'I gave my word,' replied Roland, 'touching that matter. But I am not experienced in such travel as this.'
'No,' sneered the robber, 'you great heroes of the city and level field are mighty as travellers only upon the open road.'
'Your opinion as to that gives me no concern,' our hero replied. 'But I have eaten nothing since yesterday save some beech-nuts and a few rowan-berries. Besides I have lost much blood.'
'Are you wounded?'
'Yes.'
'Where?' Roland informed him.
'Is it bleeding still?' He likewise informed him upon that point.
'I see you are not such a calf after all;' and then Roland heard him mutter something about 'an acquisition to the band.' The words made the matter clear enough now to our hero. This ruffian had not saved him because he had shot Ham, but because he wanted an addition to his force. Knowing that there was a price upon Roland's head, he believed that he would find little difficulty in bending him to his infamous ends.
'Here; let us take your hand. We shall never reach home at this rate.' It was with a feeling akin to a shudder that Roland felt the touch of his guide's hand; but the arrangement was successful, and the two got over the ground at a rapid pace. Every maze and tree in that dismal swamp seemed to be known to the guide; and he swerved to right and left,—sometimes so changing his course that it seemed as if he were retracing his steps—with such astonishing swiftness as to completely bewilder our hero.
'I wonder,' observed Roland, 'that the law does not reach you here by the aid of bloodhounds; they filled the wood with dogs this morning for my benefit.'