"Thank you, Cudjo! it will be very acceptable, I am sure."
"Me clar it up fur her all scrumptious!" added the negro, with a grin.
Penn had thought of that. But now he had other business on his hands: he must hasten to find Pepperill: nor could he keep anxious thoughts of Stackridge and his friends out of his mind. And Pomp—where all this time was Pomp? He had hoped to find him and the patriots all safely arrived in the cave.
Virginia was seated on the bed by her father's side. Penn threw a blanket over the dear young shoulders, to shield her from the sudden cold of the cave; then left her relating her adventures,—beckoning to Cudjo, who followed him out.
"Cudjo!"—the black glided to his side as they emerged from the ravine,—"you must go and find Pomp."
Cudjo laughed and shrugged.
"No use't! Reckon Pomp take keer o' hisself heap better'n we's take keer on him!"
True. Pomp knew the woods. He was athletic, cautious, brave. But he had gone to extricate from peril others, in whose fate he himself might become involved. Cudjo refused to take this view of the matter; and it was evident that, while he comforted himself with his deep convictions of Pomp's ability to look out for his own safety, he was, to say the least, quite indifferent as to the welfare of the patriots.
Forgetting Dan and the unknown horseman in his great solicitude for his absent friends, Penn climbed the ledges, and gazed away in the direction of the camp, and beheld the forest there a raging gulf of fire.
Assuredly, they must have fled from it before this time; but whither had they gone? Had Pomp been able to find them? Or might they not all have become entangled in the intricacies of the wilderness until encompassed by the fire and destroyed?