Mrs. Lenoir hurried to Elsie.

"Come, Marion, we must be going now."

"I am very sorry to see you leave the home you love so dearly, Mrs. Lenoir," said the Northern girl, taking her extended hand. "I hope you can soon find a way to have it back."

"Thank you," replied the mother cheerily. "The longer you stay, the better for us. You don't know how happy I am over your coming. It has lifted a load from our hearts. In the liberal rent you pay us you are our benefactors. We are very grateful and happy."

Elsie watched them walk across the lawn to the street, the daughter leaning on the mother's arm. She followed slowly and stopped behind one of the arbor-vitae bushes beside the gate. The full moon had risen as the twilight fell and flooded the scene with soft white light. A whippoorwill struck his first plaintive note, his weird song seeming to come from all directions and yet to be under her feet. She heard the rustle of dresses returning along the walk, and Marion and her mother stood at the gate. They looked long and tenderly at the house. Mrs. Lenoir uttered a broken sob, Marion slipped an arm around her, brushed the short curling hair back from her forehead, and softly said:

"Mamma, dear, you know it's best. I don't mind. Everybody in town loves us. Every boy and girl in Piedmont worships you. We will be just as happy at the hotel."

In the pauses between the strange bird's cry, Elsie caught the sound of another sob, and then a soothing murmur as of a mother bending over a cradle, and they were gone.



CHAPTER II

THE EYES OF THE JUNGLE

Elsie stood dreaming for a moment in the shadow of the arbor-vitae, breathing the sensuous perfumed air and listening to the distant music of the falls, her heart quivering in pity for the anguish of which she had been a witness. Again the spectral cry of the whippoorwill rang near-by, and she noted for the first time the curious cluck with which the bird punctuated each call. A sense of dim foreboding oppressed her.

She wondered if the chatter of Marion about the girl in Nashville were only a child's guess or more. She laughed softly at the absurdity of the idea. Never since she had first looked into Ben Cameron's face did she feel surer of the honesty and earnestness of his love than to-day in this quiet home of his native village. It must be the queer call of the bird which appealed to superstitions she did not know were hidden within her being.

Still dreaming under its spell, she was startled at the tread of two men approaching the gate.

The taller, more powerful-looking man put his hand on the latch and paused.

"Allow no white man to order you around. Remember you are a freeman and as good as any pale-face who walks this earth."

She recognized the voice of Silas Lynch.

"Ben Cameron dare me to come about de house," said the other voice.

"What did he say?"

"He say, wid his eyes batten' des like lightnen', 'Ef I ketch you hangin' 'roun' dis place agin', Gus, I'll jump on you en stomp de life outen ye.'"

"Well, you tell him that your name is Augustus, not 'Gus,' and that the United States troops quartered in this town will be with him soon after the stomping begins. You wear its uniform. Give the white trash in this town to understand that they are not even citizens of the nation. As a sovereign voter, you, once their slave, are not only their equal—you are their master."

"Dat I will!" was the firm answer.

The negro to whom Lynch spoke disappeared in the direction taken by Marion and her mother, and the figure of the handsome mulatto passed rapidly up the walk, ascended the steps and knocked at the door.

Elsie followed him.

"My father is too much fatigued with his journey to be seen now; you must call to-morrow," she said.

The negro lifted his hat and bowed:

"Ah, we are delighted to welcome you, Miss Stoneman, to our land! Your father asked me to call immediately on his arrival. I have but obeyed his orders."

Elsie shrank from the familiarity of his manner and the tones of authority and patronage with which he spoke.

"He cannot be seen at this hour," she answered shortly.

"Perhaps you will present my card, then—say that I am at his service, and let him appoint the time at which I shall return?"

She did not invite him in, but with easy assurance he took his seat on the joggle-board beside the door and awaited her return.

Against her urgent protest, Stoneman ordered Lynch to be shown at once to his bedroom.

When the door was closed, the old Commoner, without turning to greet his visitor or moving his position in bed, asked:

"Are you following my instructions?"

"To the letter, sir."

"You are initiating the negroes into the League and teaching them the new catechism?"

"With remarkable success. Its secrecy and ritual appeal to them. Within six months we shall have the whole race under our control almost to a man."

"Almost to a man?"

"We find some so attached to their former masters that reason is impossible with them. Even threats and the promise of forty acres of land have no influence."

The old man snorted with contempt.

