Then Huckleberry and Tom stood dumb and staring, and heard the stony-hearted liar reel off his serene statement, they expecting every moment that the clear sky would deliver God’s lightnings upon his head, and wondering to see how long the stroke was delayed. And when he had finished and still stood alive and whole, their wavering impulse to break their oath and save the poor betrayed prisoner’s life faded and vanished away, for plainly this miscreant had sold himself to Satan and it would be fatal to meddle with the property of such a power as that.

“Why didn’t you leave? What did you want to come here for?” somebody said.

“I couldn’t help it⁠—I couldn’t help it,” Potter moaned. “I wanted to run away, but I couldn’t seem to come anywhere but here.” And he fell to sobbing again.