e, two of them
went back with an easy click. For the third we could find no key. There
was nothing else to do now but to have recourse to singing and dancing
again. Baykins started sawing his fiddle furiously while the big negro
in for rape hammered and hammered on the lock to break it, with one
prison stool after another, till all were tossed aside, broken as
kindling wood is broken. It was good that the jailer was either deaf,
or, like the heathen gods in the Old Testament, away on a journey.
Finally, we gave up in despair. The big negro collapsed with a wail. The
first sign of weakness I ever detected in him.

"Now it's shore either ninety-nine yeahs in de pen foh me, or ten yeahs
for th' sheriff's son foh lawyah fees ... an' the footprints in de
flowah bed ... of the man what done de rape was two sizes biggah dan
mine."

* * * * *

The next day the jailer, of course, missed the keys. Panic-stricken, the
mulatto girl was afraid to slip them back to their accustomed nail, for
fear she'd be seen at it; or was it out of vindictiveness against the
jailer that she had now actually hidden them somewhere (for, finding
them of no use, we had handed them back to her)!

That same afternoon the sheriff, with his son and the little,
shrivelled, stuttering, half-deaf jailer, came in at the door of the big
room. It was easy to see what they wanted. They wanted the keys and they
were going to make the girl confess where they were ... as she was the
only other person, beside the prison authorities, that was in the way to
come at them.

"Martha, we want them keys! Show us where they is, like a good girl!"

"'Deed, Ah don' know where dey is a-tall, Marse Sheriff!"

"Come on, gal, you was the only one downstairs exceptin' Jacklin heah!"
pointing to the jailer.

The jailer nodded his head asseveratingly.

"Yes, Martha, tell us whar the keys air," urged the latter, with
caressing softness and fright in his voice. He didn't want his mistress
whipped.

"If you don't, by God, I'll whup the nigger hide clean off yore back,"
and the sheriff reached for the braided whip which his son Jimmy handed
him.

"I sweah Ah don' know where dey is!"

"You dirty liah," taking out a watch; "I'll give you jest five minutes
t' tell, an' then--" he menaced with the up-lifted whip.

In stubborn silence the girl waited the five minutes out.

"Jimmy!... Jacklin!... throw her down an' hold her, rump up, over that