With his pistols in his hand, Johnson lay down in the cabin a few feet from the helmsman, and tried to see and sleep at once. He had been without rest for many nights, and sleep soon bound him in its own clevis and manacles.

When he awoke, so deep had been his slumber that he could not recall for a moment where he was. The tiller was unmanned, the stars shone in the cabin hatchway, a cold bilge-water draft blew through the old hulk, and, as he dragged himself up the steps, he saw tall woods near by, and heard the voice of solemn pines.

The vessel was aground; wild geese were making jubilant shrieks as they cut the water with their fleecy wings, like cameo engraving; the outlaw gazed and gazed, and finally muttered:

"Deil's Island, or I'm a billy noodle! I run from it the last time I was yer, an' my blood runs cold to be yer agin; my daddy got his curse from this camp-meetin'."

Taking speed from his apprehensions, Johnson slid back the hatchway and leaped into the hold, starlight and moonlight following him, and nothing did they reveal there except one man, peacefully sleeping upon his face, as Phoebus had last been seen.

The kidnapper shook his captive, but he did not awaken. He turned the man over, and there met his eyes the cold blue stare and Roman nose and bleeding lips of Allan McLane, apparently returned from the bottom of the river.

With a shriek, the outlaw bounded upon the deck and ran to the bow of the pungy.

"Help me!" came a faint cry from the forecastle, and, peeping in, Joe Johnson recognized one of his own familiars he had shipped at Cannon's Ferry, gagged, like his companion, and tied fast. The man had just been able to articulate.

"Now, spiflicate me!" spoke the skipper, relieving the man, "the ruffian cly you! who did this?"

"The white nigger did it all, Joe. He crawled through the stays to the cabin, and got your pistols, first; leastways, we found him an' the yaller feller at the helm on top of us, coming up the fo'castle, and next t'other two men jined 'em. They said ole Samson had give 'em the wink. We two was tied and throwed in yer, an' ef you had awaked, thar was a man to stab you to the heart, sot over you."

"The portmanteau?" cried Johnson.

"That's gone, I reckon. They sowed you up a feather an' oyster-shell man on a plank to heave overboard; that's what they said. They steered for Deil's Island, an' sot the Island Parson yer to watch that you don't git the pungy off, an' I reckon they're half-way to Princess Anne."

Joe Johnson heard no more. He released his creatures from their bonds, took the dead body in the pungy's canoe, and gave the command:

"Row fur the open bay! We'll strike St. Mary's County or Virginny. Bingavast! Hike! Never agin will I put foot on this Eastern Shore."

* * * * *

At Georgetown Jimmy Phoebus, Samson, and Levin Dennis met again, and Levin told the mystery of his father's disappearance.