"If anything could reconcile me to the Satanic Institution it is the character of the wretches who submit to it and kiss the hand that strikes. After all, a slave deserves to be a slave. The man who is mean enough to wear chains ought to wear them. You must teach, teach, TEACH these black hounds to know they are men, not brutes!"

The old man paused a moment, and his restless hands fumbled the cover.

"Your first task, as I told you in the beginning, is to teach every negro to stand erect in the presence of his former master and assert his manhood. Unless he does this, the South will bristle with bayonets in vain. The man who believes he is a dog, is one. The man who believes himself a king, may become one. Stop this snivelling and sneaking round the back doors. I can do nothing, God Almighty can do nothing, for a coward. Fix this as the first law of your own life. Lift up your head! The world is yours. Take it. Beat this into the skulls of your people, if you do it with an axe. Teach them the military drill at once. I'll see that Washington sends the guns. The state, when under your control, can furnish the powder."

"It will surprise you to know the thoroughness with which this has been done already by the League," said Lynch. "The white master believed he could vote the negro as he worked him in the fields during the war. The League, with its blue flaming altar, under the shadows of night, has wrought a miracle. The negro is the enemy of his former master and will be for all time."

"For the present," said the old man meditatively, "not a word to a living soul as to my connection with this work. When the time is ripe, I'll show my hand."

Elsie entered, protesting against her father's talking longer, and showed Lynch to the door.

He paused on the moonlit porch and tried to engage her in familiar talk.

She cut him short, and he left reluctantly.

As he bowed his thick neck in pompous courtesy, she caught with a shiver the odour of pomade on his black half-kinked hair. He stopped on the lower step, looked back with smiling insolence, and gazed intently at her beauty. The girl shrank from the gleam of the jungle in his eyes and hurried within.

She found her father sunk in a stupor. Her cry brought the young surgeon hurrying into the room, and at the end of an hour he said to Elsie and Phil:

"He has had a stroke of paralysis. He may lie in mental darkness for months and then recover. His heart action is perfect. Patience, care, and love will save him. There is no cause for immediate alarm."



CHAPTER III

AUGUSTUS CAESAR

Phil early found the home of the Camerons the most charming spot in town. As he sat in the old-fashioned parlour beside Margaret, his brain seethed with plans for building a hotel on a large scale on the other side of the Square and restoring her home intact.

The Cameron homestead was a large brick building with an ample porch looking out directly on the Court House Square, standing in the middle of a lawn full of trees, flowers, shrubbery, and a wilderness of evergreen boxwood planted fifty years before. It was located on the farm from which it had always derived its support. The farm extended up into the village itself, with the great barn easily seen from the street.

Phil was charmed with the doctor's genial personality. He often found the father a decidedly easier person to get along with than his handsome daughter. The Rev. Hugh McAlpin was a daily caller, and Margaret had a tantalizing way of showing her deference to his opinions.

Phil hated this preacher from the moment he laid eyes on him. His pugnacious piety he might have endured but for the fact that he was good-looking and eloquent. When he rose in the pulpit in all his sacred dignity, fixed his eyes on Margaret, and began in tenderly modulated voice to tell about the love of God, Phil clinched his fist. He didn't care to join the Presbyterian church, but he quietly made up his mind that, if it came to the worst and she asked him, he would join anything. What made him furious was the air of assurance with which the young divine carried himself about Margaret, as if he had but to say the word and it would be fixed as by a decree issued from before the foundations of the world.

He was pleased and surprised to find that his being a Yankee made no difference in his standing or welcome. The people seemed unconscious of the part his father played at Washington. Stoneman's Confiscation Bill had not yet been discussed in Congress, and the promise of land to the negroes was universally regarded as a hoax of the League to win their followers. The old Commoner was not an orator. Hence his name was scarcely known in the South. The Southern people could not conceive of a great leader except one who expressed his power through the megaphone of oratory. They held Charles Sumner chiefly responsible for Reconstruction.

The fact that Phil was a Yankee who had no axe to grind in the South caused the people to appeal to him in a pathetic way that touched his heart. He had not been in town two weeks before he was on good terms with every youngster, had the entree to every home, and Ben had taken him, protesting vehemently, to see every pretty girl there. He found that, in spite of war and poverty, troubles present and troubles to come, the young Southern woman was the divinity that claimed and received the chief worship of man.

The tremendous earnestness with which these youngsters pursued the work of courting, all of them so poor they scarcely had enough to eat, amazed and alarmed him beyond measure. He found in several cases as many as four making a dead set for one girl, as if heaven and earth depended on the outcome, while the girl seemed to receive it all as a matter of course—her just tribute.

