However originating in policy, the lenity he might have
been induced to have shown, all idea of the kind was
chased from his mind by the unfortunate action of the
prisoner. At the moment when the distant heights resounded
with the fierce yells of the savages, and leaping forms
came bounding down the slope, the remarkable warrior of
the Fleur de lis--the fearful enemy who had whispered
the most demoniac vengeance in his ears the preceding
night--was the only one that met and riveted the gaze of
the governor. He paused not to observe or to think who
the flying man could be of whom the mysterious warrior
was in pursuit,--neither did it, indeed, occur to him
that it was a pursuit at all. But one idea suggested
itself to his mind, and that was an attempt at rescue of
the condemned on the part of his accomplice; and when at
length Halloway, who had at once, as if by instinct,
recognised his captain in the fugitive, shouted forth
his gratitude to Heaven that "he at length approached
who alone had the power to save him," every shadow of
mercy was banished from the mind of the governor, who,
labouring under a natural misconception of the causes of
his exulting shout, felt that justice imperatively demanded
her victim, and no longer hesitated in awarding the doom
that became the supposed traitor.
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