them. And when the story was quite done, Raines stood a full
minute without a word. No one was prepared for what followed.
Abruptly his voice rose sternly-" Thou shalt not kill" ; and then
Satan took shape under the torch. The man was transformed,
swaying half crouched before them. The long black hair fell across
the white scar, and picture after picture leaped from his tongue
with such vividness that a low wail started through the audience,
and women sobbed in their bonnets. It was penalty for bloodshed
-not in this world: penalty eternal in the next; and one slight figure
under the dips staggered suddenly aside into the darkness.

It was Isom; and no soul possessed of devils was ever more torn
than his, when he splashed through Troubled Fork and rode away
that night. Half a mile on he tried to keep his eyes on his horse's
neck, anywhere except on one high gray rock to which they were
raised against his will-the peak under which he had killed young
Jasper. There it was staring into the moon, but watching him as
he fled through the woods, shuddering at shadows, dodging
branches that caught at him as he passed, and on in a run, until he
drew rein and slipped from his saddle at the friendly old mill.
There was no terror for him there. There every bush was a friend;
every beech trunk a sentinel on guard for him in shining armor.

It was the old struggle that he was starting through that night-the
old fight of humanity from savage to Christian; and the lad fought
it until, with the birth of his wavering soul, the premonitions of the
first dawn came on. The patches of moonlight shifted, paling.
The beech columns mottled slowly with gray and brown. A ruddy
streak was cleaving the east like a slow sword of fire. The chill air
began to pulse and the mists to stir. Moisture had gathered on the