The fugitives, meanwhile, pursued their way with the speed of men
conscious that life and death hung upon their progress. There needed no
exhortations from his companion to Ralph Colleton. More than life, with
him, depended upon his speed. The shame of such a death as that to which
he had been destined was for ever before his eyes, and with a heart
nerved to its utmost by a reference to the awful alternative of flight,
he grew reckless in the audacity with which he drove his horse forward
in defiance of all obstacle and over every impediment. Nor were the
present apprehensions of Munro much less than those of his companion. To
be overtaken, as the participant of the flight of one whose life was
forfeit, would necessarily invite such an examination of himself as must
result in the development of his true character, and such a discovery
must only terminate in his conviction and sentence to the same doom. His
previously-uttered presentiment grew more than ever strong with the
growing consciousness of his danger; and with an animation, the fruit of
an anxiety little short of absolute fear, he stimulated the progress of
Colleton, while himself driving the rowel ruthlessly into the smoking
sides of the animal he bestrode.
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