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
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