bencode/decode.go | 6 +++---

diff --git a/bencode/decode.go b/bencode/decode.go
index e72a12d5cf63418b492f9c0e9b9e7e9b7fbf651a..c171221f85610bf52e803df90c57f99cc7f3e6dc 100644
--- a/bencode/decode.go
+++ b/bencode/decode.go
@@ -191,7 +191,7 @@ 	}
 	return nil
 }
 
-func (d *Decoder) parseStringLength() (uint64, error) {
+func (d *Decoder) parseStringLength() (int, error) {
 	// We should have already consumed the first byte of the length into the Decoder buf.
 	start := d.Offset - 1
 	d.readUntil(':')
@@ -201,13 +201,13 @@ 	}
 	// Really the limit should be the uint size for the platform. But we can't pass in an allocator,
 	// or limit total memory use in Go, the best we might hope to do is limit the size of a single
 	// decoded value (by reading it in in-place and then operating on a view).
-	length, err := strconv.ParseUint(bytesAsString(d.buf.Bytes()), 10, 0)
+	length, err := strconv.ParseInt(bytesAsString(d.buf.Bytes()), 10, 0)
 	checkForIntParseError(err, start)
 	if int64(length) > d.getMaxStrLen() {
 		err = fmt.Errorf("parsed string length %v exceeds limit (%v)", length, DefaultDecodeMaxStrLen)
 	}
 	d.buf.Reset()
-	return length, err
+	return int(length), err
 }
 
 func (d *Decoder) parseString(v reflect.Value) error {