For some time he refused to take another step, but yielding himself up to the agony of shattered feelings, he ardently desired to abandon a struggle involving nothing but the life he no longer desired to save.

From my knowledge of the country, and other resources, he regarded my chances of escape as favourable, and his own presence as an impediment and a check.
He was therefore anxious to relieve me of a burden, at the same time that he would free himself from a weight still more intolerable.

In that he was mistaken.

His imperturbable equanimity, and ever daring hope, had sustained me in moments of perplexity and alarm when no other resource could have availed.

During the whole time which we spent, as it were, in the shadow of the gibbet, his courage never faltered, and his temper never once ruffled.