“You think the train was on time?”

“Bound to be; she never was cotched behind time, not while I stuffed her with coal and lightwood knots.  She was plum punctchul.”

“Was the lamp lighted where you tied your bundle?”

“Yes’ir, burnin’ bright.”

“Tell the Court the appearance of the man whom you talked with.”

Mr. Dunbar was watching the beautiful face so dear to him, and saw the prisoner lean forward, her lips parted, all her soul in the wide, glowing eyes fastened on the countenance of the witness.

“He was very tall and wiry, and ’peared like a young man what had parstured ’mongst wild oats.  He seemed cut out for a gintleman, but run to seed too quick and turned out nigh kin to a dead beat.  One-half of him was hanssum, ’minded me mightly of that stone head with kurly hair what sets over the sody fountin in the drug store, on Main Street.  Oh, yes’ir, one side was too pretty for a man; but t’other!  Fo’ Gawd! t’other made your teeth ache, and sot you cross-eyed to look at it.  He toted a awful brand to be shore.”

“What do you mean by one side?  Explain yourself carefully now.”

“I dun’no as I can ’splain, ’cause I ain’t never seed nothing like it afore.  One ’zact half of him, from his hair to his shirt collar was white and pretty, like I tell you, but t’other side of his face was black as tar, and his kurly hair was gone, and the whiskers on that side—­and his eye was drapped down kinder so, and that side of his mouth sorter hung, like it was unpinned, this way.  Mebbee he was born so, mebbee not; but he looked like he had jes broke loose from the conjur, and caryd his mark.”

For one fleeting moment, the gates of heaven seemed thrown wide, and the glory of the Kingdom of Peace streamed down upon the aching heart of the desolate woman.  She could recognize no dreaded resemblance in the photograph drawn by the witness; and judge, jury and counsel who scrutinized her during the recital of the testimony, were puzzled by the smile of joy that suddenly flashed over her features, like ilie radiance of a lamp lifted close to some marble face, dim with shadows.

“Do you think his face indicated that he had been engaged in a difficulty, in a fight?  Was there any sign of blood, or anything that looked as if he had been bruised and wounded by some heavy blow?”

“Naw, sir.  Didn’t seem like sech bruises as comes of fightin’.  ’Peared to me he was somehow branded like, and the mark he toted was onnatral.”

“If he had wished to disguise himself by blackening one side of his face, would he not have presented a similar appearance?”

“Naw, sir, not by no manner of means.  No minstrel tricks fotch him to the pass he was at.  The hand of the Lord must have laid too heavy on him; no mortal wounds leave sech terrifyin’ prints.”

“How was he dressed?”

“Dunno.  My eyes never drapped below that curus face of his’n.”