g; and he comes a-fumbling
under the curtain two or three foot from where I was. I stuck tight to
the wall and kept mighty still, though quivery; and I wondered what them
fellows would say to me if they catched me; and I tried to think what I'd
better do if they did catch me. But the king he got the bag before I
could think more than about a half a thought, and he never suspicioned I
was around. They took and shoved the bag through a rip in the straw tick
that was under the feather-bed, and crammed it in a foot or two amongst
the straw and said it was all right now, because a nigger only makes up
the feather-bed, and don't turn over the straw tick only about twice a
year, and so it warn't in no danger of getting stole now.

But I knowed better. I had it out of there before they was half-way down
stairs. I groped along up to my cubby, and hid it there till I could get
a chance to do better. I judged I better hide it outside of the house
somewheres, because if they missed it they would give the house a good
ransacking: I knowed that very well. Then I turned in, with my clothes
all on; but I couldn't a gone to sleep if I'd a wanted to, I was in such
a sweat to get through with the business. By and by I heard the king and
the duke come up; so I rolled off my pallet and laid with my chin at the
top of my ladder, and waited to see if anything was going to happen. But
nothing did.

So I held on till all the late sounds had quit and the early ones hadn't
begun yet; and then I slipped down the ladder.

CHAPTER XXVII.

I CREPT to their doors and listened; they was snoring. So I tiptoed
along, and got down stairs all right. There warn't a sound anywheres. I
peeped through a crack of the dining-room door, and see the men that was
watching the corpse all sound asleep on their chairs. The door was open
into the parlor, where the corpse was laying, and there was a candle in
both rooms. I passed along, and the parlor door was open; but I see there
warn't nobody in there but the remainders of Peter; so I shoved on by;
but the front door was locked, and the key wasn't there. Just then I
heard somebody coming down the stairs, back behind me. I run in the
parlor and took a swift look around, and the only place I see to hide the
bag was in the coffin. The lid was shoved along about a foot, showing
the dead man's face down in there, with a wet cloth over it, and his
shroud on. I tucked the money-bag in under the li