t he could lay his hand on the man's cheek, uttering as he did so a
few words incomprehensible to us, but their effect on the man was
magical: his features softened, and two great tears stole slowly from
his eyes as we watched the pair, the boy glaring at us defiantly, as if
to protect his companion, and I heard my father say softly--

"Thank God!"

CHAPTER TWELVE.

After a time, with the boy seeming to watch defiantly beside the great
fellow, the black revived sufficiently to swallow some bread soaked in
wine-and-water; the dull, filmy look left his eyes; and at last he
dropped off into a heavy sleep.

"Shall we try and carry him up to one of the sheds, sir?" said Morgan.

"No; the poor fellow has had a very narrow escape from death," replied
my father; "and I do not know even now that he will recover. Fetch a
few boards to lay against that bough, and tie the boat-mast up there,
and fasten the sail against it, so as to act as a bit of shelter to keep
off the sun. George, put some dry grass in a sack, and it will do for a
pillow."

We set about our task at once.

"Lor' ha' mussy!" grumbled Morgan, "what a fuss we are making about a
nigger. Pillows for him! Why don't master say, `Get the best bedroom
ready, and put on clean sheets'? I say, Master George, think he'd come
off black?"

But all the same Morgan worked hard, with the great drops of
perspiration running off his face, till he had rigged up the shelter,
the black sleeping heavily the while, but the boy watching every act of
ours in a suspicious way, his eyes rolling about, and his lips twitching
as if he were ready to fly at us and bite.

"I know," said Morgan, all at once with a broad grin, as he was sloping
some boards lately cut from a tree over the sleeping negro.

"Know what?" I said.

"What young sooty's a thinking. He's a young canny ball, and he
believes we're going to make a fire and roast 'em for a feast."

Whatever the boy thought, he had ceased to struggle to get away, but lay
quite still with his arm stretched-out, so that he could touch the big
negro, and he was in this attitude when my father came back from the
house.

"Yes, that will do," he said, approvingly.

"Yes, sir, there won't be no sun get at him now. Think he'll come
right?"

"Yes, I hope so. Poor fellow!--if he has managed to live through the
horrors of that slaver's hold, now that he has taken a turn for the
better he may recover. He must have been a sp