h a pathetic hopelessness in his eyes. He saw Injun Joe,
and exclaimed:

"Oh, Injun Joe, you promised me you'd never--"

"Is that your knife?" and it was thrust before him by the Sheriff.

Potter would have fallen if they had not caught him and eased him to
the ground. Then he said:

"Something told me 't if I didn't come back and get--" He shuddered;
then waved his nerveless hand with a vanquished gesture and said, "Tell
'em, Joe, tell 'em--it ain't any use any more."

Then Huckleberry and Tom stood dumb and staring, and heard the
stony-hearted liar reel off his serene statement, they expecting every
moment that the clear sky would deliver God's lightnings upon his head,
and wondering to see how long the stroke was delayed. And when he had
finished and still stood alive and whole, their wavering impulse to
break their oath and save the poor betrayed prisoner's life faded and
vanished away, for plainly this miscreant had sold himself to Satan and
it would be fatal to meddle with the property of such a power as that.

"Why didn't you leave? What did you want to come here for?" somebody
said.

"I couldn't help it--I couldn't help it," Potter moaned. "I wanted to
run away, but I couldn't seem to come anywhere but here." And he fell
to sobbing again.

Injun Joe repeated his statement, just as calmly, a few minutes
afterward on the inquest, under oath; and the boys, seeing that the
lightnings were still withheld, were confirmed in their belief that Joe
had sold himself to the devil. He was now become, to them, the most
balefully interesting object they had ever looked upon, and they could
not take their fascinated eyes from his face.

They inwardly resolved to watch him nights, when opportunity should
offer, in the hope of getting a glimpse of his dread master.

Injun Joe helped to raise the body of the murdered man and put it in a
wagon for removal; and it was whispered through the shuddering crowd
that the wound bled a little! The boys thought that this happy
circumstance would turn suspicion in the right direction; but they were
disappointed, for more than one villager remarked:

"It was within three feet of Muff Potter when it done it."

Tom's fearful secret and gnawing conscience disturbed his sleep for as
much as a week after this; and at breakfast one morning Sid said:

"Tom, you pitch around and talk in your sleep so much that you keep me
awake half the time."

Tom blanched and dropped his eyes.

"