He scarcely knew his brother in this moment of passionate despair and fury.

Charles had been a silent, placable man all his life through.
Born and bred in the Quaker settlement, till he had taken to the life of the forest he had been a man of quiet industry and toil rather than a fighter or a talker.

A peaceful creed had been his, and he had perhaps never before raised a hand in anger against a fellow creature.
This made the sudden wild and passionate outburst the more strange and awful to Humphrey.

It was almost as though Charles was no longer the brother he had known all these years, but had been transformed into a different being by the swift and fearful calamity which had swept down upon them during these past few hours.
"I will avenge--I swear it! As they have done, so shall it be done unto them.

Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life--is not that written in the Scriptures?
The avenger of blood shall follow and overtake.