broken the ice. Those two are completely transformed. It is just as if
we had been doing them good, instead of their doing good to us. But
there, get in. I don't want to have you down with a fever."

My father was right; our two servants--I will not call them slaves, for
they never were that to us--appeared indeed to be quite transformed, and
from that day they always greeted me with a smile, and seemed to be
struggling hard to pick up the words of our language, making, too, the
most rapid progress. The heavy, hard look had gone from the black's
face, and the boy was always showing his white teeth, and on the
look-out either to do something for me, or to go with me on my
excursions.

In a week it was "Mass' George," and in a month, in a blundering way, he
could begin to express what he had to say, but only to break down and
stamp, ending by bursting into a hearty laugh.

It was my doing that the pair were called Pompey and Hannibal, and day
after day, as I used to be out in the garden, watching the big black,
who had entirely recovered his strength, display how great that strength
was, I wondered how it was possible that the great happy-looking fellow
could be the same dull, morose savage that we had brought dying ashore.

At the end of another couple of months, I went in one day full of a new
discovery.

"Do you know who Pomp is, father?" I exclaimed.

"Yes; an unfortunate young negro from the west coast of Africa."

"Yes, father, but more than that. Hannibal has been telling me, and I
think I understand him, though it's rather hard. They lived in a
village up the country, and the enemy came in the night, and killed
some, and took the rest prisoners to march them down to the coast, and
sell them for slaves. Pomp's mother was one of them, and she fell down
and died on the march."

"Did Hannibal tell you this?"

"Yes, father, and sat and cried as he told me; and Pompey's his son."

"Are you sure?"

"Oh, yes. He always calls Pompey `my boy,' and Pomp called him `fader'
to-day."

"Ah, but that may merely be imitation."

"I don't think it is," I said, eagerly; and I proved to be right, for
they certainly were father and son.

The winter came and passed rapidly away, and it was never cold to
signify, and with the coming spring all thoughts of the Indians and the
Spaniards died away.

My father would talk about the Indians' visitation sometimes, but he
considered that it was only to see if we we