he better for it; and I declare I
don't like to hurt such a fine-looking chap if I can possibly avoid it.
Now take a friend's advice; 'twill be all the better for you, I tell
you."

The speaker evidently meant well, so far as it was possible for one to
mean well who was commissioned to do, and was, in fact, doing ill. The
Georgian, however, only the more indignant at the impertinence of the
address, took the following notice of it, uttered in the same breath
with an imperative command to his own men to hasten their advance:--

"Disperse yourselves, scoundrels, and throw down your arms!--on the
instant disperse! Lift a hand, or pull a trigger upon us, and every man
shall dangle upon the branches of the first tree!"

As he spoke, leading the way, he drove his rowels into the sides of his
animal; and, followed by his troop, bounded fearlessly up the gorge.

CHAPTER XIV.

CATASTROPHE--COLLETON'S DISCOVERY.

It is time to return to Ralph Colleton, who has quite too long escaped
our consideration. The reader will doubtless remember, with little
difficulty, where and under what circumstances we left him. Provoked by
the sneer and sarcasm of the man whom at the same moment he most
cordially despised, we have seen him taking a position in the
controversy, in which his person, though not actually within the
immediate sphere of action, was nevertheless not a little exposed to
some of its risks. This position, with fearless indifference, he
continued to maintain, unshrinkingly and without interruption,
throughout the whole period and amid all the circumstances of the
conflict. There was something of a boyish determination in this way to
assert his courage, which his own sense inwardly rebuked; yet such is
the nature of those peculiarities in southern habits and opinions, to
which we have already referred, on all matters which relate to personal
prowess and a masculine defiance of danger, that, even while
entertaining the most profound contempt for those in whose eye the
exhibition was made, he was not sufficiently independent of popular
opinion to brave its current when he himself was its subject. He may
have had an additional motive for this proceeding, which most probably
enforced its necessity. He well knew that fearless courage, among this
people, was that quality which most certainly won and secured their
respect; and the policy was not unwise, perhaps which represented this
as a good opportunity for a display w