The Edge of the Shadow
with a curious weapon. She got the description of the weapon out of some preacher's sermon—a kind of spear. If she had named some implement of modern warfare, we could have better credited her story."
"Well, Randolph," cried the old man, "for all the wisdom of your justices, she spoke the truth. They were pikes the woman saw, and not the spears of the horsemen of Israel. Did you notice a stranger who remained in a corner of the courtroom while the justices were sitting? He disappeared after the trial. But did you mark him, Randolph? He lies dead down yonder in my negro cabin."
A light came into the face of the Justice.
"By the Eternal," he cried, "an abolitionist!"
He flipped the gold seals on his watch fob; then he added, with that little circling gesture of his finger:
"Well, he has taken himself away with his own hands."
"He is dead," said Mansfield, thrusting out his plowshare jaw, "as all such vermin ought to be. We are too careless in the South of these vicious reptiles. We ought to stamp them out of life whenever we find them. They are a menace to the peace of the land. They incite the slaves to arson and to murder. They are beyond the law, as the panther and the wolf are. We ought to have the courage to destroy the creatures.
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