a
gentle slope, at the foot of which stood the boiling-house and
sugar-mill, the store-houses, the tobacco factory, etcetera; and just
beyond them, again, ran a tiny sparkling stream, from which was obtained
the power for driving the crushing machinery.

The slave-cabins were wholly unenclosed, and George had not failed to
notice on his arrival upon the estate that, though it was certainly
fenced in, the fencing consisted of nothing more than a common rough
post-and-rail fence, evidently intended merely to keep out cattle, and
in his innocence he began to think that escape from such a place would
prove a very easy matter, after all. "What, indeed," he asked himself,
"was to prevent his rising from his bed upon the very first favourable
night which should arrive, and quietly walking off the estate?" What,
indeed?

But escape was far too precious a thing to be risked by being undertaken
in ignorance of whatever perils might attend the attempt, so he resolved
that for the present he would not attempt to frame any plans whatever;
he felt pretty certain that, as a new acquisition, he would be closely
watched for some time to come by those who might have the more immediate
charge of him, and his first task, he told himself, must be to disarm
any suspicion which might exist in their minds as to an intention on his
part to escape. The time necessary to the accomplishment of this might
also be profitably employed in acquiring a knowledge of Spanish, without
which he fully realised that his attempt must inevitably fail; and he
believed that, by the time he had thus paved the way for the great
attempt, his ingenuity would have proved sufficient to gain without
suspicion from his fellow-slaves a tolerably accurate idea of the perils
and difficulties with which he would have to contend.

He took the lad Tom into his confidence at once, intending, of course,
that the poor boy should, if he were willing to incur the risk, go with
him and Walford, and share with them at least the _chance_ of freedom;
and so, from the very first day of their thraldom, there were two keen,
intelligent brains incessantly at work, diligently clearing the way to
recovered liberty. To Walford George said nothing whatever of his
purpose; the unfortunate wretch could not possibly aid them, and there
was the possibility that he _might_ unwittingly betray them.

At six o'clock next morning the great bell at the engine-house rang,
this being the signal f