e!" he said to the singer, in a tone of authority.
"Haven't I told you not to _wake him_?"

"No fear o' dat!" chuckled the other. "Him's past dat! Ki! how fat he
ar!" seizing the opossum, and beginning to dress him on the spot.

"Past waking! I tell you he's asleep, and every thing depends on his
waking up right. But you set up a howl that would disturb the dead!"

"Howl! dat's what ye call singin'; me singin', Pomp."

"Well, keep your singing to yourself till he is able to stand it, you
unfeeling, ungrateful fellow!"

"What dat ye call dis nigger?" cried the singer, jumping up in a
passion, with his blood-stained knife in his hand. "Ongrateful! Say dat
ar agin, will ye?"

"Yes, Cudjo, as often as you please," said Pomp, calmly placing his gun
in the artificial chamber. "You are an unfeeling, ungrateful fellow."

He turned, and stood regarding him with a proud, lofty, compassionating
smile. Cudjo's anger cooled at once. Penn had already recognized in them
the twin Tobys of his dreams. And what a contrast between the two! There
was Toby the Good, otherwise called Pomp, dignified, erect, of noble
features; while before him cringed and grimaced Toby the Malign, alias
Cudjo, ugly, deformed, with immensely long arms, short bow legs
resembling a parenthesis, a body like a frog's, and the countenance of
an ape.

"You know," said Pomp, "you would have left this man to die there on the
rocks, if it hadn't been for me."

"Gorry! why not?" said Cudjo. "What's use ob all dis trouble on his
'count?"

"He has had trouble enough on our account," said Pomp.

"On our 'count? Hiyah-yah!" laughed Cudjo, getting down on his knees
over the opossum; "how ye make dat out, by?"

"Pay attention, Cudjo, while I tell ye," said Pomp, stooping, and laying
his finger on the deformed shoulder. Cudjo looked up, with his hands and
knife still in the opossum's flesh. "This is the way of it, as I heard
last night from Pepperill himself, who got into trouble, as you know, by
befriending old Pete after his licking. And you know, don't you, how
Pete came by his licking?"

"Bein' out nights, totin' our meal and taters to de mountains,--dough I
reckon de patrol didn't know nuffin' 'bout dat ar, or him wouldn't got
off so easy!" said Cudjo.

"Well, it was by befriending Pepperill, who had befriended Pete, who
brings us meal and potatoes, that this man got the ill will of those
villains. Do you understand?"

"Say 'em over agin, Pomp. How, now