"It is better as it is than if we had let them take us."
"Did you really mean to kill them, Dan?"
"Not if I could help it; but I would have killed a dozen of them rather than be carried back into slavery."
"We didn't kill 'em, Missy Lily," interposed Quin. "Dey done drownded. De good Lo'd strike 'em down jus like he did de 'Gyptians in de Red Sea, in de midst ob dar wickedness. We didn't kill 'em, Missy Lily."
"That's it, Lily," added Dan, indorsing the explanation, though the religious aspect of the case was not so strongly impressed upon his mind as upon that of his pious companion.
"We might have saved them," continued the gentle-hearted girl, who derived but little consolation from the words of Quin. "You might have taken them on board when the squall came."
"Why, Lily, I had just smashed their boat with my own hands, and I wasn't going to put my head into the lion's mouth. It is best as it is, Lily. The death of these men will remove all danger from our path, for no one has seen us except them."
"But how awful!" sighed she.
"I told you, Lily, before we started, that terrible things might happen to us. You shall be free; let this thought comfort you."
But it did not comfort her, and she continued to bewail the catastrophe that had befallen the slave-hunters till the attention of her companions was called to the position of the Isabel.