"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 Phœbus, Samson, and Levin Dennis met again, and Levin told the mystery of his father's disappearance.
"Never tell your mother, Levin, that Captain Dennis died in that Pangymonum; it would break her heart, and she never would trust man agin."
"Jimmy," spoke up Samson, "let her understand that he got wrecked on the Ida. It looks a little bad, but the slave-trade sounds better than kidnappin'."
"They say that Allan McLane owned that slave vessel," Phœbus put in; "but he didn't live to know his loss. He'll meet his heathens at the Judgment Seat."
"Who has fed mother?" Levin asked. "Hulda can't explain that."
"I kin, Levin," Samson Hat said, bashfully. "It was me. Good ole Meshach Milburn, that everybody's down on, pitied that pore woman, an' made me set things she needed in her window. He said if I ever told it he'd discharge me."