Last night! Poor Penn was deeply perplexed when he endeavored to remember whether his mysterious awaking in the open air occurred last night, or many nights ago. He moved his head feebly to look for Toby. Which Toby? for all through his sufferings the same two Tobys, one good and the other evil, who had taken him from the field, had appeared still to attend him, and he now more than half expected to see the faithful old negro duplicated, and waiting upon him with two bodies and four hands.
But neither the better nor even the worse half of that double being was near him now. Penn was alone, in that subterranean solitude. There burned the fire, the shadows flickered, the smoke floated away into the depths of the dark cavern, in such loneliness and silence as he had never experienced before. He would have thought himself in some grotto of the gnomes, or some awful cell of enchantment, whose supernatural fire never went out, and whose smoke rolled away into darkness the same perpetually,—but for the sound of the crackling flames, and the sight of piles of wood on the floor, so strongly suggestive of human agency.
On one side was what appeared to be an artificial chamber built of stones, its door open towards the fire. Ranged about the cave, in something like regular order, were several massy blocks of different sizes, like the stools of a family of giants. But where were the giants?
Ah, here came Toby at last, or, at any rate, the twin of him. He approached from the side where the daylight shone, bearing an armful of sticks, and whistling a low tune. With his broad back turned towards Penn, he crouched before the fire, which he poked and scolded with malicious energy, his grotesque and gigantic shadow projected on the wall of the cave.
"Burn, ye debil! K-r-r-r! sputter! snap! git mad, why don't ye?"
Then throwing himself back upon a heap of skins, with his heels at the fire, and his long arms swinging over his head, in a savage and picturesque attitude, he burst into a shout, like the cry of a wild beast. This he repeated several times, appearing to take delight in hearing the echoes resound through the cavern. Then he began to sing, keeping time with his feet, and pausing after each strain of his wild melody to hear it die away in the hollow depths of the cave.
"De glory ob de Lord, it am comin', it am comin',
De glory ob de Lord, let it come!
De angel ob de Lord, hear his trumpet, hear his trumpet,
De angel ob de Lord, he ar come!"
At the last words, "He ar come!" a shadow darkened the entrance, and Penn looked, almost expecting to see a literal fulfilment of the prophecy. A form of imposing stature appeared. It was that of a negro upwards of six feet in height, magnificently proportioned, straight as a pillar, and black as ebony. He wore a dress of skins, carried a gun in his hand, and had an opossum slung over his shoulder.
"Hush your noise!" he said to the singer, in a tone of authority. "Haven't I told you not to wake him?"
"No fear o' dat!" chuckled the other. "Him's past dat! Ki! how fat he ar!" seizing the opossum, and beginning to dress him on the spot.