“No! none!  I have no scruples!  But to cut a throat, or blow out a man’s liver with a brace of bullets, is a work that should be well paid for.  The performance is by no means so agreeable that one should seek to do it for nothing.”

Guy Rivers fancied himself a nobler animal than his companion, as he felt that he needed not the mercenary motive for the performance of the murderous action.

They were mounted, the horses being ready for them in the rear of the building.

“Round the hollow.  We’ll skirt the village, and not go through it,” said Munro.  “We may gain something on the route to the fork of the roads by taking the blind track by the red hill.”

“As you will.  Go ahead!”

A few more words sufficed to arrange the route, and regulate their pursuit, and a few moments sufficed to send them off in full speed over the stony road, both with a common and desperate purpose, but each moved by arguments and a passion of his own.

In her lonely chamber, Lucy Munro, now recovered to acutest consciousness, heard the tread of their departing hoofs; and, clasping her hands, she sank upon her knees, yielding up her whole soul to silent prayer.  The poor girl never slept that night.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE BLOODY DEED.

Let us leave the outlaws to their progress for a brief space, while we gather up and pursue for awhile some other clues of our story.

We have witnessed the separation of Mark Forrester from his sweetheart, at the place of trysting.  The poor fellow had recovered some of his confidence in himself and fortune, and was now prepared to go forth with a new sentiment of hope within his bosom.  The sting was in a degree taken from his conscience—­his elastic and sanguine temperament contributed to this—­and with renewed impulses to adventure, and with new anticipations of the happiness that we all dream to find in life; the erring, but really honest fellow, rode fearlessly through the dim forests, without needing more auspicious lights than those of the kindling moon and stars.  The favor of old Allen, the continued love of Kate, the encouragements of young Colleton, his own feeling of the absence of any malice in his heart, even while committing his crime, and the farther fact that he was well-mounted, and speeding from the region where punishment threatened—­all these were influences which conspired to lessen, in his mind, the griefs of his present privation, and the lonely emotions which naturally promised to accompany him in his solitary progress.

His course lay for the great Southwest—­the unopened forests, and mighty waters of the Mississippi valley.  Here, he was to begin a new life.  Unknown, he would shake off the fears which his crime necessarily inspired.  Respited from death and danger, he would atone for it by penitence and honest works.  Kate Allen should be his solace, and there would be young and lovely children smiling around his board.  Such were the natural dreams of the young and sanguine exile.