To my eye you may go
far, before a better place than this is found to pass the night in."
"Tis well you like it. Your tarry here ar' likely to be long. My sons,
draw nigh and listen. Abiram White," he added, lifting his cap, and
speaking with a solemnity and steadiness, that rendered even his dull
mien imposing, "you have slain my first-born, and according to the
laws of God and man must you die!"
The kidnapper started at this terrible and sudden sentence, with the
terror that one would exhibit who unexpectedly found himself in the
grasp of a monster, from whose power there was no retreat. Although
filled with the most serious forebodings of what might be his lot, his
courage had not been equal to look his danger in the face, and with
the deceitful consolation, with which timid tempers are apt to conceal
their desperate condition from themselves, he had rather courted a
treacherous relief in his cunning, than prepared himself for the
worst.
"Die!" he repeated, in a voice that scarcely issued from his chest; "a
man is surely safe among his kinsmen!"
"So thought my boy," returned the squatter, motioning for the team,
that contained his wife and the girls, to proceed, as he very coolly
examined the priming of his piece.
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