Woodie’s hand closed round the pistol, when his eye chanced to fall on Miss Jinny’s face. Her look of quiet certitude startled him. He leaned forward, scarcely breathing. “‘--an’ lan’ um whar he belongs!’” Miss Jinny cleared her throat, but Draper didn’t notice. “‘Back whar de brimstone’s at, an’ de fire----’” Miss Jinny moved her chair, but Draper didn’t even look her way. “‘Back whar de smoke’s a-curlin’ out de groun’, an’----’” The sharp pounding of Miss Jinny’s cane fell across his sentence and broke it as brittelely off as if it had been a rod of glass. * * * * * Woodie dropped back limply into his seat. He opened his mouth to still the sound of his breathing. He grew weak under the surge of his relief. For a moment all that he could realize was that he hadn’t had to shoot--that Miss Jinny had saved him from that. She sat on the edge of her chair, as delicately separate as a white hepatica, looking straight at Draper, and as the sense of her sank into Woodie it seemed to him that she was a part of the backbone of life itself, and again he looked at the preacher with a flaming up of hope. But the big Negro was staring at the white woman in blank amazement, without meeting her eyes, much as he might have stared at the roof if it had fallen in; uneasy only because the mood he had induced in his people had been threatened. For a moment he was silent, while he reassembled his scattered powers. He shifted his weight until the floor creaked. He leaned forward and began to speak again, and Woodie’s hope sank slowly and heavily. It was going to take more than the pounding of a cane to stop Zachariah Draper. With his hand on his father’s old pistol, that had never been pointed at anything bigger than a chicken-hunting skunk, he leaned forward breathlessly, while Draper, out of a deep instinct in such matters, and as though rebuking his antagonist, laid his tongue to stronger words than any of his own. “De Good Book say”--with sombre emphasis--“‘Take heed lest dere be in any uv yer an evil heart uv onbelief! Take heed, fer de sword uv Gawd am quick an’ powerful, an’ sharper dan any two-edged sword, piercin’ even ter de dividin’ asunder uv de soul an’ de sperret, an’ uv de j’ints an’ de marrow!’” “Amen!” a woman said startlingly in a clear soprano; the others groaned in chorus, “A-amen! A-amen, brudder!” and the shattered mood of the people came together again. Draper fanned it as a wind fans a prairie fire: “Brethren an’ sisters, ef yer want ter lan’ at de great white throne, yer got ter git shed uv dat evil heart uv onbelief!” _Tap, tap_, went the cane, mild and premonitory, but he pretended not to hear. “De Good Book say: ‘He shall set de sheep on His right han’, but de goats on de lef’. An’ He shall say unter dem on de lef’ han’, Depart from me, ye cursed, inter everlastin’ fire, prepared fer de Devil an’ his angels!’”