Page:Fifty Years in Chains, or the Life of an American Slave.djvu/178

176 ivies, with which the surface of the island was coated over.

I stood and looked at this mass of entangled green bush, but could not perceive the slightest marks of any entrance into its labyrinths; nor did it seem possible for any creature, larger than a squirrel, to penetrate it. It now for the first time struck me as a great oversight in the gentlemen, that they had not compelled the mulatto, David, to describe the place where they had concealed the lady; and, as the forest was so dense that no communication could be had with the shore, either by word or signs, we could not now procure any information on this subject. I therefore called to the gentlemen, who were on the island with me, and desired them to come to me without delay.

Small as this island was, it was after the lapse of many minutes that the overseer and the other gentlemen arrived where I stood; and when they came, they would have been the subjects of mirthful emotions, had not the tragic circumstances in which I was placed, banished from my heart every feeling but that of the most profound melancholy.

When the gentlemen had assembled, I informed them of signs of footsteps that I had traced from the other side of the island; and told them that I believed the young lady lay somewhere under the heap