“Is there a devil,” he involuntarily murmured, “that stands between me and my victim? am I to be baffled always?  Is there, indeed, a God?”

He paused in stupor and vexation.  He could hear the distant tramp of the horse, sinking faintly out of hearing.

“That I, who have lived in the woods all my life, should have been startled by an owl, and at such a moment!”

Cursing the youth’s good fortune, not less than his own weakness, the fierce disappointment of Guy Rivers was such that he fairly gnashed his teeth with vexation.  At first, he thought to dash after his victim, but his own steed had been fastened near the cottage, several hundred yards distant, and he was winded too much for a further pursuit that night.

Colleton was, meanwhile, a mile ahead, going forward swimmingly, never once dreaming of danger.  He was thus far safe.  So frequently and completely had his enemy been baffled in the brief progress of a single night, that he was almost led to believe—­for, like most criminals, he was not without his superstition—­that his foe was under some special guardianship.  With ill-concealed anger, and a stern impatience, he turned.

CHAPTER XXV.

SUBDUED AGONIES.

The entrance of Guy Rivers awakened no emotion among the inmates of the dwelling; indeed, at the moment, it was almost unperceived.  The young woman happened to be in close attendance upon her parent, for such the invalid was, and did not observe his approach, while he stood at some little distance from the couch, surveying the scene.  The old lady was endeavoring, though with a feebleness that grew more apparent with every breath, to articulate something, to which she seemed to attach much importance, in the ears of the kneeling girl, who, with breathless attention, seemed desirous of making it out, but in vain; and, signifying by her countenance the disappointment which she felt, the speaker, with something like anger, shook her skinny finger feebly in her face, and the broken and incoherent words, with rapid effort but like success, endeavored to find their way through the half-closed aperture between her teeth.  The tears fell fast and full from the eyes of the kneeling girl, who neither sobbed nor spoke, but, with continued and yet despairing attention, endeavored earnestly to catch the few words of one who was on the eve of departure, and the words of whom, at such a moment, almost invariably acquire a value never attached to them before:  as the sounds of a harp, when the chords are breaking, are said to articulate a sweet sorrow, as if in mourning for their own fate.

The outlaw, all this while, stood apart and in silence.  Although perhaps but little impressed with the native solemnity of the scene before him, he was not so ignorant of what was due to humanity, and not so unfeeling in reference to the parties here interested, as to seek to disturb its progress or propriety with tone, look, or gesture, which might make either of them regret his presence.  Becoming impatient, however, of a colloquy which, as he saw that it had not its use, and was only productive of mortification to one of the parties, he thought only prudent to terminate, he advanced toward them; and his tread, for the first time, warned them of his presence.