Every instinct of his quiet reserved nature revolted at any such attempt to rush his cause with Margaret, and yet it made the cold chills run down his spine to see that Presbyterian preacher drive his buggy up to the hotel, take her to ride, and stay three hours. He knew where they had gone—to Lover's Leap and along the beautiful road which led to the North Carolina line. He knew the way—Margaret had showed him. This road was the Way of Romance. Every farmhouse, cabin, and shady nook along its beaten track could tell its tale of lovers fleeing from the North to find happiness in the haven of matrimony across the line in South Carolina. Everything seemed to favour marriage in this climate. The state required no license. A legal marriage could be celebrated, anywhere, at any time, by a minister in the presence of two witnesses, with or without the consent of parent or guardian. Marriage was the easiest thing in the state—divorce the one thing impossible. Death alone could grant divorce.

He was now past all reason in love. He followed the movement of Margaret's queenly figure with pathetic abandonment. Beneath her beautiful manners he swore with a shiver that she was laughing at him. Now and then he caught a funny expression about her eyes, as if she were consumed with a sly sense of humour in her love affairs.

What he felt to be his manliest traits, his reserve, dignity, and moral earnestness, she must think cold and slow beside the dash, fire, and assurance of these Southerners. He could tell by the way she encouraged the preacher before his eyes that she was criticizing and daring him to let go for once. Instead of doing it, he sank back appalled at the prospect and let the preacher carry her off again.

He sought solace in Dr. Cameron, who was utterly oblivious of his daughter's love affairs.

Phil was constantly amazed at the variety of his knowledge, the genuineness of his culture, his modesty, and the note of youth and cheer with which he still pursued the study of medicine.

His company was refreshing for its own sake. The slender graceful figure, ruddy face, with piercing, dark-brown eyes in startling contrast to his snow-white hair and beard, had for Phil a perpetual charm. He never tired listening to his talk, and noting the peculiar grace and dignity with which he carried himself, unconscious of the commanding look of his brilliant eyes.

"I hear that you have used hypnotism in your practice, Doctor," Phil said to him one day, as he watched with fascination the changing play of his mobile features.

"Oh, yes! used it for years. Southern doctors have always been pioneers in the science of medicine. Dr. Crawford Long, of Georgia, you know, was the first practitioner in America to apply anesthesia to surgery."

"But where did you run up against hypnotism? I thought this a new thing under the sun?"

The doctor laughed.

"It's not a home industry, exactly. I became interested in it in Edinburgh while a medical student, and pursued it with increased interest in Paris."

"Did you study medicine abroad?" Phil asked in surprise.

"Yes; I was poor, but I managed to raise and to borrow enough to take three years on the other side. I put all I had and all my credit in it. I've never regretted the sacrifice. The more I saw of the great world, the better I liked my own world. I've given these farmers and their families the best God gave to me."

"Do you find much use for your powers of hypnosis?" Phil asked.

"Only in an experimental way. Naturally I am endowed with this gift—especially over certain classes who are easily the subjects of extreme fear. I owned a rascally slave named Gus whom I used to watch stealing. Suddenly confronting him, I've thrown him into unconsciousness with a steady gaze of the eye, until he would drop on his face, trembling like a leaf, unable to speak until I allowed him."

"How do you account for such powers?"

"I don't account for them at all. They belong to the world of spiritual phenomena of which we know so little and yet which touch our material lives at a thousand points every day. How do we account for sleep and dreams, or second sight, or the day dreams which we call visions?"

Phil was silent, and the doctor went on dreamily:

"The day my boy Richard was killed at Gettysburg, I saw him lying dead in a field near a house. I saw some soldiers bury him in the corner of that field, and then an old man go to the grave, dig up his body, cart it away into the woods, and throw it into a ditch. I saw it before I heard of the battle or knew that he was in it. He was reported killed, and his body has never been found. It is the one unspeakable horror of the war to me. I'll never get over it."

"How very strange!" exclaimed Phil.

"And yet the war was nothing, my boy, to the horrors I feel clutching the throat of the South to-day. I'm glad you and your father are down here. Your disinterested view of things may help us at Washington when we need it most. The South seems to have no friend at court."

"Your younger men, I find, are hopeful, Doctor," said Phil.

