Penn was relieved to learn that Mr. Villars had arrived in safety, and gratified to find him lying comfortably on the bed conversing with Pomp.
"By the blessing of God, I am very well indeed, my dear Penn. These excellent fellow-Christians have taken the best of care of me. The atmosphere of the cave, which I thought at first chilly, I now find deliciously pure and refreshing. And its gloom, you know, don't trouble me," added the blind old man with a smile. "Have you had any more trouble since Pomp left you?"
"No," said Penn; "thanks to him. Pomp, our friends want to see you and thank you, and they have sent me to bring you to them."
The negro merely shrugged his shoulders, and smiled.
"What good der tanks do to we?" cried Cudjo. "Ain't one ob dem ar men but what would been glad to hab us cotched and licked for runnin' away, fur de 'xample to de tudder niggers."
"If that was true of them once, it is not now," said Penn. "Yet, Pomp, if you feel that there is the least danger in going to them, do not go."
"Danger?" The negro's proud and lofty look showed what he thought of that. "Cudjo, make Mr. Hapgood a cup of coffee; he looks tired. You have had a hard time, I reckon, since you left us."
"Him stay wid us now till he chirk up again," said Cudjo, running to his coffee-box. "Him and de ol' gemman stay—nobody else."
While the coffee was making, Penn, sitting on one of the stone blocks which he had named giant's stools, repeated such parts of the late breakfast talk of Stackridge and his friends as he thought would interest Pomp and win his confidence. Then he drank the strong, black beverage in silence, leaving the negro to his own reflections.
"Are you going again?" said Pomp.