“Mussen tiah de hoss clean out,” said the nig. “Well, Massa Ralph, how you come for to be in sich company?”
“I couldn’t help it,” said Ralph, who from living in the town with the darkey was perfectly familiar with him. “I was taken from my bed at the dead of night by that big rascal you rescued me from, made to dress myself, follow him to the stable, get upon a horse and ride swiftly out of town. I don’t know anything of him, not even his name, and what his idea could have been in carrying me away in that style is more than I can imagine.”
“Fo’ de lan’s sake” exclaimed Pomp. “Wha’ fo’ he bin gone done datar’, I wonner. Massy on us for de Lord! Yerm suah yo’ fodder is well?”
“The last I saw of him he was as well as he had been in months,” returned the boy, who did not know that James Van Dorn had stabbed his father to the heart the same hour that he abducted him from the mansion.
Had he known the truth, Ralph would have been overwhelmed with the deepest sorrow for his father’s fate.
“Him bad man,” said Pomp. “Better look out for dis coon when I gits my paws on him. He’s too bad to live. By golly, but won’t I jist knock him if I cotch de rascal agin.”
“Look!” cried Ralph.
“Where?”
“East,” said the boy, pointing with his right hand; “a race for life!”
Pomp pulled in short and followed the direction of the outstretched hand.