as in; and I was kinder stunned; everything was
going so different from what I had allowed for; stead of being fixed
so I could take my own time if I wanted to, and see all the fun, and
have Mary Jane at my back to save me and set me free when the
close-fit come, here was nothing in the world betwixt me and sudden
death but just them tattoo-marks. If they didn't find them--

I couldn't bear to think about it; and yet, somehow, I couldn't think
about nothing else. It got darker and darker, and it was a beautiful
time to give the crowd the slip; but that big husky had me by the
wrist--Hines--and a body might as well try to give Goliar the slip. He
dragged me right along, he was so excited, and I had to run to keep
up.

When they got there they swarmed into the graveyard and washed over it
like an overflow. And when they got to the grave they found they had
about a hundred times as many shovels as they wanted, but nobody
hadn't thought to fetch a lantern. But they sailed into digging anyway
by the flicker of the lightning, and sent a man to the nearest house,
a half a mile off, to borrow one.

So they dug and dug like everything; and it got awful dark, and the
rain started, and the wind swished and swushed along, and the
lightning come brisker and brisker, and the thunder boomed; but them
people never took no notice of it, they was so full of this business;
and one minute you could see everything and every face in that big
crowd, and the shovelfuls of dirt sailing up out of the grave, and the
next second the dark wiped it all out, and you couldn't see nothing at
all.

At last they got out the coffin and begun to unscrew the lid, and then
such another crowding and shouldering and shoving as there was, to
scrouge in and get a sight, you never see; and in the dark, that way,
it was awful. Hines he hurt my wrist dreadful pulling and tugging so,
and I reckon he clean forgot I was in the world, he was so excited and
panting.

All of a sudden the lightning let go a perfect sluice of white glare,
and somebody sings out:

"By the living jingo, here's the bag of gold on his breast!"

Hines let out a whoop, like everybody else, and dropped my wrist and
give a big surge to bust his way in and get a look, and the way I lit
out and shinned for the road in the dark there ain't nobody can tell.

I had the road all to myself, and I fairly flew--leastways, I had it
all to myself except the solid dark, and the now-and-then glares,