“You won't be afraid to stay here, will you, Pete?” he asked.
The negro stared round him at the encroaching shadows in childlike perturbation.
“You gwine ter lock me in, Marse Carson?” he asked.
Carson explained that in a sense he was still a prisoner, but a prisoner in the hands of friends—friends who had pledged themselves to see that justice was done him. The negro slowly lowered himself to the mattress and stretched out his legs on the stone pavement. An utter droop of despair seemed to settle on him. From the depths of his wide-open eyes came a stare of dejection complete.
“Den I hain't free?” he said.
“No, not wholly, Pete,” Carson returned; “not quite yet.”
“Dry up down thar. Listen!” It was Baker's voice in a guarded tone as he stood in the cellar doorway.
The group around the negro held its breath. The grinding of footsteps on the floor over their heads ceased. Then from the outside came the steady tramp of many feet on the brick sidewalk, the clatter of horses' hoofs in the street.
“Sh! Blow out the light,” Carson said, and Blackburn extinguished it. Profound darkness and stillness filled the long room. Like an army, still voiceless and grimly determined, the human current flowed jailward. It must have numbered several hundred, judged by the time it took to pass. The sound was dying out in the distance when Carson, the last to leave Pete, crept from the cellar, locked the door, and joined the others in the darkness above.
“That mob would hang every man of us if they caught on to our trick,” said Baker, with a queer, exultant chuckle.