Thus thwarted and driven back again upon his own reflections, Roland gave himself up to despondency, awaiting with sullen indifference the fate which he had no doubt was preparing for him.  But he was doomed once more to experience the agitations of hope, the tormentor not less than the soother of existence.

Soon after nightfall, and when his mind was in a condition resembling the hovel in which he lay—­a cheerless ruin, lighted only by occasional flickerings from a fire of spirit fast smouldering into ashes—­he heard a step enter the door, and, by and by, a jabbering debate commenced between the newcomer and his guards, which resulted in the latter presently leaving the cabin.  The intruder then stepped up to the fire, which he stirred into a flame; and seating himself full in its light, revealed, somewhat to Roland’s surprise, the form and visage of the renegade, Abel Doe, whose acts on the hill-side had sufficiently impressed his lineaments on the soldier’s memory.  He eyed the captive for awhile very earnestly, but in deep silence, which Roland himself was the first to break.

To the soldier, however, bent upon preserving the sullen equanimity which was his best substitute for resignation, there was enough in the appearance of this man to excite the fiercest emotions of indignation.  Others might have planned the villany which had brought ruin and misery upon his head; but it was Doe who, for the bravo’s price, and with the bravo’s baseness, had set the toils around him, and struck the blow.  It was, indeed, only through the agency of such an accomplice that Braxley could have put his schemes into execution, or ventured even to attempt them.  The blood boiled in his veins as he surveyed the mercenary and unprincipled hireling, and strove, though in vain, to rise upon his fettered arms, to give energy to his words of denunciation.

“Villain!” he cried, “base, wretched, dastardly caitiff! have you come to boast the fruits of your rascally crime?”

“Right, captain!” replied Doe, with a consenting nod of the head, “you have nicked me on the right p’int:  villain’s the true word to begin on; and, perhaps, ’twill be the one to end on:  but that’s as we shall conclude about it, after we have talked the matter over.”

“Begone, wretch,—­trouble me not,” said Roland, “I have nothing to say to you, but to curse you.”

“Well, I reckon that’s natteral enough, too, that cussing of me,” said Doe, “seeing as how I’ve in a manner deserved it.  But there’s an end to all things, even to cussing; and, may be, you’ll jist take a jump the other way, when the gall’s over.  A friend to-day, an enemy to-morrow, as the saying is; and you may jist as well say it backwards; for, as things turn up, I’m no sich blasted enemy, jist now, no-way no-how.  I’m for holding a peace talk, as the Injuns say, d—­n ’em, burying the axe, and taking a whiff or two at the kinnikinick of friendship.  So cuss away, if it will do you