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Rh. Such were the reflections that passed in rapid succession through Brown's mind, as he gazed from his hiding-place upon this extraordinary personage. Meantime the gang did not yet approach, and he was almost prompted to resume his original intention of attempting an escape from the hut, and cursed internally his own irresolution, which had consented to his being cooped up where he had neither room for resistance or flight.

Meg Merrilies seemed equally on the watch. She bent her ear to every sound that whistled round the old walls. Then she turned again to the dead body, and found something new to arrange or alter in its position. "He's a bonny corpse," she muttered to herself, "and weel worth the streaking."—And in this dismal occupation she appeared to feel a sort of professional pleasure, entering slowly into all the minutiæ, as if with the skill and feelings of a connoisseur. A long dark-coloured sea-cloak, which she dragged out of a