all gone. Then he was thrown in the river, but his body
came up after sinking, and the confession of the wretched tools
explained to the slave-owners where all their missing negroes had gone.
They marched and surrounded Purnell's hut, and he was discovered
burrowed beneath it. They brought the dogs, and fire to drive him out,
and as he came out he cut his throat with desperate slashes from ear to
ear."

During this narrative the man Dave had listened with rising nervous
excitement, rolling his eyes as if in strong inward torment, till the
concluding words inspired such terror in him that he dropped the reins,
threw back his head, and shouted, with large beads of sweat all round
his brow:

"Mercy! mercy! Have mercy! Save me, oh, my Lord!"

"He's got a fit, I reckon," cried Jimmy Phoebus, promptly grasping the
reins as the horses started at the cry, and with his leg pinning Dave to
the carriage-seat. At that moment the road descended into the hollow of
Barren Creek, and, leaping down at the old Mineral Springs Hotel, a
health resort of those days, Phoebus humanely procured water and
freshened up the gasping negro's face.

"I declare, I am almost afraid to trust myself to this man," Mrs. Custis
observed, with more distaste than trepidation.

"Every nigger in this region," exclaimed Jimmy Phoebus, "thinks
Pangymonum's comin' down at the dreaded name of Patty Cannon; an' this
nigger's gone most to ruin, any way."

"Oh, marster," exclaimed the slave, recovering his speech and glaring
wildly around, "I hain't been always the pore sinner rum an' fightin'
has made of me. I served the Lord all my youth; I praised his name an'
kept the road to heaven; an' thinkin' of the shipwreck I'se made of a
good conscience, an' hearin' missis tell of the end of Jake Purnell, it
made me yell to de good Lord for mercy, mercy, oh, my soul!"

His frightful agitation increased, and Jimmy Phoebus soothed him,
good-naturedly saying:

"Mrs. Custis, I reckon you'd better let him come in the tavern and take
a little sperits; it'll strengthen his nerves an' make him drive
better."

As they drank at the old summer-resort bar, at that time in the height
of its celebrity, and the only _spa_ on the peninsula, south of the
Brandywine Springs, Phoebus spoke low to the negro:

"Dave, somethin' not squar and fair is a-workin' yer, by smoke! I've got
my eye on you, nigger, an' sure as hokey-pokey thair it'll stay. You
know my arrand yer, Dave: to sa