"We is in Delaware," he said, soon after, as they reached a camp of shingle sawyers, all deserted, and lighted by the fire, the golden chips strewn around, and the sawdust, like Indian meal, that suggested good, warm pone at Teackle Hall to Virgie.
She put her feet, soaked with swamp water, at a burning log to warm, and hardly saw a mocasson snake glide round the fire and stop, as if to dart at her, and glide away; for Virgie's mind was attributing this kindly fire to the presence of Freedom.
"Oh, I should like to lie here and go to sleep," she said, languidly; "I am so tired."
The man Hudson, wringing wet with the journey's difficulties, threw his arms around her and drew her to his damp yet fiery breast.
"We will sleep here, then," he breathed into her lips; "I love you!"
The incoherence of everything yielded to these sudden words, and on the young maid's startled nature came a reality she had not understood: her guide was drunken with passion.
She struggled in his arms with all her might, but was as a switch in a maniac's hands.
"I stole my ole woman's pass fur you," the infatuated ruffian sighed; "you said you would love the man who got you one, Virgie. You is mine!"
A suffocating sense and heat, more than animal nature, seemed to enclose them. The girl struggled free, her lithe figure exerted with all her dying strength to preserve her modesty.
"Hudson," she cried, "I will tell your wife! God forgive you for insulting a poor, sick, helpless girl in this wild swamp!"