Friend, I must leave thee! Thee shall have assistance.

Can thee hold out the hovel till morning?
But it is foolish to ask thee: thee _must_ hold it out, and with none save the coloured person and the man Dodge to help thee; for I say to thee, it has come to this at last, as I thought it would: I must break through the lines of thee Injun foes, and find thee assistance." "It is impossible," said Roland in despair; "you will only provoke your destruction." "It may be, friend, as thee says," responded Nathan; "nevertheless, friend, for thee women's sake, I will adventure it; for it is I, miserable sinner that I am, that have brought them to this pass, and that must bring them out of it again, if man can do it." At a moment of less grief and desperation, Roland would have better appreciated the magnitude of the service which Nathan thus offered to attempt, and even hesitated to permit what must have manifestly seemed the throwing away of a human life.

But the emergency was too great to allow the operation of any but selfish feelings.

The existence of his companions, the life of his Edith, depended upon procuring relief, and this could be obtained in no other way.

If the undertaking was dangerous in the extreme, he saw it with the eyes of a soldier as well as a lover: it was a feat he would himself have dared without hesitation, could it have promised, in his hands, any relief to his followers.
"Go, then, and God be with you," he muttered, eagerly "you have our lives in your hand.