Abiram,
alone, formed a solitary exception to this state of equivocal repose.
After a life passed in the commission of a thousand mean and
insignificant villanies, the mind of the kidnapper had become hardy
enough to attempt the desperate adventure, which has been laid before
the reader, in the course of the narrative. His influence over the
bolder, but less active, spirit of Ishmael was far from great, and had
not the latter been suddenly expelled from a fertile bottom, of which
he had taken possession, with intent to keep it, without much
deference to the forms of law, he would never have succeeded in
enlisting the husband of his sister in an enterprise that required so
much decision and forethought. Their original success and subsequent
disappointment have been seen; and Abiram now sat apart, plotting the
means, by which he might secure to himself the advantages of his
undertaking, which he perceived were each moment becoming more
uncertain, through the open admiration of Mahtoree for the innocent
subject of his villany.
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