t ruddy with excitement.

The sheriff mentally cursed his own carelessness for allowing him to be
caught in such a predicament. He had not expected anything of the kind.
He had relied on the negro's cowardice and subordination in the presence
of an armed white man as a matter of course. The sheriff was a brave
man, but realized that the prisoner had him at an immense disadvantage.
The two men stood thus for a moment, fighting a harmless duel with their
eyes.

"Well, what do you mean to do?" asked the sheriff with apparent
calmness.

"To get away, of course," said the prisoner, in a tone which caused the
sheriff to look at him more closely, and with an involuntary feeling of
apprehension; if the man was not mad, he was in a state of mind akin to
madness, and quite as dangerous. The sheriff felt that he must speak the
prisoner fair, and watch for a chance to turn the tables on him. The
keen-eyed, desperate man before him was a different being altogether
from the groveling wretch who had begged so piteously for life a few
minutes before.

At length the sheriff spoke:----

"Is this your gratitude to me for saving your life at the risk of my
own? If I had not done so, you would now be swinging from the limb of
some neighboring tree."

"True," said the prisoner, "you saved my life, but for how long? When
you came in, you said Court would sit next week. When the crowd went
away they said I had not long to live. It is merely a choice of two
ropes."

"While there 's life there 's hope," replied the sheriff. He uttered
this commonplace mechanically, while his brain was busy in trying to
think out some way of escape. "If you are innocent you can prove it."

The mulatto kept his eye upon the sheriff. "I did n't kill the old man,"
he replied; "but I shall never be able to clear myself. I was at his
house at nine o'clock. I stole from it the coat that was on my back when
I was taken. I would be convicted, even with a fair trial, unless the
real murderer were discovered beforehand."

The sheriff knew this only too well. While he was thinking what argument
next to use, the prisoner continued:----

"Throw me the keys--no, unlock the door."

The sheriff stood a moment irresolute. The mulatto's eye glittered
ominously. The sheriff crossed the room and unlocked the door leading
into the passage.

"Now go down and unlock the outside door."

The heart of the sheriff leaped within him. Perhaps he might make a dash
for libert