have I that all you have been telling me is true?" said
Tom.

"There is my signature," said the black man, pressing his finger on
Tom's forehead. So saying, he turned off among the thickets of the
swamp, and seemed, as Tom said, to go down, down, down, into the earth,
until nothing but his head and shoulders could be seen, and so on until
he totally disappeared.

When Tom reached home he found the black print of a finger burnt, as it
were, into his forehead, which nothing could obliterate.

The first news his wife had to tell him was the sudden death of Absalom
Crowninshield, the rich buccaneer. It was announced in the papers with
the usual flourish, that "a great man had fallen in Israel."

Tom recollected the tree which his black friend had just hewn down, and
which was ready for burning. "Let the freebooter roast," said Tom, "who
cares!" He now felt convinced that all he had heard and seen was no
illusion.

He was not prone to let his wife into his confidence; but as this was
an uneasy secret, he willingly shared it with her. All her avarice was
awakened at the mention of hidden gold, and she urged her husband to
comply with the black man's terms and secure what would make them
wealthy for life. However Tom might have felt disposed to sell himself
to the devil, he was determined not to do so to oblige his wife; so he
flatly refused out of the mere spirit of contradiction. Many and bitter
were the quarrels they had on the subject, but the more she talked the
more resolute was Tom not to be damned to please her. At length she
determined to drive the bargain on her own account, and if she
succeeded, to keep all the gain to herself.

Being of the same fearless temper as her husband, she sat off for the
old Indian fort towards the close of a summer's day. She was many
hour's absent. When she came back she was reserved and sullen in her
replies. She spoke something of a black man whom she had met about
twilight, hewing at the root of a tall tree. He was sulky, however, and
would not come to terms; she was to go again with a propitiatory
offering, but what it was she forebore to say.

The next evening she sat off again for the swamp, with her apron
heavily laden. Tom waited and waited for her, but in vain: midnight
came, but she did not make her appearance; morning, noon, night
returned, but still she did not come. Tom now grew uneasy for her
safety; especially as he found she had carried off in her apron the
silve