It were only yesterday, and I can't forget him! I don't want to--but it hurts--it hurts terrible!" Hannibal buried his head in the judge's shoulder and sobbed aloud.

Presently his small hands stole about the judge's neck, and that gentleman experienced a strange thrill of pleasure.
"Tell me how he died, Hannibal," he urged gently.

In a voice broken by sobs the child began the story of their flight, a confused narrative, which the judge followed with many a puzzled shake of the head.

But as he reached his climax--that cry he had heard at the tavern, the men in the lane with their burden--he became more and more coherent and his ideas clothed themselves in words of dreadful simplicity and directness.
The judge shuddered.

"Can such things be ?" he murmured at last.
"You won't let him take me ?" "I never unsay my words," said the judge grandly.