Short parleys and quick intercourse are common in the wilder parts of a colony, where every man, having even a glimmering of civilisation, depends upon others many times each year for the few advantages of society he can ever obtain; Strange it is, that where the violence of barbarism is most strong, the charity of hospitality is most frank and ready. The stranger advanced at once, thrusting back the pistol he had half drawn from his belt, and taking Dudley's hand, he shook it warmly, saying, "You must be new to this place. Just arrived from Norfolk, I dare say. Come, give us some biscuit, man, for I am right down starved." Dudley opened the bag, and the man thrust his hand in at once, drawing out two or three biscuits, which he began to eat voraciously. "That's capital!" he said, adding a fearful oath. "After all, there's nothing like biscuit. Well, I'm glad you didn't fire, for I'd rather have this than lead in my stomach; and it would have cost me a shot in return, when, to say the truth, I haven't got one to spare, for I've got no powder but the charges in my pistols, and one of those I must save for McSweeny. He may take two, perhaps, but I don't think it." "And pray who is he?" asked Dudley. "Oh, the man that betrayed me once!" replied his companion. "A storekeeper I trusted, and he sold me. He killed himself that night, and he knows it. So he's only waiting till I've got leisure, then we'll settle accounts." "Then you mean you'll kill him," said Dudley, guessing the man's meaning, though not very certain. "To be sure," answered the other. "He shall go out of the colony one day soon. Come, I must have another biscuit." "As many as you like," answered Dudley, "and take some with you, if you please; but if you've got any water in that bottle, you shall give me some, for I am as thirsty as you are hungry." "Ay, there's water in it, sure enough, now," replied the other, unslinging the gourd and giving it to him. "There was something better in it not long ago--real Bengal brandy, but that was gone a great deal too soon. Lord! it's just like a dream; how I drank it up; but such as it is, you may have it." Dudley assuaged his thirst, and then returned the man the gourd, saying, "That is better than brandy, and take my word for it, peace is bettor than revenge. Revenge is like that brandy you talk of: you take it to assuage a thirst, and it leaves a more consuming thirst than ever. From the moment you have had it, a burning will seize upon your heart, which nought will ever cool, you will die parched up with crime upon crime, without peace in the present, peace in the past, or peace in the future." The man gazed at him with a look of utter astonishment. "No, I shan't," he replied. "I shall be hanged. That's my death. I always intended it." "But did you ever consider," asked Dudley, "that this life is not all; that there is another beyond this world, to which the pains or the pleasures of this life are nothing?"