a loon. But he got hold of himself enough
to quit talking, in a minute, and his cunning come back to him before
he was through trembling. Then the doctor says slow and even, but not
severe:

"You go back to your people now, bishop, and tell them they've made a
mistake about me. And if you can, undo the harm you've done with this
Messiah business. As far as this stuff of mine is concerned, there's
none of it for you nor for any other negro. You tell them that. There's
none of it been sold yet--and there never will be."

Then we turned away and left him standing there in the road, still with
his hat off and his face working.

Walking back toward the little tavern the doctor says:

"Danny, this is the end of this game. These people down here and that
half-cracked, half-crooked old bishop have made me see a few things about
the Afro-American brother. It wasn't a good scheme in the first place.
And this wasn't the place to start it going, anyhow--I should have tried
the niggers in the big towns. But I'm out of it now, and I'm glad of
it. What we want to do is to get away from here to-morrow--go back to
Atlanta and fix up a scheme to rob some widows and orphans, or something
half-way respectable like that."

Well, I drew a long breath. I was with Doctor Kirby in everything he
done, fur he was my friend, and I didn't intend to quit him. But I was
glad we was out of this, and hadn't sold none of that dope. We both
felt better because we hadn't. All them millions we was going to
make--shucks! We didn't neither one of us give a dern about them getting
away from us. All we wanted was jest to get away from there and not get
mixed up with no nigger problems any more. We eat supper, and we set
around a while, and we went to bed purty middling early, so as to get a
good start in the morning.

We got up early, but early as it was the devil had been up earlier in
that neighbourhood. About four o'clock that morning a white woman about
a half a mile from the village had been attacked by a nigger. They was
doubt as to whether she would live, but if she lived they wasn't no
doubts she would always be more or less crazy. Fur besides everything
else, he had beat her insensible. And he had choked her nearly to death.
The country-side was up, with guns and pistols looking fur that nigger.
It wasn't no trouble guessing what would happen to him when they ketched
him, neither.

"And," says Doctor Kirby, when we hearn of it, "I hope to high