hoped through the grave's portal to find their child.

When Paul awoke from his nap in the sulky, he found himself far in the
forest, and moving swiftly forward. A huge negro, with bloodshot eyes,
was transferring him to an evil-looking white man, and he struggled in
the latter's arms, crying for his papa.

The negro drew a long knife from his breast and flourished it before
Paul's face. "Hold um jaw, or I kill um dead!" he muttered. "Got um
grave dug out yer."

"O yer young yerlin!" said the other man, boxing Paul's ears, "yer
don't know yer own father, don't yer? I'm yer parpa!"

"You are not," cried Paul. "Where are you taking me? Where is the
church, and the sulky, and old Bob?"

The negro drove his knife so close to Paul's throat that the boy
flinched and shrieked.

"You dare to say fader to anybody," yelled the negro, "and I cut yo'
heart out! You dare to tell yer name, or yer fader's name, or wha yo
come from, and I cut yo' eyes out! I cut yo' heart and eyes out--do
yo' yar?"

The lad was cowed into cold, tearless terror; he shrank from the
glittering edge, and trembled at the giant's murderous expression. He
thought they had brought him to this lonely spot to slay him, and he
embraced silence as the only chance for his young life. He wondered if
this were not one of his wild imaginings, or if it had not something
to do with the punishment pronounced in the morning's fierce sermon.

The two men came to a ruined cabin after awhile; it was buried in deep
shade; the logs were worm-eaten, and the clay chimney had fallen down.
They climbed by a creaking ladder into the loft and laid Paul upon a
ragged bed. A young negro woman and her child were there, and the boy
saw that her foot was shackled to the floor, for the chain rattled as
she moved. They gave him a piece of beef and a corn-cake, and
stripping him of his tidy clothes, dressed him in the coarse blue
drilling worn by slaves. The two men drank frequently from the same
bottle, talking in low tones, and after a time both of them lay down
and slept. The woman dandled her child to and fro, for it moaned
painfully, and the pines without made a deep dirge. No birds trilled
or screamed in this desert place, but a roaring as of loud waters was
borne now and then on the twilight; it was the bay close below them,
making thunder upon the beach.

When Paul woke from his second sleep he was on the deck of a vessel.
The shore lay beneath him, and the waves heaved