"My friends," he asked solemnly, "have you thought to take into your hands the privilege of the Most High, who saith, 'Vengeance is mine'? Perhaps you have called vengeance 'justice'? Even so there is a finer thing than justice. There is mercy. And there is something we may give even greater than mercy--something to which each of us poor souls has a human right. I refer, gentlemen, to the benefit of the doubt. "Some day every one of us here present--who knows how soon?--must stand before the Judgment Seat, cowering as this wretch is cowering now. And what we dare to ask then will be perhaps not justice, nor even mercy--but simply the benefit of the doubt." Tears came into Joan's eyes. It seemed to her that for a moment her father had forgotten his purpose there, and was speaking not for another but for himself.... His mind, however, had not left the business in hand. After a slight and telling pause, he said in his ordinary conversational voice, "Now I am going to take this negro with me, gentlemen, if you don't mind. I have at hand a safe conveyance, as you see. I pledge you my word to deliver him in person to the sheriff of this county." He beckoned to Joan. The spell was broken, and pandemonium reigned. "Look out--he's makin' a get-away!" "Aw, what's the use? Leave him go!" "By God, it was _my sister_--" "Let me at him"-- "The gen'leman's right, I tell you!"-- And penetrating all a laconic drawl, "Stranger, leggo that nigger, and leggo quick." Joan, on tiptoe, saw her father's head and beckoning hand above the crowd. "Go on, James!" she said tensely. "Never mind if you run them down--" "Stop!" gasped Effie May. "Don't you see those pistols? They mean to shoot!" The terrified James did not know which to obey. "Here, give me the wheel," ordered Joan. "Be quiet, Effie May!" Into her mind came scornfully one of her father's sayings, "The canaille are invariably timid." Effie May suddenly screamed again. "They're going to _shoot_!" And as if at a signal for which they had been waiting, two shots barked out. The Major, still finely erect, thrust the negro behind him, and at the same moment Joan sprang out of the car to go to his defense; two instinctive acts which proved them father and child, and also proved indubitably the Darcy right to pride of race. His steady voice reached her again as she struggled through the milling crowd; "You poor fools, look to what your folly has already led you! You've shot the wrong man. You've shot _me_!" There was a second of appalled silence. Then a man muttered "Golly!" and turned and fled. His panic was contagious. One after another, by twos and threes, the lynchers melted hastily away. When Joan reached her father he was seated on the ground, leaning for support against the bridge railing, alone except for the shackled negro. He still had command of the situation. "Take my penknife, Dollykins, and set this boy free so that he can run," he ordered.