that it was as long and soporific as a state constitution, or a governor's message--that it was actually sung to a psalm-tune, or something like it--and that, during the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, and half of the fourteenth stanza, the little wagon rolled leisurely over a long and hollow-sounding bridge, which I had no doubt was one of the wooden Rialtos of the Schuylkill--having passed which, the driver whipped up, and away we went at a speed of at least six miles an hour. 16. CHAPTER XVI. IN WHICH SHEPPARD LEE TAKES A JOURNEY, AND DISCOVERS THE SECRET OBJECT OF HIS CAPTORS. Verily, reader, the thing was to me as an amazement and a marvel, and the wonder thereof filled my spirit with anguish and perturbation. But if I was dismayed at my seizure and abduction, at my involuntary journey, prolonged through the space of a whole night, how much greater was my alarm to find it continued for five days and nights longer, during which I was never allowed to speak or breathe the fresh air, except when my captors halted to rest and eat, which they did at irregular intervals, and always in solitary places among woods and thickets. It was in vain that I demanded by what authority they treated me with such violence, what purpose they had in view, and whither they were conducting me. The rogues assured me they were very honest fellows, who made their living according to law, and had no design to harm me; and as to what they designed doing with me, _that_, they said, I should know all in good time; recommending me, in the meanwhile, to take things patiently. I studied their appearance well. They were common-looking personages, with a vulgar shrewdness of visage, and would have been readily taken for Yankee pedlers of the nutmeg and side-saddle order--that is, of the inferior branch of that adventurous class--as indeed they were. There was nothing of the cut-throat about them whatever, and I soon ceased to feel any apprehension of their doing me a personal injury. But what did the villains mean? what was their object in carrying me off? what did they design doing with me? To these questions, which I asked myself and them in vain, I had, on the sixth day of my captivity, an answer; and verily it was one that filled me with horror and astonishment. Oh! the wickedness of man! the covetousness, the depravity, the audacity! the enterprise and originality thereof!