A single hand
above them would now be worth several hands below.

"What a fool I war! durned if I warn't!" said Dan, endeavoring
unsuccessfully to find a place by which he could reascend.

"Get on my shoulders!" And Penn braced himself against the ledge.

Dan made the attempt, but fell, and rolled down the bank.

Just then a grinning black face appeared above.

"Gib me de gal! gib me de gal!" and a prodigiously long arm reached
down.

"O Cudjo! you are an angel!" cried Penn, "Daniel! Here!"

Pepperill was up the bank again in a minute, at Penn's side. They lifted
Virginia above their heads. Holding on by a sapling with one hand, the
negro extended the other far down over the ledge. Those miraculous arms
of his seemed to have been made expressly for this service. He grasped a
wrist of the girl; with the other hand she clung to his arm until he had
drawn her up to the sapling; this she seized, and helped herself out.
Then once more Penn gave Daniel his shoulder, while Cudjo gave him a
hand from above; and Daniel was safe. Last of all, Penn remained.

"Cotch holt hyar!" said Cudjo, extending towards him the end of a branch
he had broken from a tree.

To this Penn held fast, assisting himself with his feet against the
ledge, while Cudjo and Dan hauled him up.

"Good Cudjo! how came you here?"

"Me see you and Pepperill a gwine inter de fire. So me foller."

"This is the old man's daughter, Cudjo."

Cudjo regarded the beautiful young girl with a look of vague wonder and
admiration.

"He remembers me," said Virginia. "I saw him the night he climbed in at
Toby's window." She gave him her hand; it trembled with emotion. "I
thank you, Cudjo, for what you have done for my father--and for me."

"Now, Cudjo! show us the nearest and easiest path. We must take her to
the cave--there is no other way."

"You must be right spry, den!" said Cudjo. "De fire am a runnin' ober
dat way powerful!"

Indeed, it had already crossed the upper end of the gorge, where the
forest brook fell into it; and, getting into some beds of leaves, and
thence into dense and inflammable thickets, it was now blazing directly
across their line of retreat.

Penn would have carried Virginia in his arms, but she would not suffer
him.

"I can go where you can!" she cried, once more full of spirit and
daring. "Just give me your hand--you shall see!"

Penn took one of her hands, Pepperill the other, and with their aid,
supporting her, lifting