"Yes, the young never see danger until it's time to die. I'm not a pessimist, but I was happier in jail. Scores of my old friends have given up in despair and died. Delicate and cultured women are living on cowpeas, corn bread, and molasses—and of such quality they would not have fed it to a slave. Children go to bed hungry. Droves of brutal negroes roam at large, stealing, murdering, and threatening blacker crimes. We are under the heel of petty military tyrants, few of whom ever smelled gunpowder in a battle. At the approaching election, not a decent white man in this country can take the infamous test oath. I am disfranchised because I gave a cup of water to the lips of one of my dying boys on the battlefield. My slaves are all voters. There will be a negro majority of more than one hundred thousand in this state. Desperadoes are here teaching these negroes insolence and crime in their secret societies. The future is a nightmare."



"You have my sympathy, sir," said Phil warmly, extending his hand. "These Reconstruction Acts, conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity, can bring only shame and disgrace until the last trace of them is wiped from our laws. I hope it will not be necessary to do it in blood."

The doctor was deeply touched. He could not be mistaken in the genuineness of any man's feeling. He never dreamed this earnest straightforward Yankee youngster was in love with Margaret, and it would have made no difference in the accuracy of his judgment.

"Your sentiments do you honour, sir," he said with grave courtesy. "And you honour us and our town with your presence and friendship."

As Phil hurried home in a warm glow of sympathy for the people whose hospitality had made him their friend and champion, he encountered a negro trooper standing on the corner, watching the Cameron house with furtive glance.

Instinctively he stopped, surveyed the man from head to foot and asked:

"What's the trouble?"

"None er yo' business," the negro answered, slouching across to the opposite side of the street.

Phil watched him with disgust. He had the short, heavy-set neck of the lower order of animals. His skin was coal black, his lips so thick they curled both ways up and down with crooked blood marks across them. His nose was flat, and its enormous nostrils seemed in perpetual dilation. The sinister bead eyes, with brown splotches in their whites, were set wide apart and gleamed apelike under his scant brows. His enormous cheekbones and jaws seemed to protrude beyond the ears and almost hide them.

"That we should send such soldiers here to flaunt our uniform in the faces of these people!" he exclaimed, with bitterness.

He met Ben hurrying home from a visit to Elsie. The two young soldiers whose prejudices had melted in the white heat of battle had become fast friends.

Phil laughed and winked:

"I'll meet you to-night around the family altar!"

When he reached home, Ben saw, slouching in front of the house, walking back and forth and glancing furtively behind him, the negro trooper whom his friend had passed.

He walked quickly in front of him, and blinking his eyes rapidly, said:

"Didn't I tell you, Gus, not to let me catch you hanging around this house again?"

The negro drew himself up, pulling his blue uniform into position as his body stretched out of its habitual slouch, and answered:

"My name ain't 'Gus.'"

Ben gave a quick little chuckle and leaned back against the palings, his hand resting on one that was loose. He glanced at the negro carelessly and said:

"Well, Augustus Caesar, I give your majesty thirty seconds to move off the block."

Gus' first impulse was to run, but remembering himself he threw back his shoulders and said:

"I reckon de streets free——"

"Yes, and so is kindling wood!"

Quick as a flash of lightning the paling suddenly left the fence and broke three times in such bewildering rapidity on the negro's head he forgot everything he ever knew or thought he knew save one thing—the way to run. He didn't fly, but he made remarkable use of the facilities with which he had been endowed.

Ben watched him disappear toward the camp.

He picked up the pieces of paling, pulled a strand of black wool from a splinter, looked at it curiously and said:

"A sprig of his majesty's hair—I'll doubtless remember him without it!"



CHAPTER IV

AT THE POINT OF THE BAYONET

Within an hour from Ben's encounter he was arrested without warrant by the military commandant, handcuffed, and placed on the train for Columbia, more than a hundred miles distant. The first purpose of sending him in charge of a negro guard was abandoned for fear of a riot. A squad of white troops accompanied him.

Elsie was waiting at the gate, watching for his coming, her heart aglow with happiness.

When Marion and little Hugh ran to tell the exciting news, she thought it a joke and refused to believe it.

"Come, dear, don't tease me; you know it's not true!"

"I wish I may die if 'tain't so!" Hugh solemnly declared. "He run Gus away 'cause he scared Aunt Margaret so. They come and put handcuffs on him and took him to Columbia. I tell you Grandpa and Grandma and Aunt Margaret are mad!"

Elsie called Phil and begged him to see what had happened.

When Phil reported Ben's arrest without a warrant, and the indignity to which he had been subjected on the amazing charge of resisting military authority, Elsie hurried with Marion and Hugh to the hotel to express her indignation, and sent Phil to Columbia on the next train to fight for his release.

