His face was so pale and thin that it was difficult to see, even in those frightfuf times of sickness and famine, a countenance from which they were more significantly reflected.

He was absolutely shrunk up with terror into half his size, his little thin, corded neck appearing as if it were striving unsuccessfully to work its way down into his trunk, and his small ferret eyes looking about in every direction for some one to extricate him out of the deadly thrall in which he was held.

Mave, who had been aware of the enmity which his companion bore him, as well as of its cause, and fearing that the halter was intended to hang the luckless mealman, probably upon the next tree they came to, did not, as many another female would do, avoid or run away from the madman.

On the contrary, she approached him with an expression singularly winning and sweet on her countenance, and in a voice of great kindness, laid her hand upon his arm to arrest his attention, asked him how he did.

He paused a moment, and looking upon her with a dull but turbid eye, exclaimed with an insane laugh, pointing at the same time, to the miser--"This is the fellow that killed her--ha, ha, ha, but I have him now--here he is in the noose; in the noose.