t you loose and save
you--say it, and be quick; your life depends on it--Hark! the dogs is
coming! Hold out your arms till I cut the tug--"

"Anything for my life!" cried the Virginian; "but if it can be only
bought at the price of marrying the girl, it is lost."

And the soldier would have resisted the effort Doe was making for his
deliverance.

"You'll be murdered, I tell you!" re-echoed Doe, with increased
vehemence, holding the knife ready in his hand: "they're coming on us: I
don't want to see you butchered like an ox. One word, captain!--I'll take
your word; you're an honest fellow, and I'll believe in you;--jist one
word, captain; I'll help you; I'll fight the dogs for you; I'll give you
weapons. The gal, captain! life and the fortun, captain!--The gal! the
gal!"

"Never, I tell you, never!" cried Roland, who, faithful to the honour and
integrity of spirit which conducted the men of that day, the mighty
fathers of the republic, through the vicissitudes of revolution to the
rewards of liberty, would not stoop to the meanness of falsehood and
deception even in that moment of peril and fear;--"anything but that--but
that, never!"

But, whilst he spoke, Doe, urged on by his own impetuous feelings, had
cut the thong from his wrists, and was even proceeding to divide those
that bound his ankles, disregarding all his protestations and averments,
or perhaps drowning them in his own eager exclamations of "The gal,
captain,--the word, jist one word!" when a dozen or more savages burst
into the hut, and sprang upon the Virginian, yelling, cursing, and
flourishing their knives and hatchets, as if they would have torn him to
pieces on the spot. And such, undoubtedly, was the aim of some of the
younger men, who struck at him several furious blows, that were only
averted by the older warriors at the expense of some of their own blood
shed in the struggle, which was, for a moment, as fiercely waged over the
prisoner as the conflict of enraged hounds over the body of a disabled
panther, that are all emulous to worry and tear. One instant of dreadful
confusion, of shrieks, blows, and maledictions, and the Virginian was
snatched up in the arms of two or three of the strongest men, and dragged
from the hut; but only to find himself surrounded by a herd of villagers,
men, women, and children, who fell upon him with as much fury as the
young warriors had done, beating him with bludgeons, wounding him with
their knives, so that i