He was about to turn, and retrace his path to his quarters, when he was
startled by a voice, bidding him,--
"Stand or die!"
Dunwoodie turned in amazement, and beheld the figure of a man placed at
a little distance above him on a shelving rock, with a musket leveled at
himself. The light was not yet sufficiently powerful to reach the
recesses of that gloomy spot, and a second look was necessary before he
discovered, to his astonishment, that the peddler stood before him.
Comprehending, in an instant, the danger of his situation, and
disdaining to implore mercy or to retreat, had the latter been possible,
the youth cried firmly,--
"If I am to be murdered, fire! I will never become your prisoner."
"No, Major Dunwoodie," said Birch, lowering his musket, "it is neither
my intention to capture nor to slay."
"What then would you have, mysterious being?" said Dunwoodie, hardly
able to persuade himself that the form he saw was not a creature of the
imagination.
"Your good opinion," answered the peddler, with emotion. "I would wish
all good men to judge me with lenity."
"To you it must be indifferent what may be the judgment of men; for you
seem to be beyond the reach of their sentence."
"God spares the lives of His servants to His own time," said the
peddler, solemnly.
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