man left us and went away.

"Him gone to ask his brudders if we may go where dey are," said
Uncle Moses, coming to my side.

Then he flung himself on the ground and lay at full length upon his
face, with his arms outstretched in an attitude of utter
prostration. I sat down by him, clasping my knees, and mused with
down-bent head.

After what seemed a long while the negro returned and told us that
we might accompany him. He led us back toward the swamp, threading
his way through the rank vegetation along an invisible path that
wound about like the coils of a snake in most bewildering wise. But
it was firm to the tread, and his bare feet had no need of swamp
shoes. Finally we came to a little island copse slightly above the
general level, and there, well screened from view, we found a group
of about a dozen negroes. They had constructed for themselves
little huts of grass and branches of trees, and in the midst a pot
was boiling on a fire of sticks. They cried a greeting to Uncle
Moses, and I was not a little amazed when one of them came grinning
up to me and said:

"Massa Bold, we bofe free now. Huh! dat debbil nebber cotch us no
mo'."

'Twas Jacob, the man who had escorted me from Spanish Town and been
captured with me. He told me that he had been put to work in the
plantation, but had run away on the second day, along with another
man.

"Dat him ober dere," he said, pointing to a burly,
pleasant-featured negro who was in close conversation with Moses.
"Dat Noah! Ah! he hab drefful time--pufeckly drefful, 'cos he help
Missy."

"What did he do?" I asked, feeling a most friendly disposition
towards a man who had done anything for Lucy.

"She want to run away, too," he said; "ebery one want to run away.
She got on horse, and Noah was leading her round about, but dey
cotched him, and den, oh, lor', didn't dey jest beat him!

"Say, Noah, show Massa Bold your po' back."

The man left Uncle Moses, and, coming to me, turned about (he was
naked to the waist) and displayed to my sickened gaze a score of
long, raw wounds upon his back. They had begun to heal; I learned
that his companions had anointed them with grease, and plastered
them with leaves from a plant that grew abundantly in the forest.

"Dat is what Massa Vetch do," he said with a dark look, "and his
friend he look on and cry to him to gib me mo'. He say, teach me a
lesson, and I learn it--oh, yes, I learn it. And now I show how to
teach lesson back."