"No, I be durned if ye shall! Hapgood, you stick to her: take this yer gun, and I'll slip down inter the holler, and see whuther the cuss's alive or dead, any how."
"O, Mr. Pepperill, if you will!" said Virginia, overjoyed.
Penn remonstrated,—rather feebly, it must be confessed, for the determination to part from her had cost him a struggle, and the privilege of keeping by her side till all danger was past, seemed too sweet to refuse.
"I'll take her to her father, and hurry back, and meet you."
"All right!" came the response from Dan, already far down the rocks.
"The cave is close by," said Penn. "There is Cudjo, waiting for us!"
Coming up with the black, and once more following his lead, they descended along the shelf of rocks, between the thickets and the overhanging ledge. So they came to the still dark jaws of the cavern. A grateful coolness breathed in their faces from within. But how dismal the entrance seemed to eyes lately dazzled by the blazing woods! Virginia clung tightly to Penn's hand, as they groped their way in.
At first nothing was visible but a few smouldering embers, winking their sleepy eyes in the dark. Out of these Cudjo soon blew a little blaze, which he fed with sticks and bits of bark until it lighted up fitfully the dim interior and shadowy walls of his abode.
Penn hushed Virginia with a finger on his lips, and restrained her from throwing herself forward upon the rude bed, where the blind old man was just awaking from a sound sleep.
In that profound subterranean solitude the roar of the fiery breakers, dashing on the mountain side, was subdued to a faint murmur, less distinct than the dripping of water from roof to floor in the farther recesses of the cave. There, left alone, lulled by the dull, monotonous trickle,—thinking, if he heard the roar at all, that it was the mountain wind blowing among the pines,—Mr. Villars had slept tranquilly through all the horrors of that night.