Harshaw had changed color; he had been fiercely biting his red lips and stroking his yellow beard throughout these interrogatories, seeing their drift more clearly, perhaps, than the prosecuting officer did. Now he sprang to his feet, and insisted that the attorney for the State should not be permitted to play upon the superstition of the witness. She had seen no ghost. The court would not, he hoped, permit the questions to take the form of an attempt to persuade a witness—of great native intelligence, indeed, and of the highest moral worth, but densely ignorant, and doubtless saturated with the ridiculous superstitions of the uneducated—that in seeing this fugitive lad she had beheld a supernatural manifestation. “In one moment, sir,” he interpolated, addressing Peter Rood, who sat in the back row of the jury, and who had suddenly bent forward, pointing a long finger at the witness, as if he were about to ask a question. “The boy doubtless swam out of the river, and being a maltreated little drudge ran away, and is now somewhere held in hiding by persons inimical to the prisoner. The witness had a glimpse of him. There is no man here ignorant enough to believe that she saw a ghost,—least of all the learned and astute counsel for the State.” “I don’t believe she saw a ghost,” said the attorney-general, still seated, cocking up his eyes at his vehement opponent. “I do believe, however, most firmly, that the witness had an illusion, hallucination.” There was a stir in the audience and the jury as he uttered these big words. They seemed to represent something more vaguely formidable than a ghost. “Counsel must conduct the examination on a reasonable basis,” remarked the judge. “I will do so, your Honor,” in the basso profundo of deep respect. Mink, agitated, trembling with the sudden shock, leaned forward and looked with burning eyes at Alethea. How was she discrediting the testimony she had given for him? How was she jeopardizing his fate? She was almost overcome for a moment. Her nerves were shaken; she was appalled by the sudden revolution her simple disclosure had wrought. Her lips trembled, her eyes filled, but she made a gallant struggle for self-control, and answered in a steady voice the attorney-general’s next question. “Did the boy wear a hat, or was he bare-headed?” There was suppressed excitement in the audience, for Tad’s hat and coat, recovered from the river, had been shown to the jury while she was in the ante-room with the other witnesses. “I didn’t notice,—’twar so suddint” “How was he dressed?” “I didn’t see,” faltered Alethea. “What _did_ you see?” “I seen his face, ez clear ez I see yourn this minit.” “How did he look,—hearty?” “Naw, sir; he looked mighty peaked. His face war bleached,”—a thrill ran through the crowd,—“an’ I reckon he war skeered ez he seen me, fur he ’peared plumb tarrified.” “How long did you see his face?” “A minit, mebbe; the fog passed ’twixt us.” “Ah, there was fog!”