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.
"But who shall ride from his destiny?" saith the proverb. The wing of
the bird is no security against the shaft of the fowler, and the helmet
and the shield keep not away the draught that is poisoned. He who wears
the greaves, the gorget, and the coat-of-mail, holds defiance to the
storm of battle; but he drinks and dies in the hall of banqueting. What
matters it, too, though the eagle soars and screams among the clouds,
halfway up to heaven--flaunting his proud pinions, and glaring with
audacious glance in the very eye of the sun--death waits for him in the
quiet of his own eyry, nestling with his brood.
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