Skeeter hitched himself forward until he sat upon the extreme edge of the witness chair. He hung his brown derby hat upon the first finger of his left hand and turned it round and round with the finger and thumb of his right hand. He stared at the table which Hitch had lifted and placed before him. The members of the jury suddenly sat up and took notice. They had known negroes all their lives; they had had negro playmates when they were boys; and now they “read sign” on Skeeter. They knew Skeeter was going to explode something. Their backbones stiffened in their chairs as if the marrow had suddenly turned to rigid steel. “Who--done--it?” Hitch Diamond bellowed. Skeeter pushed himself back in his chair. His little brown derby hat fell from his finger, rattled and bounced in a ridiculous fashion across the table before him, fell to the floor and rocked to and fro on the curved crown. Skeeter stretched out his hand with two middle fingers and the thumb flexed, and the first finger and the little finger extended in such a way that he pointed at the same time with one gesture to two men sitting in different parts of the court-room. Then he answered: “Dinner Gaze and Tucky Sugg!” Judge Haddan slumped forward in his chair, his delicate, fragile hands gripping the edge of the desk before him. The district attorney, a man who generally possessed perfect poise and self-possession, was jerked to his feet by this announcement and stood in absolute silence waving his hands to and fro like an embarrassed schoolboy who had suddenly forgotten how to “speak his piece.” The jury sank back in their chairs with a low sigh of gratification. They had tuned their ears for the sound of an explosion, and the effect had produced a pleasant shock. Silence in the court-room, a silence appalling. Hitch Diamond, who had been standing like a statue carved from ebony, slowly turned and faced the crowd of black men sitting behind him. Then a voice cracked the silence like a starter’s pistol shot over the backs of two men straining for a race; it was the voice of Ginny Babe Chew: “Dar--now!” In the twenty seconds which had elapsed since Skeeter made his astounding statement, Dinner Gaze and Tucky Sugg had both considered the chances and the avenues of escape, as well as the possibility of remaining in their places and protesting innocence of the charge. Ginny Babe Chew’s triumphant exclamation decided the issue. The low railing around the bar was directly before them. They sprang forward to clear it, and lo! Vinegar Atts was swinging to Tucky Sugg’s coat-tail, and Ginny Babe Chew was hanging to the coat-tail of Dinner Gaze! In an instant each man had slipped his arms out of his coat and was free. They leaped the railing, standing in the open space which Hitch Diamond had so ostentatiously cleared.