During the consultation, one Butler Cavins, who had a good deal of influence (he owned about twenty slaves), left the grocery with five or six others and was absent about ten minutes.  He returned with a coil of rope upon his arm, elbowing his way through the crowd, and exclaimed, “Gentlemen, I am in favor of hanging him.  He is a nice, innocent young man.  He is far safer for heaven now than when he learns to drink, swear, and be as hardened an old sinner as I am.”  I could not, even at the peril of life, refrain from retorting:  “That, sir, is the only truth I have heard from you to-night.”  My friends, yet few, and feeble in the advocacy of my cause, seemed slightly encouraged by this rebuff, and gained the ear of the rabble for a little.  Cavins could not be silenced.  “This is a fine lariat, boys; it has swung two abolitionists.  I guess it will hold another.  Come on, boys,” and a general gathering up in the form of a semicircle, crowding nearer the counter, occurred.  At the same moment jumping back off the counter and displaying two six-shooters, I said, “If that’s your game, come on; some of you shall go with me to the other world!  The first man that makes another step toward me is a dead man.”  There was one moment of dread suspense and breathless stillness; hands were tightened on daggers and pistols, but no hand was raised.  The whole pack stood at bay, convinced that any attempt to take me would send several of them to certain death.  My friends, who had kept somewhat together, now ranged themselves against the counter before me, facing the crowd, and Buck Scruggs said, “He has not been convicted, and he shall not be touched.”  James Niel and Dempsey Jones, the other two who had aided in my arrest, joined Scruggs; and their influence, added to the persuasive eloquence of my pistols, decided the wavering.  In twenty seconds, more than twenty votes were given for my acquittal, and the chairman declared in a triumphant voice, “He is unanimously acquitted.”  The unanimity, I confess, was not such as I would have desired; but all agreed the youngster had pluck, and would soon make as good a fighter as any of them.  With a forced laugh, which on some faces ill concealed their hatred, while others made an unseemly attempt at coarse wit, they adjourned, voting themselves a drink at my expense, which I must perforce pay, as they had generously acquitted me!  I confess to an amiable wish that the dollar I laid on the counter of Cavins for a gallon of whiskey might some day buy the rope to tighten on his craven throat, though I did not deem it wise to give expression to my sentiments just then.

As the bottle passed for the last time, the change of feeling was most rapid, and I was greeted quite patronizingly by some who had been fierce for hanging me.  The more malignant shrunk away by twos and threes, and soon the grocery was empty.  My special friends, who were now more than ever friends, having risked their own lives to save me (I even then thought of One who had given up His life to save me), advised, in earnest words—­“Now, S., put thirty miles between you and these fellows before to-morrow; for some of them are enraged at their defeat, and if you stay here you are a doomed man.”