Nor did the latter and now unhappy personage appear to give it much more
consideration than the rest. Hurried on by the force of associating
circumstances, and by promptings not of himself or his, he had been an
active performer in the terrible drama we have already witnessed, and
the catastrophe of which he could now only, and in vain, deplore.
Leaning with vacant stare and lacklustre vision against the neighboring
rock, he seemed indifferent to, and perhaps ignorant of, the occurrences
taking place around him. He had interfered when the youth and Rivers
were in contact, but so soon after the event narrated, that time for
reflection had not then been allowed. The dreadful process of thinking
himself into an examination of his own deeds was going on; and remorse,
with its severe but salutary stings, was doing, without restraint, her
rigorous duties.
Though either actually congregated or congregating around him, and
within free and easy hearing of his voice, now stretched to its utmost,
the party were quite too busily employed in the discussion of the
events--too much immersed in the sudden stupor which followed, in nearly
all minds, their termination--to know or care much what were the hard
words which our young traveller bestowed upon the detected outlaw.
Pages:
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356