“That's all right, but you don't answer my question,” persisted Slosson, with admirable tenacity of purpose. “What is your question, Joe?” “A lot can happen between this and midnight--” “If things go wrong with us there'll be a blaze at the head of the bayou; does that satisfy you?” “And what then?” Murrell hesitated. “What about the girl?” insisted Slosson, dragging him back to the point at issue between them. “As a man I wouldn't lift my hand ag'in' no good looking woman except like I said--in kindness, but she can't be turned loose, she knows too much. What's the word, Captain--you say it!” he urged. He made a gesture of appeal to Ware. “Look for the light; better still, look for the man I'll send.” And with this Murrell would have turned away, but Slosson detained him. “Who'll he be?” “Some fellow who knows the river.” “And if it's the light?” asked the tavern-keeper in a hoarse undertone. Again he looked toward Ware, who, dry-lipped and ashen, was regarding him steadfastly. Glance met glance, for a brief instant they looked deep into each other's eyes and then the hand Slosson had rested on Murrell's shoulder dropped at his side. CHAPTER XXVIII. THE JUDGE MEETS THE SITUATION The judge's and Mr. Mahaffy's celebration of the former's rehabilitated credit had occupied the shank of the evening, the small hours of the night, and that part of the succeeding day which the southwest described as soon in the morning; and as the stone jug, in which were garnered the spoils of the highly confidential but entirely misleading conversation which the judge had held with Mr. Pegloe after his return from Belle Plain, lost in weight, it might have been observed that he and Mr. Mahaffy seemed to gain in that nice sense of equity which should form the basis of all human relations. The judge watched Mr. Mahaffy, and Mr. Mahaffy watched the judge, each trustfully placing the regulation of his private conduct in the hands of his friend, as the one most likely to be affected by the rectitude of his acts. Probably so extensive a consumption of Mr. Pegloe's corn whisky had never been accomplished with greater highmindedness. They honorably split the last glass, the judge scorning to set up any technical claim to it as his exclusive property; then he stared at Mahaffy, while Mahaffy, dark-visaged and forbidding, stared back at him. The judge sighed deeply. He took up the jug and inverted it. A stray drop or so fell languidly into his glass. “Try squeezing it, Price,” said Mahaffy. The judge shook the jug, it gave forth an empty sound, and he sighed again; he attempted to peer into it, closing one watery eye as he tilted it toward the light. “I wonder no Yankee has ever thought to invent a jug with a glass bottom,” he observed. “What for?” asked Mahaffy.