, determined men, bent on a
terrible vengeance.

"We took Jube into the house, into the room where the corpse lay. At
sight of it, he gave a scream like an animal's and his face went the
colour of storm-blown water. This was enough to condemn him. We divined,
rather than heard, his cry of 'Miss Ann, Miss Ann, oh, my God, doc, you
don't t'ink I done it?'

"Hungry hands were ready. We hurried him out into the yard. A rope was
ready. A tree was at hand. Well, that part was the least of it, save
that Hiram Daly stepped aside to let me be the first to pull upon the
rope. It was lax at first. Then it tightened, and I felt the quivering
soft weight resist my muscles. Other hands joined, and Jube swung off
his feet.

"No one was masked. We knew each other. Not even the Culprit's face was
covered, and the last I remember of him as he went into the air was a
look of sad reproach that will remain with me until I meet him face to
face again.

"We were tying the end of the rope to a tree, where the dead man might
hang as a warning to his fellows, when a terrible cry chilled us to the
marrow.

"'Cut 'im down, cut 'im down, he ain't guilty. We got de one. Cut him
down, fu' Gawd's sake. Here's de man, we foun' him hidin' in de barn!'

"Jube's brother, Ben, and another Negro, came rushing toward us, half
dragging, half carrying a miserable-looking wretch between them. Someone
cut the rope and Jube dropped lifeless to the ground.

"'Oh, my Gawd, he's daid, he's daid!' wailed the brother, but with
blazing eyes he brought his captive into the centre of the group, and we
saw in the full light the scratched face of Tom Skinner--the worst white
ruffian in the town--but the face we saw was not as we were accustomed
to see it, merely smeared with dirt. It was blackened to imitate a
Negro's.

"God forgive me; I could not wait to try to resuscitate Jube. I knew he
was already past help, so I rushed into the house and to the dead girl's
side. In the excitement they had not yet washed or laid her out.
Carefully, carefully, I searched underneath her broken finger nails.
There was skin there. I took it out, the little curled pieces, and went
with it to my office.

"There, determinedly, I examined it under a powerful glass, and read my
own doom. It was the skin of a white man, and in it were embedded
strands of short, brown hair or beard.

"How I went out to tell the waiting crowd I do not know, for something
kept crying in my ears, 'Blo