h way; unless we were wicked men of
the world and fighting men, and would wage battle with them!"

"Why not meet the villains in their own way? There are but five of
them,--and footmen too! By heavens, man, we will charge them,--cut them
to pieces, and so rid the wood of them! Four strong men like us,
fighting, too, in defence of women,"

"_Four!_" echoed Nathan, looking wonder and alarm together: "does thee
think to have _me_ do the wicked thing of shedding blood? Thee should
remember, friend, that I am a follower of peaceful doctrines, a man of
peace and amity."

"What!" said Roland, warmly, "would you not defend your life from the
villains? Would you suffer yourself to be tomahawked, unresisting, when a
touch of the trigger under your finger, a blow of the knife at your belt,
would preserve the existence nature and heaven alike call on you to
protect? Would you lie still, like a fettered ox, to be butchered?"

"Truly," said Nathan, "I would take myself away; or, if that might
not be, why then, friend,--verily, friend, if I could do nothing
else,--truly, I must then give myself up to be murdered,"

"Spiritless, mad, or hypocritical!" cried Roland, with mingled wonder
and contempt. Then grasping his strange companion by the arm, he cried,
"Harkee, man, if you would not strike a blow for yourself,--would you
not strike it for another? What if you had a wife, a parent, a child,
lying beneath the uplifted hatchet, and you with these arms in your
hands,--what! do you tell me you would stand by and see them murdered?--I
say, a wife or child!--the wife of your bosom,--the child of your heart?
would you see _them_ murdered?"

At this stirring appeal, uttered with indescribable energy and passion,
though only in a whisper, Nathan's countenance changed from dark to pale,
and his arm trembled in the soldier's grasp. He turned upon him also a
look of extraordinary wildness, and muttered betwixt his teeth an answer
that betokened as much confusion of mind as agitation of spirits:
"Friend," he said, "whoever thee is, it matters nothing to thee what
might happen, or has happened, in such case made and provided. I am a
man, thee is another; thee has thee conscience, and I have mine. If thee
will fight, fight; settle it with thee conscience. If thee don't like to
see thee kinswoman murdered, and thee thinks thee has a call to battle,
do thee best with sword and pistol, gun and tomahawk; kill and slay to
thee liking: if thee cons