hich belongs to all these young men from Carolina, I
saw nothing in his manner that looked at all out of the way."

"Well, Munro, you are bent on having the thing as you please. You will
find, when too late, that your counsel will end in having us all in a
hobble."

"Pshaw! you are growing old and timid since this adventure. You begin to
doubt your own powers of defence. You find your arguments failing; and
you fear that, when the time comes, you will not plead with your old
spirit, though for the extrication of your own instead of the neck of
your neighbor."

"Perhaps so--but, if there be no reason for apprehension, there is
something due to me in the way of revenge. Is the fellow to hurl me
down, and trench my cheek in this manner, and escape without hurt?"

The eyes of the speaker glared with a deadly fury, as he indicated in
this sentence another motive for his persevering hostility to
Colleton--an hostility for which, as subsequent passages will show, he
had even a better reason than the unpleasing wound in his face; which,
nevertheless, was in itself, strange as it may appear, a considerable
eyesore to its proprietor. Munro evidently understood this only in part;
and, unaccustomed to attribute a desire to shed blood to any other than
a motive of gain or safety, and without any idea of mortified pride or
passion being productive of a thirst unaccountable to his mind, except
in this manner, he proceeded thus, in a sentence, the dull simplicity of
which only the more provoked the ire of his companion--

"What do you think to do, Guy--what recompense would you seek to
have--what would satisfy you?"

The hand of Rivers grasped convulsively that of the questioner as he
spoke, his eyes were protruded closely into his face, his voice was
thick, choking and husky, and his words tremulous, as he replied,

"His blood--his blood!"

The landlord started back with undisguised horror from his glance.
Though familiar with scenes of violence and crime, and callous in their
performance, there was more of the Mammon than the Moloch in his spirit,
and he shuddered at the fiendlike look that met his own. The other
proceeded:--

"The trench in my cheek is nothing to that within my soul. I tell you.
Munro, I hate the boy--I hate him with a hatred that must have a
tiger-draught from his veins, and even then I will not be satisfied. But
why talk I to you thus, when he is almost in my grasp; and there is
neither let nor hinderan