By the use of a bribe Phil discovered that a special inquisition had been hastily organized to procure perjured testimony against Ben on the charge of complicity in the murder of a carpet-bag adventurer named Ashburn, who had been killed at Columbia in a row in a disreputable resort. This murder had occurred the week Ben Cameron was in Nashville. The enormous reward of $25,000 had been offered for the conviction of any man who could be implicated in the killing. Scores of venal wretches, eager for this blood money, were using every device of military tyranny to secure evidence on which to convict—no matter who the man might be. Within six hours of his arrival they had pounced on Ben.

They arrested as a witness an old negro named John Stapler, noted for his loyalty to the Camerons. The doctor had saved his life once in a dangerous illness. They were going to put him to torture and force him to swear that Ben Cameron had tried to bribe him to kill Ashburn. General Howle, the Commandant of the Columbia district, was in Charleston on a visit to headquarters.

Phil resorted to the ruse of pretending, as a Yankee, the deepest sympathy for Ashburn, and by the payment of a fee of twenty dollars to the Captain, was admitted to the fort to witness the torture.

They led the old man trembling into the presence of the Captain, who sat on an improvised throne in full uniform.

"Have you ordered a barber to shave this man's head?" sternly asked the judge.

"Please, Marster, fer de Lawd's sake, I ain' done nuttin'—doan' shave my head. Dat ha'r been wropped lak dat fur ten year! I die sho' ef I lose my ha'r."

"Bring the barber, and take him back until he comes," was the order. In an hour they led him again into the room blindfolded, and placed him in a chair.

"Have you let him see a preacher before putting him through?" the Captain asked. "I have an order from the General in Charleston to put him through to-day."

"For Gawd's sake, Marster, doan' put me froo—I ain't done nuttin' en I doan' know nuttin'!"

The old negro slipped to his knees, trembling from head to foot.

The guards caught him by the shoulders and threw him back into the chair. The bandage was removed, and just in front of him stood a brass cannon pointed at his head, a soldier beside it holding the string ready to pull. John threw himself backward, yelling:

"Goddermighty!"

When he scrambled to his feet and started to run, another cannon swung on him from the rear. He dropped to his knees and began to pray.

"Yas, Lawd, I'se er comin'. I hain't ready—but, Lawd, I got ter come! Save me!"

"Shave him!" the Captain ordered.

While the old man sat moaning, they lathered his head with two scrubbing-brushes and shaved it clean.

"Now stand him up by the wall and measure him for his coffin," was the order.

They snatched him from the chair, pushed him against the wall, and measured him. While they were taking his measure, the man next to him whispered:

"Now's the time to save your hide—tell all about Ben Cameron trying to hire you to kill Ashburn."

"Give him a few minutes," said the Captain, "and maybe we can hear what Mr. Cameron said about Ashburn."

"I doan' know nuttin', General," pleaded the old darkey. "I ain't heard nuttin'—I ain't seed Marse Ben fer two monts."

"You needn't lie to us. The rebels have been posting you. But it's no use. We'll get it out of you."

"'Fo' Gawd, Marster, I'se telling de truf!"

"Put him in the dark cell and keep him there the balance of his life unless he tells," was the order.

At the end of four days, Phil was summoned again to witness the show.

John was carried to another part of the fort and shown the sweat-box.

"Now tell all you know or in you go!" said his tormentor.

The negro looked at the engine of torture in abject terror—a closet in the walls of the fort just big enough to admit the body, with an adjustable top to press down too low for the head to be held erect. The door closed tight against the breast of the victim. The only air admitted was through an auger-hole in the door.

The old man's lips moved in prayer.

"Will you tell?" growled the Captain.

"I cain't tell ye nuttin' 'cept'n' a lie!" he moaned.

They thrust him in, slammed the door, and in a loud voice the Captain said:

"Keep him there for thirty days unless he tells."

He was left in the agony of the sweat-box for thirty-three hours and taken out. His limbs were swollen and when he attempted to walk he tottered and fell.

The guard jerked him to his feet, and the Captain said:

"I'm afraid we've taken him out too soon, but if he don't tell he can go back and finish the month out."

The poor old negro dropped in a faint, and they carried him back to his cell.

Phil determined to spare no means, fair or foul, to secure Ben's release from the clutches of these devils. He had as yet been unable to locate his place of confinement.

He continued his ruse of friendly curiosity, kept in touch with the Captain, and the Captain in touch with his pocketbook.

Summoned to witness another interesting ceremony, he hurried to the fort.

