e, extending more than a mile, with trees standing
in and shadowing its stagnant surface.

On the little islet Nature has provided a home for the hunted fugitive--
an asylum where he is safe from pursuit--beyond the scent of savage
hounds, and the trailing of men almost as savage as they; for the place
cannot be approached by water-craft, and is equally unapproachable by
land. Even a dog could not make way through the quagmire of mud,
stretching immediately around it to a distance of several hundred yards.
If one tried, it would soon be snapped up by the great saurian, master
of this darksome domain. Still is there a way to traverse the
treacherous ground, for one knowing it, as does Darke's runaway slave.
Here, again, has Nature intervened, lending her beneficent aid to the
oppressed fleeing from oppression. The elements in their anger, spoken
by tempest and tornado, have laid prostrate several trees, whose trunks,
lying along the ooze, lap one another, and form a continuous causeway.
Where there chances to be a break, human ingenuity has supplied the
connecting link, making it as much as possible to look like Nature's own
handiwork; though it is that of Jupiter himself. The hollow tree has
given him a house ready built, with walls strong as any constructed by
human hands, and a roof to shelter him from the rain. If no better than
the lair of a wild beast, still is it snug and safe. The winds may blow
above, the thunder rattle, and the lightning flash; but below, under the
close canopy of leaves and thickly-woven parasites, he but hears the
first in soft sighings, the second in distant reverberation, and sees
the last only in faint phosphoric gleams. Far brighter the sparkle of
insects that nightly play around the door of his dwelling.

A month has elapsed since the day when, incensed at the flogging
received--this cruel as causeless--he ran away, resolved to risk
everything, life itself, rather than longer endure the tyrannous
treatment of the Darkes.

Though suspected of having taken refuge in the swamp, and there
repeatedly sought for, throughout all this time he has contrived to
baffle search. Nor has he either starved or suffered, except from
solitude. Naturally of a social disposition, this has been irksome to
him. Otherwise, he has comforts enough. Though rude his domicile, and
remote from a market, it is sufficiently furnished and provided. The
Spanish moss makes a soft couch, on which he can peac