ground and sank down. "You, Virgie, can see God; I never can."

The great Cypress Swamp of Delaware--counterpart of the Dismal Swamp in
Virginia--the northern border of which they had now reached, had
probably been once a great inlet or shallow bay in the encroaching
sand-bar of the peninsula, and was filled with oysters and fish, which
in time were imprisoned and became the manure of a cypress forest that
soon started up when springs of water flowed under the sand and
moistened the seed; and for ages these forests had been growing, and had
been prostrated, and had dropped their leaves and branches in the great
inlet's bed, until a deep ligneous mass of combustible stuff raised
higher and higher the level of the swamp, and, dried with ages more of
time than dried the mummies of the Pharaohs, it often opened tunnels to
burrowing fire, which at some point of its course belched forth and
lighted the hollow trees, and raged for weeks. Such a fire they had come
through.

Virgie, in the early daylight, came upon a small, swarthy boy, driving a
little cart and ox.

"Are you a colored boy?" Virgie asked.

"No," answered the boy, proudly. "I'm Indian-river Indian; reckon I'm a
_little_ nigger."

"Take this poor man in and I will pay you. Where are you going?"

"To Dagsborough landing, for salt."

"Leave me at Dagsborough, at the old Clayton house," spoke up the blind
man; "it's empty. I can die thar or git a doctor."

Before the people were up they entered a little hamlet, on that stage
road from which they had made the night's detour, and saw a few small
houses and a little shingle-boarded church near by among the woods, and
one large house of a deserted appearance was at the town's extremity.
The man said, "This is John M. Clayton's birthplace: my wife used to
work yer."

"Virgie!" exclaimed a familiar voice.

The girl turned, her ears still ringing with the echoes of the swamp,
and saw a face she knew, and ran to the breast beneath it, crying,

"Samson Hat! Oh, friend, love me like my mother. I am very ill."

"Pore, darlin' child," Samson said; "no love will I ever bodder you wid
agin but a father's. Why air you so fur from home?"

"I'm sold, Samson: I'm trying to get free. The kidnappers is after me.
Oh, save me!"

"I've jist got away from 'em, Virgie. The ole woman, Patty Cannon, set
me free. I promised her I would kidnap somebody younger dan ole Samson.
Bless de Lord! I come dis way!"

He led her into