"Push off!" ordered Joe Johnson; "my teeth are most a-chatterin' with the chill that mace cove give me."

He pulled up the anchor, hoisted the jib, and showed such nervous apprehension that Levin subsided to managing the helm, and steered down the thoroughfare, or strait, which, for some distance, wound around the camp-meeting grove.

"Yer's Jack Wonnell comin' with the jug and the dinner. Sha'n't we wait fur him?"

"He's got the kingdom-come cove with him! No; stop for nothing."

But the boat had to stop, as her keel scraped the mud in the almost dry thoroughfare, and a plain island man of benevolent, nearly credulous, face, hailed them, saying, stutteringly:

"Ne-ne-neighbors, do-don't be sc-scared that a-way. We ain't he-eee-thens yer. Br-br-brother Wonnell's bringin' your taters and pone."

"Come on, an' be damned to you?" Johnson cried to Wonnell. "What do we want with this tolabon sauce?"

"Sw-w-wear not a-a-at all!" cried the parson of the islands. "'Twon't l-l-lift ye over l-l-low tide, brother. Stay an' eat, an' t-t-talk a little with us. Why, I have seen that f-f-face before!"

"Never in a gospel-ken before," the slave-dealer muttered, with an oath.

"B-but it can't be him," spoke the island parson, with solemnity. "Ole Ebenezer Johnson died s-s-several year ago."

"Who was he?" cried the slave-dealer, with a little respectful interest.

"Ebenez-z-zer Johnson," Parson Thomas replied, with a mild and credulous countenance, "was the wickedest man on the Eastern Sho' for twenty year. P-pardon me, brother, fur a likin' ye to him, but somethin' in ye y-y-yur," passing his hand upon his skull, "p-puts me in mind of him. It was hyur he was shot" - still keeping his hand upon the skull"through an' through, an' died the death of the sinner. I have p-p-put my f-finger through the two holes where the b-bullet come an' went, an' rid this w-world of a d-d-demon!"

The story appeared to have a fascination for the slave-buyer, Levin Dennis thought, and Johnson exclaimed:

"Well, hod, did he ever run afoul of you?"

"O y-y-yes," answered the genial island exhorter, with obliging loquacity; "it was tw-w-enty-s-seven year ago that I see ole Eben-nezer Johnson come on the camp-ground of P-p-pungoteague with a mob of p-p-pirates to break up the f-f-fust Methodies camp-meetin' ever held about these sounds. He was en-c-couraged by ole King Custis, f-f-father of our Daniel Custis, of Prencess Anne, who was a b-b-big man fur the Establish Church an' d-dispised the Methodies. It was a cowardly thing to do, but while King C-C-Custis laughed and talked a' durin' of the p-p-preachin', Eb-b-b-benezer Johnson started a fight. The preacher c-c-cut his eye and saw who was a w-w-winkin' at the interference. He was a l-l-lion of the L-l-lord, and bore the c-c-commission of Immanuel. He knowed he was outen the s-s-state of Maryland and over in the V-v-vergeenia county of Ac-c-comack, an' that if the l-l-aws was a little more t-t-tolerant sence the Revolutionary war the ar-r-ristocracy there was b-bitter as ever towards the people of the Lord. He t-t-urned from his preachin' at last, right on King Custis, an' he pinted his f-finger at him straight. The p-preacher was L-l-lorenzo Dow."