ilence for a time, and then the poor fellow began to mutter
again.

"What does he say?" I whispered; but the boy broke down, buried his
face in his hands, and sobbed. But after a time, in broken tones, he
told me that his father was talking about dying down in the hold of the
stifling ship, and about being brought ashore.

"Dat all Pomp hear," whispered the boy. "Talk 'tuff. Done know what."

It was a long, long, weary night, but towards morning the poor fellow
slept peacefully, and soon after daylight the doctor was there, as
indefatigable in his attentions as he had been over my father, for the
colour of a man's skin did not trouble him.

"Less fever," he said to me. "I've got a nurse for him now, so you go
and get some sleep."

I was about to protest, but just then I saw who the nurse was, for Sarah
stooped down to enter the shelter, and I knew that poor old Hannibal
would be safe with her.

CHAPTER FIFTY FIVE.

That day the embargo was taken off, and one by one the settlers began to
return to their homes, those whose houses were standing sharing them
with the unfortunates whose places had been burned, so that at night the
camp wore a peculiarly silent and solemn aspect, one which, depressed as
I felt by Hannibal's state, seemed strange indeed.

A certain number of men stayed in the enclosure, and there were ten
wounded in our temporary hospital; but the doctor set others of those
who had crowded the place free.

One thing struck me directly, and that was the change in Pomp, who could
hardly be persuaded to leave his father's side, but sat holding his
hand, or else nestled down beside him, with his black curly head just
touching the great black's arm, and gently raising it whenever I went to
the tent.

I can recall it all very vividly as I now write these my recollections
of the early incidents in my life, and how in the days which followed I
gradually found that Hannibal fully justified the doctor's words about
his fine healthy state; for after the first few days, during which his
life seemed to be on the balance, he rapidly began to mend, and his
being out of danger was the signal for a change.

My father had been talking about it for quite a month, but our friends
at the settlement persuaded him to stay in the quarters that had been
rigged up for us, and nothing could have been kinder than the treatment
we received.

It was always pointed out by the settlers that at any time the Indians
mi