ng his rifle, while Cudjo, knife in hand, flew at the
cords that confined the schoolmaster.

In his gratitude to Heaven and his deliverers, Penn could have hugged
that grotesque, half-savage creature to his heart. But no time was to be
lost. Snatching the knife, he hastened to release the bewildered
clergyman.

"Pomp, my noble fellow!" The negro turned from looking after the
retreating rebels, with a gleam of triumph on his proud and lofty
features: Penn wrung his hand. "You have twice saved my life--now let me
ask one more favor of you! Take Mr. Villars to your cave--do for him
what you have done for me. He is a much better Christian, and far more
deserving of your kindness, than I ever was."

"And you?" said Pomp, quietly.

"I will take my chance with the others." And Penn in few words explained
the occurrences of the night and morning.

Pomp shrugged his shoulders frowningly. The time was at hand when he and
Cudjo could no longer enjoy in freedom their wild mountain life; even
they must soon be drawn into the great deadly struggle. This he foresaw,
and his soul was darkened for a moment.

"Cudjo! Shall we take this old man to our den?"

"No, no! Don't ye take nobody dar! on'y Massa Hapgood."

"But he is blind!" said Penn.

"Others will come after who are not blind," said Pomp, his brow still
stern and thoughtful.

"My friends," interposed the old clergyman, mildly, "do nothing for me
that will bring danger to yourselves, I entreat you!"

These unselfish words, spoken with serious and benignant aspect, touched
the generous chords in Pomp's breast.

"Why should we blacks have anything to do with this quarrel?" he said
with earnest feeling. "Your friends down there"--meaning Stackridge and
his party--"are all slaveholders or pro-slavery men. Why should we care
which side destroys the other?"

"There is a God," answered Mr. Villars, with a beaming light in his
unterrified countenance, "who is not prejudiced against color; who loves
equally his black and his white children; and who, by means of this war
that seems so needless and so cruel, is working out the redemption, not
of the misguided white masters only, but also of the slave. Whether you
will or not, this war concerns the black man, and he cannot long keep
out of it. Then will you side with your avowed enemies, or with those
who are already fighting in your cause without knowing it?"

These words probed the deep convictions of Pomp's breast. He had