"I wonder if there was ever a crime committed here?" Elsie said, half
inquiringly. "And if there is a jail on the island?"

"Yes, mother," Edward answered; "there is a jail, but so little use for
it that they think it hardly worth while to keep it in decent repair. I
heard that a man was once put in for petty theft, and that after being
there a few days he sent word to the authorities that if they didn't
repair it so that the sheep couldn't break in on him, he wouldn't stay."

There was a general laugh; then Edward resumed: "There has been one
murder on the island, as I have been informed. A mulatto woman was the
criminal, a white woman the victim, the motive revenge; the colored
woman was in debt to the white one, who kept a little store, and,
enraged at repeated duns, went to her house and beat her over the head
with some heavy weapon--I think I was told a whale's tooth.

"The victim lingered for some little time, but eventually died of her
wounds, and the other was tried for murder.

"It is said the sheriff was extremely uneasy lest she should be found
guilty of murder in the first degree, and he should have the unpleasant
job of hanging her; but the verdict was manslaughter, the sentence
imprisonment for life.

"So she was consigned to jail, but very soon allowed to go out
occasionally to do a day's work."

"Oh, Uncle Edward, is she alive now?" Gracie asked, with a look of
alarm.