“I have no wish to disturb you, Eugene Aram, but I must live; and in order to live I must obey my companions; if I deserted them, it would be to starve. They will not linger long in this district; a week, it may be; a fortnight, at most; then, like the Indian animal, they will strip the leaves, and desert the tree. In a word, after we have swept the country, we are gone.” “Houseman, Houseman!” said Aram passionately, and frowning till his brows almost hid his eyes, but that part of the orb which they did not hide, seemed as living fire; “I now implore, but I can threaten--beware!--silence, I say;” (and he stamped his foot violently on the ground, as he saw Houseman about to interrupt him;) “listen to me throughout--Speak not to me of tarrying here--speak not of days, of weeks--every hour of which would sound upon my ear like a death-knell. Dream not of a sojourn in these tranquil shades, upon an errand of dread and violence--the minions of the law aroused against you, girt with the chances of apprehension and a shameful death--” “And a full confession of my past sins,” interrupted Houseman, laughing wildly. “Fiend! devil!” cried Aram, grasping his comrade by the throat, and shaking him with a vehemence that Houseman, though a man of great strength and sinew, impotently attempted to resist. “Breathe but another word of such import; dare to menace me with the vengeance of such a thing as thou, and, by the God above us, I will lay thee dead at my feet!” “Release my throat, or you will commit murder,” gasped Houseman with difficulty, and growing already black in the face. Aram suddenly relinquished his gripe, and walked away with a hurried step, muttering to himself. He then returned to the side of Houseman, whose flesh still quivered either with rage or fear, and, his own self-possession completely restored, stood gazing upon him with folded arms, and his usual deep and passionless composure of countenance; and Houseman, if he could not boldly confront, did not altogether shrink from, his eye. So there and thus they stood, at a little distance from each other, both silent, and yet with something unutterably fearful in their silence. “Houseman,” said Aram at length, in a calm, yet a hollow voice, “it may be that I was wrong; but there lives no man on earth, save you, who could thus stir my blood,--nor you with ease. And know, when you menace me, that it is not your menace that subdues or shakes my spirit; but that which robs my veins of their even tenor is that you should deem your menace could have such power, or that you,--that any man,--should arrogate to himself the thought that he could, by the prospect of whatsoever danger, humble the soul and curb the will of Eugene Aram. And now I am calm; say what you will, I cannot be vexed again.” “I have done,” replied Houseman coldly; “I have nothing to say; farewell!” and he moved away among the trees.