"My wife is dead to me, Virgie. You is the only wife I has now. Here we shall sleep and forgit my children and my little home that was enough fur me, gal, till your beauty come and tuk me from it."
"Stop!" the girl called, with her face blanched even in her fever, though not with fear, as her white blood rose proudly. "If you do not keep away, I will throw myself in that deep pool and drown. I would rather die than cheat your good wife as you have done."
"Nothing is yer," the negro said, "but you, an' me, an' Love. I would not let you drown. You are too beautiful. We will get to the free states together and live for each other. Kiss me!"
He darted upon her again and bent her fair head back by the fallen braids of her silky hair.
The tall woods filled with majestic light; something roared as if the winds had gone astray and were rushing towards them.
"Hark!" cried Virgie. "God is coming to punish you."
As she spoke the ground beside them burst into flames and black smoke. The man's arms relaxed; he looked around him and exclaimed,
"It's the underground fire. Run fur your life!"
He led the way, running to the north, as they had been going. In a moment fire, like a golden wall, rose across their path.
They turned whence they had come, and the fire there was like a lake of lava, and over it the enormous trees seemed to warm their hands, and up the dry vines, like monkeys of flame, the forked spirits of the burning earth dodged and chased each other.