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"Poor
fellow!" "Poor young fellow!" "This ought to be a lesson to
grave robbers!" "Muff Potter'll hang for this if they catch him!"
This was the drift of remark; and the minister said, "It was a judgment;
His hand is here."
Now
Tom shivered from head to heel; for his eye fell upon the stolid face of Injun
Joe. At this moment the crowd began to sway and struggle, and voices shouted,
"It's him! it's him! he's coming himself!"
"Who?
Who?" from twenty voices.
"Muff
Potter!"
"Hallo,
he's stopped! -- Look out, he's turning! Don't let him get away!"
People
in the branches of the trees over Tom's head said he wasn't trying to get away
-- he only looked doubtful and perplexed.
"Infernal
impudence!" said a bystander; "wanted to come and take a quiet look at
his work, I reckon -- didn't expect any company."
The
crowd fell apart, now, and the Sheriff came through, ostentatiously leading
Potter by the arm. The poor fellow's face was haggard, and his eyes showed the
fear that was upon him. When he stood before the murdered man, he shook as with
a palsy, and he put his face in his hands and burst into tears.
"I
didn't do it, friends," he sobbed; "'pon my word and honor I never
done it."
"Who's
accused you?" shouted a voice.
This
shot seemed to carry home. Potter lifted his face and looked around him with 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.
"It's
a bad sign," said Aunt Polly, gravely. "What you got on your mind,
Tom?"
"Nothing.
Nothing 't I know of." But the boy's hand shook so that he spilled his
coffee.
"And
you do talk such stuff," Sid said. "Last night you said, 'It's blood,
it's blood, that's what it is!' You said that over and over. And you said,
'Don't torment me so -- I'll tell!' Tell WHAT? What is it you'll tell?"
Everything
was swimming before Tom. There is no telling what might have happened, now, but
luckily the concern passed out of Aunt Polly's face and she came to Tom's relief
without knowing it. She said:
"Sho!
It's that dreadful murder. I dream about it most every night myself. Sometimes I
dream it's me that done it."
Mary
said she had been affected much the same way. Sid seemed satisfied. Tom got out
of the presence as quick as he plausibly could, and after that he complained of
toothache for a week, and tied up his jaws every night. He never knew that Sid
lay nightly watching, and frequently slipped the bandage free and then leaned on
his elbow listening a good while at a time, and afterward slipped the bandage
back to its place again. Tom's distress of mind wore off gradually and the
toothache grew irksome and was discarded. If Sid really managed to make anything
out of Tom's disjointed mutterings, he kept it to himself.
It
seemed to Tom that his schoolmates never would get done holding inquests on dead
cats, and thus keeping his trouble present to his mind. Sid noticed that Tom
never was coroner at one of these inquiries, though it had been his habit to
take the lead in all new enterprises; he noticed, too, that Tom never acted as a
witness -- and that was strange; and Sid did not overlook the fact that Tom even
showed a marked aversion to these inquests, and always avoided them when he
could. Sid marvelled, but said nothing. However, even inquests went out of vogue
at last, and ceased to torture Tom's conscience.
Every
day or two, during this time of sorrow, Tom watched his opportunity and went to
the little grated jail-window and smuggled such small comforts through to the
"murderer" as he could get hold of. The jail was a trifling little
brick den that stood in a marsh at the edge of the village, and no guards were
afforded for it; indeed, it was seldom occupied. These offerings greatly helped
to ease Tom's conscience.
The
villagers had a strong desire to tar-and-feather Injun Joe and ride him on a
rail, for body-snatching, but so formidable was his character that nobody could
be found who was willing to take the lead in the matter, so it was dropped. He
had been careful to begin both of his inquest-statements with the fight, without
confessing the grave-robbery that preceded it; therefore it was deemed wisest
not to try the case in the courts at present.
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