forecastle, and, peeping in, Joe
Johnson recognized one of his own familiars he had shipped at Cannon's
Ferry, gagged, like his companion, and tied fast. The man had just been
able to articulate.

"Now, spiflicate me!" spoke the skipper, relieving the man, "the ruffian
cly you! who did this?"

"The white nigger did it all, Joe. He crawled through the stays to the
cabin, and got your pistols, first; leastways, we found him an' the
yaller feller at the helm on top of us, coming up the fo'castle, and
next t'other two men jined 'em. They said ole Samson had give 'em the
wink. We two was tied and throwed in yer, an' ef you had awaked, thar
was a man to stab you to the heart, sot over you."

"The portmanteau?" cried Johnson.

"That's gone, I reckon. They sowed you up a feather an' oyster-shell man
on a plank to heave overboard; that's what they said. They steered for
Deil's Island, an' sot the Island Parson yer to watch that you don't git
the pungy off, an' I reckon they're half-way to Princess Anne."

Joe Johnson heard no more. He released his creatures from their bonds,
took the dead body in the pungy's canoe, and gave the command:

"Row fur the open bay! We'll strike St. Mary's County or Virginny.
Bingavast! Hike! Never agin will I put foot on this Eastern Shore."

* * * * *

At Georgetown Jimmy Phoebus, Samson, and Levin Dennis met again, and
Levin told the mystery of his father's disappearance.

"Never tell your mother, Levin, that Captain Dennis died in that
Pangymonum; it would break her heart, and she never would trust man
agin."

"Jimmy," spoke up Samson, "let her understand that he got wrecked on the
_Ida_. It looks a little bad, but the slave-trade sounds better than
kidnappin'."

"They say that Allan McLane owned that slave vessel," Phoebus put in;
"but he didn't live to know his loss. He'll meet his heathens at the
Judgment Seat."

"Who has fed mother?" Levin asked. "Hulda can't explain that."

"I kin, Levin," Samson Hat said, bashfully. "It was me. Good ole Meshach
Milburn, that everybody's down on, pitied that pore woman, an' made me
set things she needed in her window. He said if I ever told it he'd
discharge me."

"Dog my skin!" Jimmy Phoebus observed, "the next man that calls
'steeple top' after ole Meshach I'll mash flat! But, come, my son, I've
buried at Broad Creek your wife's family relics. We'll hire a wagon, and
drive to ole Broad Creek 'piscopal church