In all this, however, it may be remarked that the reasonings of Rivers,
rather than his own, determined his conduct. That more adventurous
ruffian had, from his superior boldness and greater capacities in
general, acquired a singular and large influence over his companion: he
governed him, too, as much by his desire of gain as by any distinct
superiority which he himself possessed; he stimulated his avarice with
the promised results of their future enterprises in the same region
after the passing events were over; and thus held him still in that
fearful bondage of subordinate villany whose inevitable tendency is to
make the agent the creature, and finally the victim. The gripe which, in
a moral sense, and with a slight reference to character, Rivers had upon
the landlord, was as tenacious as that of death--but with this
difference, that it was death prolonged through a fearful, and, though
not a protracted, yet much too long a life.
The determination of Munro was made accordingly; and, following hard
upon the flight of Lucy from the rocks, we find the landlady quietly
reinstated in her old home as if nothing had happened.
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