The outlaw well knew the yielding and sensitive material out of which
his victim had been made. His stern rebuke was well calculated to effect
in her bosom that revulsion of feeling which he knew would follow any
threat of a withdrawal, even of the lingering and frail fibres of that
affection, few and feeble as they were, which he might have once
persuaded her to believe had bound him to her. The consequence was
immediate, and her subdued tone and resigned action evinced the now
entire supremacy of her natural temperament.

"Oh, forgive me, Guy, I know not what I ask or what I do. I am so worn
and weary, and my head is so heavy, that I think it were far better if I
were in my grave with the cold frame whom we shall soon put there. Heed
not what I say--I am sad and sick, and have not the spirit of reason, or
a healthy will to direct me. Do with me as you will--I will obey you--go
anywhere, and, worst of all, behold you wed another; ay, stand by, if
you desire it, and look on the ceremony, and try to forget that you once
promised me that I should be yours, and yours only."

"You speak more wisely, Ellen; and you will think more calmly upon it
when the present grief of your grandmother's death passes off."

"Oh, that is no grief, now, Guy," was the rather hasty reply. "That is
no grief now: should I regret that she has escaped these tidings--should
I regret that she has ceased to feel trouble, and to see and shed
tears--should I mourn, Guy, that she who loved me to the last, in spite
of my follies and vices, has ceased now to mourn over them? Oh, no! this
is no grief, now; it was grief but a little while ago, but now you have
made it matter of rejoicing."

"Think not of it,--speak no more in this strain, Ellen, lest you anger
me."

"I will not--chide me not--I have no farther reproaches. Yet, Guy, is
she, the lady you are about to wed--is she beautiful, is she young--has
she long raven tresses, as I had once, when your fingers used to play in
them?" and with a sickly smile, which had in it something of an old
vanity, she unbound the string which confined her own hair, and let it
roll down upon her back in thick and beautiful volumes, still black,
glossy and delicately soft as silk.

The outlaw was moved. For a moment his iron muscles relaxed--a gentler
expression overspread his countenance, and he took her in his arms. That
single, half-reluctant embrace was a boon not much bestowed in the
latter days of his victim, and it awakened a thousand tender
recollections in her heart, and unsealed a warm spring of gushing
waters. An infantile smile was in her eyes, while the tears were flowing
down her cheeks.

But, shrinking or yielding, at least to any great extent, made up very
little of the character of the dark man on whom she depended; and the
more than feminine weakness of the young girl who hung upon his bosom
like a dying flower, received its rebuke, after a few moments of
unwonted tenderness, when, coldly resuming his stern habit, he put her
from his arms, and announced to her his intention of immediately taking
his departure.

"What," she asked, "will you not stay with me through the night, and
situated as I am?"

"It is impossible; even now I am waited for, and should have been some
hours on my way to an appointment which I must not break. It is not with
me as with you; I have obligations to others who depend on me, and who
might suffer injury were I to deceive them."

"But this night, Guy--there is little of it left, and I am sure you will
not be expected before the daylight. I feel a new terror when I think I
shall be left by all, and here, too, alone with the dead."

"You will not be alone, and if you were, Ellen, you have been thus
lonely for many months past, and should be now accustomed to it."

"Why, so I should, for it has been a fearful and a weary time, and I
went not to my bed one night without dreading that I should never behold
another day."

"Why, what had you to alarm you? you suffered no affright--no injury? I
had taken care that throughout the forest your cottage should be
respected."

"So I had your assurance, and when I thought, I believed it. I knew you
had the power to do as you assured me you would, but still there were
moments when our own desolation came across my mind; and what with my
sorrows and my fears, I was sometimes persuaded, in my madness, to pray
that I might be relieved of them, were it even by the hands of death."

"You were ever thus foolish, Ellen, and you have as little reason now to
apprehend as then. Besides, it is only for the one night, and in the
morning I shall send those to you who will attend to your own removal to
another spot, and to the interment of the body."

"And where am I to go?"

"What matters it where, Ellen? You have my assurance that it shall be a
place of security and good attendance to which I shall send you."

"True, what matters it where I go--whether among the savage or the
civilized? They are to me all alike, since I may not look them in the
face, or take them by the hand, or hold communion with them, either at
the house of God or at the family fireside."

The gloomy despondence of her spirit was uppermost; and she went on, in
a series of bitter musings, denouncing herself as an outcast, a
worthless something, and, in the language of the sacred text, calling on
the rocks and mountains to cover her. The outlaw, who had none of those
fine feelings which permitted of even momentary sympathy with that
desolation of heart, the sublime agonies of which are so well calculated
to enlist and awaken it, cut short the strain of sorrow and complaint by
a fierce exclamation, which seemed to stun every sense of her spirit.

"Will you never have done?" he demanded. "Am I for ever to listen to
this weakness--this unavailing reproach of yourself and everything
around you? Do I not know that all your complaints and reproaches,
though you address them in so many words to yourself, are intended only
for my use and ear? Can I not see through the poor hypocrisy of such a
lamentation? Know I not that when you curse and deplore the sin you only
withhold the malediction from him who tempted and partook of it, in the
hope that his own spirit will apply it all to himself? Away, girl; I
thought you had a nobler spirit--I thought you felt the love that I now
find existed only in expression."

"I do feel that love; I would, Guy that I felt it not--that it did exist
only in my words. I were then far happier than I am now, since stern
look or language from you would then utterly fail to vex and wound as it
does now. I can not bear your reproaches; look not thus upon me, and
speak not in those harsh sentences--not now--not now, at least, and in
this melancholy presence."

Her looks turned upon the dead body of her parent as she spoke, and with
convulsive effort she rushed toward and clasped it round. She threw
herself beside the corpse and remained inanimate, while the outlaw,
leaving the house for an instant, called the negro servant and commanded
her attendance. He now approached the girl, and taking up her hand,
which lay supine upon the bosom of the dead body, would have soothed her
grief; but though she did not repulse, she yet did not regard him.

"Be calm, Ellen," he said, "recover and be firm. In the morning you
shall have early and good attention, and with this object, in part, am I
disposed to hurry now. Think not, girl, that I forget you. Whatever may