Well, don't think that it's fear makes me say what I'm goin' to say; but that's the same knife; an' besides I dhramed last night that I was dressed in a black cloak--an' a black cloak, they say, is death! Ay, death--an' I know I'm not fit to die, or to meet judgment, an' you know that too.

Now, then, tell me what it is you want wid the Box." [Illustration: PAGE 847-- I'll tell you nothing about it] "No," he replied, sternly and imperatively, "I'll tell you nothing about it; but get it at wanst, before my passion rises higher and deadlier." "Well, then, mark me, I'm not afeard of you--but I have the box." "An' how did you come by it ?" he asked.
"Sarah was lookin' for a cobweb to stop the blood where she cut me in our fight the other day, an' it came tumblin' out of a cranny in the wall." "An' where is it now ?" "I'll get it for you," she replied; "but you must let me out first." "Why so ?" "Because it's not in the house." "An' where is it?
Don't think you'll escape me." "It's in the thatch o' the roof." The Prophet deliberately opened the door, and catching her by the shoulder, held her prisoner, as it were, until she should make her words good.

The roof was but low, and she knew the spot too well to make any mistake about it.
"Here," said she, "is the cross I scraped on the stone undher the place." She put up her hand as she spoke, and searched the spot--but in vain.
There certainly was the cross as she had marked it, and there was the slight excavation under the thatch where it had been; but as for the box itself, all search for it was fruitless--it had disappeared..