Its advantages, if successful, were that the object of our pursuit would be carried through without further trouble and that it was most doubtful whether we should ever get such a chance again.

If we returned to fetch the others and attacked in force, the probability was that those Amahagger, or one of them, would hear some sound made by the advance of a number of men, and fly into the darkness; or, rather than lose Inez, they might kill her.
Or if they stood and fought, she might be slain in the scrimmage.

Or, as after all we had only about a dozen effectives, for the Strathmuir bearers could not be relied upon, they might defeat and kill us whom they outnumbered by two or three to one.
These were the arguments for the attempt.

Those for not making it were equally obvious.

To begin with it was one of extraordinary risk; the two guards or someone else behind them might wake up--for such people, like dogs, mostly sleep with one eye open, especially when they knew that they are being pursued.