* * * * *

The night passed without disorder, beyond the somewhat rough handling of two or three careless negroes that came in the way of small parties of the disappointed who had sought alcoholic consolation.

At ten o’clock the next morning, a preliminary hearing of the charge against Campbell was had before a magistrate.  Mr. Delamere, perceptibly older and more wizened than he had seemed the day before, and leaning heavily on the arm of a servant, repeated his statement of the evening before.  Only one or two witnesses were called, among whom was Mr. Ellis, who swore positively that in his opinion the prisoner was not the man whom he had seen and at first supposed to be Campbell.  The most sensational piece of testimony was that of Dr. Price, who had examined the body, and who swore that the wound in the head was not necessarily fatal, and might have been due to a fall,—­that she had more than likely died of shock attendant upon the robbery, she being of advanced age and feeble health.  There was no evidence, he said, of any other personal violence.

Sandy was not even bound over to the grand jury, but was discharged upon the ground that there was not sufficient evidence upon which to hold him.  Upon his release he received the congratulations of many present, some of whom would cheerfully have done him to death a few hours before.  With the childish fickleness of a mob, they now experienced a satisfaction almost as great as, though less exciting than, that attendant upon taking life.  We speak of the mysteries of inanimate nature.  The workings of the human heart are the profoundest mystery of the universe.  One moment they make us despair of our kind, and the next we see in them the reflection of the divine image.  Sandy, having thus escaped from the Mr. Hyde of the mob, now received the benediction of its Dr. Jekyll.  Being no cynical philosopher, and realizing how nearly the jaws of death had closed upon him, he was profoundly grateful for his escape, and felt not the slightest desire to investigate or criticise any man’s motives.

With the testimony of Dr. Price, the worst feature of the affair came to an end.  The murder eliminated or rendered doubtful, the crime became a mere vulgar robbery, the extent of which no one could estimate, since no living soul knew how much money Mrs. Ochiltree had had in the cedar chest.  The absurdity of the remaining charge became more fully apparent in the light of the reaction from the excitement of the day before.

Nothing further was ever done about the case; but though the crime went unpunished, it carried evil in its train.  As we have seen, the charge against Campbell had been made against the whole colored race.  All over the United States the Associated Press had flashed the report of another dastardly outrage by a burly black brute,—­all black brutes it seems are burly,—­and of the impending lynching with its prospective horrors.  This news, being