now hostile band to be a victim. How strange, how strange it is, this
deep, wild passion that nature has implanted in us to be the death of our
fellow-creatures, and which coexists at the same time with horror!
Septimius levelled his weapon, and drew it up again; he marked a mounted
officer, who seemed to be in chief command, whom he knew that he could
kill. But no! he had really no such purpose. Only it was such a
temptation. And in a moment the horse would leap, the officer would fall
and lie there in the dust of the road, bleeding, gasping, breathing in
spasms, breathing no more.

While the young man, in these unusual circumstances, stood watching the
marching of the troops, he heard the noise of rustling boughs, and the
voices of men, and soon understood that the party, which he had seen
separate itself from the main body and ascend the hill, was now marching
along on the hill-top, the long ridge which, with a gap or two, extended
as much as a mile from the village. One of these gaps occurred a little
way from where Septimius stood. They were acting as flank guard, to
prevent the up-roused people from coming so close to the main body as to
fire upon it. He looked and saw that the detachment of British was
plunging down one side of this gap, with intent to ascend the other, so
that they would pass directly over the spot where he stood; a slight
removal to one side, among the small bushes, would conceal him. He stepped
aside accordingly, and from his concealment, not without drawing quicker
breaths, beheld the party draw near. They were more intent upon the space
between them and the main body than upon the dense thicket of birch-trees,
pitch-pines, sumach, and dwarf oaks, which, scarcely yet beginning to bud
into leaf, lay on the other side, and in which Septimius lurked.

[_Describe how their faces affected him, passing so near; how strange
they seemed_.]