He fell, at length, and the youth came up with him. He heard the groans
of the wounded man, and, though exposing himself to the same chance, he
could not determine upon flight. He might possibly have saved himself by
taking the now freed animal which the, landlord had ridden, and at once
burying himself in the nation. But the noble weakness of pity determined
him otherwise; and, without scruple or fear, he resolutely advanced to
the spot whore Munro lay, though full in the sight of the pursuers, and
prepared to render him what assistance he could. One of the troopers, in
the meantime, had swum the river; and, freeing the flat from its chains,
had directed it across the stream for the passage of his companions. It
was not long before they had surrounded the fugitives, and Ralph
Colleton was again a prisoner, and once more made conscious of the
dreadful doom from which he had, at one moment, almost conceived himself
to have escaped.
Munro had been shockingly wounded. One ball had pierced his thigh,
inflicting a severe, though probably not a fatal wound.
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