"The die is long since cast," said Tyrrel, "and all that remains now is to take the hazard of the throw. At this moment, whilst we debate, friend and foe are whetting their swords for a deadly encounter on the fields of Carolina. It is too late to talk of other arbitrement. Assuredly, my good friend, our destiny directs us to this province: and the time has come when you must decide what course you will take. It has been our earnest wish--Sir Henry's letters, there upon the table, anxiously unfold it--to have you up and active in the cause. Why will you disappoint so fair a hope?" "Alas! Mr. Tyrrel,--it is a thorny path you would have me tread. Think you I am the man to win my way through these intricacies? I that live in the shelter of these woods by sufferance merely--an unmolested outlaw, to speak soberly, whom these fanatics of liberty have forborne for the sake of past acquaintance and present peaceful habits? Am I not girded round about with the hot champions of independence? Look amongst these hills--there is not a cabin, not a woodman's hut, no, nor stately dwelling, whose roof defends one friend to the royal cause, but my own. My lips are sealed; my very thoughts are guarded, lest I give room to think I mean to fly from my neutrality. These papers that lie upon that table might cost me my life: your presence here, were your purpose known, might consign me to captivity or exile:--one random word spoken might give me over to the censures of the power that holds its usurped domination in the province. What aid may be expected from one so guarded, fettered, watched and powerless?" "And can you patiently," exclaimed Tyrrel, "bow to this oppression? You, a native born freeman of the province--a Briton, nursed in the sunny light of liberty! Shall your freedom of speech be circumscribed, your footsteps be followed by spies and traitors, your very inmost thoughts be read and brought up to the censure of the judgment seat? Shall these things be, and the blood still continue to run coolly and temperately through your veins! There are ills, Mr. Lindsay, which even your calm philosophy may not master. But, perhaps, I have mistaken your temper: these evidences, at least, shall not put you in peril," he said, as he took up the letters from the table and held them over the candle, and then threw the flaming mass upon the hearth. "That fear, I hope, is removed; and as for my presence here, one word briefly spoken, and it shall not longer jeopard your safety." Lindsay looked fixedly at his companion as he destroyed the papers, and then said with a stern emphasis--