came fainter and fainter, and one light after another
disappeared till, at a turn in the stream, the bold promontory of
Okommakemisit hid the town from view.

A feeling of loneliness now, in spite of the presence of his two
friends, began to creep over the constable. So long as the lights
had been visible, he felt a strength derived from the vicinity of the
habitations of his fellow-beings, as if, were anything untoward to
happen, assistance was close at hand and ready to be proffered, but
now he might die a thousand deaths, and none be the wiser for his
wretched end. As these and other thoughts equally dismal chased each
other through his mind, the silence became more and more oppressive
(for it was only now and then, hitherto, a word had been uttered), and
it was with an emotion of thankfulness and relief he heard it broken
by the voice of Gladding.

"I say, Primus," he said, "do you know where you are?"

"I guess I does," answered the black, speaking from between his shut
teeth, which the necessity of retaining the stump of a pipe he was
smoking compelled him to keep tight together, "I is on de river
'joying a row wid two white genlmn."

"Any fool knows that," said Tom, "though for the matter of the
enjoyment, there might be two words about that. Some jugs has two
handles."

"Well, if dat doesn't please you, I all in a shiver wid de cold. My
wood toe is almost freeze."

"That's a plaguy curus thing," said Tom. "You know Jim Hardy. Well I
hearn him say he can feel the fingers in his hand that was ground off
in the mill, just an much as in tother. I expect your experience is
pretty much the same."

"Dat's a fact," said Primus. "I can feel de foot and de toes just as
much as ebber, only de leg is a sort o' kind o' shorter. Now, Missa
Gladding, you is a man ob gumption, can you splain dat?"

"Sartin," said Tom, who didn't wish to appear ignorant to the presence
of the negro; "there's no great difficulty about that, though I rather
think it takes more larning than you've got to onderstand the thing.
You see," he added, recollecting as well as he could some Latin words
he had heard used by the doctor, "the narves of the rigdum flagdum in
circumnavigating through the humorous rusticus, deflastigated by the
horrentibus oribus sort o' twist the aures arrectos into asinos, and
that you see, to a man of larning makes the whole thing as clear as
one of elder Sillyway's sarmons."

Primus fairly caught his breath at To