{"id":"01KG16S282PT77856G8G4Q63JX","cid":"bafkreid3wnu22z535jhjdydcxquhbhmers5qs3nyb3ubcqmuf4d3eqwexm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":3499,"extracted_at":"2026-01-28T02:26:32.932Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG0K71QZ8KK7RGEGSNTB5534","start_line":3419,"text":"“Oh, Injun Joe, you promised me you’d never—”\r\n\r\n“Is that your knife?” and it was thrust before him by the Sheriff.\r\n\r\nPotter would have fallen if they had not caught him and eased him to the\r\nground. Then he said:\r\n\r\n“Something told me ’t if I didn’t come back and get—” He shuddered; then\r\nwaved his nerveless hand with a vanquished gesture and said, “Tell ’em,\r\nJoe, tell ’em—it ain’t any use any more.”\r\n\r\nThen Huckleberry and Tom stood dumb and staring, and heard the\r\nstony-hearted liar reel off his serene statement, they expecting every\r\nmoment that the clear sky would deliver God’s lightnings upon his head,\r\nand wondering to see how long the stroke was delayed. And when he had\r\nfinished and still stood alive and whole, their wavering impulse to\r\nbreak their oath and save the poor betrayed prisoner’s life faded and\r\nvanished away, for plainly this miscreant had sold himself to Satan and\r\nit would be fatal to meddle with the property of such a power as that.\r\n\r\n“Why didn’t you leave? What did you want to come here for?” somebody\r\nsaid.\r\n\r\n“I couldn’t help it—I couldn’t help it,” Potter moaned. “I wanted to\r\nrun away, but I couldn’t seem to come anywhere but here.” And he fell to\r\nsobbing again.\r\n\r\nInjun Joe repeated his statement, just as calmly, a few minutes\r\nafterward on the inquest, under oath; and the boys, seeing that the\r\nlightnings were still withheld, were confirmed in their belief that\r\nJoe had sold himself to the devil. He was now become, to them, the most\r\nbalefully interesting object they had ever looked upon, and they could\r\nnot take their fascinated eyes from his face.\r\n\r\nThey inwardly resolved to watch him nights, when opportunity should\r\noffer, in the hope of getting a glimpse of his dread master.\r\n\r\nInjun Joe helped to raise the body of the murdered man and put it in\r\na wagon for removal; and it was whispered through the shuddering\r\ncrowd that the wound bled a little! The boys thought that this happy\r\ncircumstance would turn suspicion in the right direction; but they were\r\ndisappointed, for more than one villager remarked:\r\n\r\n“It was within three feet of Muff Potter when it done it.”\r\n\r\nTom’s fearful secret and gnawing conscience disturbed his sleep for as\r\nmuch as a week after this; and at breakfast one morning Sid said:\r\n\r\n“Tom, you pitch around and talk in your sleep so much that you keep me\r\nawake half the time.”\r\n\r\nTom blanched and dropped his eyes.\r\n\r\n“It’s a bad sign,” said Aunt Polly, gravely. “What you got on your mind,\r\nTom?”\r\n\r\n“Nothing. Nothing ’t I know of.” But the boy’s hand shook so that he\r\nspilled his coffee.\r\n\r\n“And you do talk such stuff,” Sid said. “Last night you said, ‘It’s\r\nblood, it’s blood, that’s what it is!’ You said that over and over.\r\nAnd you said, ‘Don’t torment me so—I’ll tell!’ Tell _what_? What is it\r\nyou’ll tell?”\r\n\r\nEverything was swimming before Tom. There is no telling what might have\r\nhappened, now, but luckily the concern passed out of Aunt Polly’s face\r\nand she came to Tom’s relief without knowing it. She said:\r\n\r\n“Sho! It’s that dreadful murder. I dream about it most every night\r\nmyself. Sometimes I dream it’s me that done it.”\r\n\r\nMary said she had been affected much the same way. Sid seemed satisfied.\r\nTom got out of the presence as quick as he plausibly could, and after\r\nthat he complained of toothache for a week, and tied up his jaws every\r\nnight. He never knew that Sid lay nightly watching, and frequently\r\nslipped the bandage free and then leaned on his elbow listening a good\r\nwhile at a time, and afterward slipped the bandage back to its place\r\nagain. Tom’s distress of mind wore off gradually and the toothache grew\r\nirksome and was discarded. If Sid really managed to make anything out of\r\nTom’s disjointed mutterings, he kept it to himself.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG16PT4KPC1EZZ808G8RTM7B","peer_label":"CHAPTER XI","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG0K71QZ8KK7RGEGSNTB5534","peer_label":"tom_sawyer.txt","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KFXT0KM64XT6K8W52TDEE0YS","peer_label":"More Classics","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG16S27X0VA0Y0MMRQZKFW17","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG16S27NERFVE886JYDHSADK","peer_label":"Chunk 3","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-28T02:26:33.502Z","ts":"2026-01-28T02:26:34.387Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}