“Keep quiet!” ordered a voice in the mob. “He wants to say something. He’s alive, and he wants to say something. Sh!” “Drop that rope!” roared Sammy as one of the crowd left the circle and hastily reached for the rope. The fellow leaped back as if stung. “I was only meanin’ to take it back to Ollie’s store,” he whined. “It belongs to him.” “Take him to a doctor’s!” roared a dozen anxious men. “Clear the road!” roared others. “Slink back into the foul fastnesses of yon accursed swamp,” rang out the voice of the great Josephine Judge. They got Oliver into the forward car, where he huddled down between Jane and her mother. They heard him whisper hoarsely, jerkily: “Never mind about me—I’m—all right. They won’t try—it again. Look after Aunt—Serepta first. She’s hurt. They left her—lying up—” “Don’t worry, old top,” cried Sammy eagerly. “I’ll go back and look out for her. You go along with Doc. He’ll fix you up. All you need is a good stiff—” “Clear the road!” roared a score of voices as Lansing’s car moved slowly forward, and off the sides, down the slope and up the bank, slunk the obedient lynchers. Down through the lane of men who carefully shielded their faces from the glare of the head-lights, Lansing’s car advanced. It picked up speed and soon the little red tail-light was lost to sight. Having watched it until it disappeared, the mob, as one man, turned its anxious eyes heavenward—not in supplication but for a somewhat surreptitious look at Oliver’s shining star. They stared open-mouthed. A miracle had happened. The sky was full of merry, twinkling little stars—and more, like fairies, came out to play and dance even as the watchers below gazed up in wonder. Two men slouched side-by-side behind all the others as the once bloodthirsty horde bore off swiftly, apprehensively, but still dubiously through the night which now seemed to mock them with its silence. One of these men said to the other: “I’ve worked in that store for twenty-two years. Where the dickens do you suppose I’ll find another job at my age?” “You won’t need one,” said the other gloomily, “if my prophecy comes true.” “Your prophecy? What are you talking about?” “I prophesy we’ll all be in jail for this night’s work.” A long silence. “Well,” said the other, “old man Sikes and Silas Link can rest in peace from now on. He’s been hung.” “Yep. He’s out of all his troubles and ours are just beginning. I guess it must have been a lucky star he was born under.” An hour later Sammy Parr expressed himself somewhat irrelevantly in the parsonage sitting-room. “Say, Miss Judge, you were great. I never heard anything like that speech of yours. And your voice—why, it gave me the queerest kind of shivers.”