han his colleague, determined no
longer to risk it; and having, as we have seen, effectually checked the
utterance of that evidence which, in the unconscious excitation of his
niece, must have involved him more deeply in the meshes of the law,
besides indicating his immediate and near neighborhood, he made his way,
unobserved, from the village, having first provided for her safety, and
as he had determined to keep out of the way himself, having brought his
family back to their old place of abode.

He had determined on this course from a variety of considerations.
Nothing, he well knew, could affect his family. He had always studiously
kept them from any participation in his offences. The laws had no terror
for them; and, untroubled by any process against him, they could still
remain and peaceably possess his property, of which he well knew, in the
existing state of society in the South, no legal outlawry of himself
would ever avail to deprive them. This could not have been his hope in
their common flight. Such a measure, too, would only have impeded his
progress, in the event of his pursuit, and have burdened him with
encumbrances which would perpetually involve him in difficulty. He
calculated differently his chances. His hope was to be able, when the
first excitements had overblown, to return to the village, and at least
quietly to effect such a disposition of his property, which was not
inconsiderable, as to avoid the heavy and almost entire loss which would
necessarily follow any other determination.

In all this, however, it may be remarked that the reasonings of Rivers,
rather than his own, determined his conduct. That more adventurous
ruffian had, from his superior boldness and greater capacities in
general, acquired a singular and large influence over his companion: he
governed him, too, as much by his desire of gain as by any distinct
superiority which he himself possessed; he stimulated his avarice with
the promised results of their future enterprises in the same region
after the passing events were over; and thus held him still in that
fearful bondage of subordinate villany whose inevitable tendency is to
make the agent the creature, and finally the victim. The gripe which, in
a moral sense, and with a slight reference to character, Rivers had upon
the landlord, was as tenacious as that of death--but with this
difference, that it was death prolonged through a fearful, and, though
not a protracted, yet much t