ving got what I
wanted, I came away; but I had changed knives with him, and left mine
sticking in the bedstead over his head, so that he might know I had been
there, and not accuse any one else of the theft."

"The sight of that knife must have given him a shudder, when he woke,
and saw who had been there, and remembered his wrongs towards you!" said
Penn.

"Well it might!" said Pomp. "Come here, Cudjo."

Cudjo had just entered the cave, bringing some partridges which he had
caught in traps.

"It's allus 'Cudjo! Cudjo do dis! Cudjo do dat!' What ye want o' Cudjo?"

Pomp paid no heed to the ill-natured response, but said calmly,
addressing Penn,--

"I have told you my reasons for escaping out of slavery: now I will show
you Cudjo's."

The back of the deformed was stripped bare. Penn uttered a groan of
horror at the sight.

"Dem's what ye call lickins!" said Cudjo, with a hideous grin over his
shoulder. "Dat ar am de oberseer's work."

"Good Heaven!" said Penn, sick at the sight of the scars. "I can't
endure it! Take him away!"

"Don't be 'fraid!" said Cudjo. "Feel of 'em, sar!" And taking Penn's
hand, he seemed to experience a vindictive joy in passing it over his
lash-furrowed flesh. "Not much skin dar, hey? Rough streaks along dar,
hey? Needn't pull your hand away dat fashion, and shet yer eyes, and
look so white! It's all ober now. What if you'd seen dat back when 'twas
fust cut up? or de mornin' arter? Shouldn't blame ye, if 't had made ye
sick den!"

"But what had you done to merit such cruelty?" exclaimed Penn, relieved
when the back was covered.

"What me done? De oberseer didn't hap'm to like me; dat's what me done.
But he did hap'm to like my gal; dat's more what me done! So he cut me
up wid his own hand,--said me sassy, and wouldn't work. Coombs, him's a
good man 'nuff,--neber found no fault 'long wid him; but debil take dat
ar Silas Ropes!"

"Silas Ropes!"

"Him was Coombs's oberseer dem times," said Cudjo. "Him gi' me de
lickins; him got my gal--me owe him for dat!" And, with a ferocious
grimace, clinching his hands together as if he felt his enemy's throat,
he gave a yell of rage which resounded through the cavern.

"Go about your work, Cudjo," said Pomp. "What do you think of that back,
sir?"

"It is the most powerful anti-slavery document I ever saw!" said Penn.

"He is a native African," said Pomp. "He was brought to this country a
young barbarian; and he has barely got civilized--