The officer winked at him confidentially, and took him out to a row of dungeons built of logs and ceiled inside with heavy boards. A single pane of glass about eight inches square admitted light ten feet from the ground.

There was a commotion inside, curses, groans, and cries for mercy mingling in rapid succession.

"What is it?" asked Phil.

"Hell's goin' on in there!" laughed the officer.

"Evidently."

A heavy crash, as though a ton weight had struck the floor, and then all was still.

"By George, it's too bad we can't see it all!" exclaimed the officer.

"What does it mean?" urged Phil.

Again the Captain laughed immoderately.

"I've got a blue-blood in there taking the bluin' out of his system. He gave me some impudence. I'm teaching him who's running this country!"

"What are you doing to him?" Phil asked with a sudden suspicion.

"Oh, just having a little fun! I put two big white drunks in there with him—half-fighting drunks, you know—and told them to work on his teeth and manicure his face a little to initiate him into the ranks of the common people, so to speak!"

Again he laughed.

Phil, listening at the keyhole, held up his hand:

"Hush, they're talking——"

He could hear Ben Cameron's voice in the softest drawl:

"Say it again."

"Please, Marster!"

"Now both together, and a little louder!"

"Please, Marster," came the united chorus.

"Now what kind of a dog did I say you are?"

"The kind as comes when his marster calls."

"Both together—the under dog seems to have too much cover, like his mouth might be full of cotton."

They repeated it louder.

"A common—stump-tailed—cur-dog?"

"Yessir."

"Say it."

"A common—stump-tailed—cur-dog—Marster!"

"A pair of them."

"A pair of 'em."

"No, the whole thing—all together—'we—are—a—pair!'"

"Yes—Marster." They repeated it in chorus.

"With apologies to the dogs——"

"Apologies to the dogs——"

"And why does your master honour the kennel with his presence to-day?"

"He hit a nigger on the head so hard that he strained the nigger's ankle, and he's restin' from his labours."

"That's right, Towser. If I had you and Tige a few hours every day I could make good squirrel-dogs out of you."

There was a pause. Phil looked up and smiled.

"What does it sound like?" asked the Captain, with a shade of doubt in his voice.

"Sounds to me like a Sunday-school teacher taking his class through a new catechism."

The Captain fumbled hurriedly for his keys.

"There's something wrong in there."

He opened the door and sprang in.

Ben Cameron was sitting on top of the two toughs, knocking their heads together as they repeated each chorus.

"Walk in, gentlemen. The show is going on now—the animals are doing beautifully," said Ben.

The Captain muttered an oath. Phil suddenly grasped him by the throat, hurled him against the wall, and snatched the keys from his hand.

"Now open your mouth, you white-livered cur, and inside of twenty-four hours I'll have you behind the bars. I have all the evidence I need. I'm an ex-officer of the United States Army, of the fighting corps—not the vulture division. This is my friend. Accompany us to the street and strike your charges from the record."

The coward did as he was ordered, and Ben hurried back to Piedmont with a friend toward whom he began to feel closer than a brother.

When Elsie heard the full story of the outrage, she bore herself toward Ben with unusual tenderness, and yet he knew that the event had driven their lives farther apart. He felt instinctively the cold silent eye of her father, and his pride stiffened under it. The girl had never considered the possibility of a marriage without her father's blessing. Ben Cameron was too proud to ask it. He began to fear that the differences between her father and his people reached to the deepest sources of life.

Phil found himself a hero at the Cameron House. Margaret said little, but her bearing spoke in deeper language than words. He felt it would be mean to take advantage of her gratitude.

But he was quick to respond to the motherly tenderness of Mrs. Cameron. In the groups of neighbours who gathered in the evenings to discuss with the doctor the hopes, fears, and sorrows of the people, Phil was a charmed listener to the most brilliant conversations he had ever heard. It seemed the normal expression of their lives. He had never before seen people come together to talk to one another after this fashion. More and more the simplicity, dignity, patience, courtesy, and sympathy of these people in their bearing toward one another impressed him. More and more he grew to like them.

Marion went out of her way to express her open admiration for Phil and tease him about Margaret. The Rev. Hugh McAlpin was monopolizing her on the Wednesday following his return from Columbia and Phil sought Marion for sympathy.

"What will you give me if I tease you about Margaret right before her?" she asked.

He blushed furiously.

"Don't you dare such a thing on peril of your life!"

"You know you like to be teased about her," she cried, her blue eyes dancing with fun.

"With such a pretty little friend to do the teasing all by ourselves, perhaps——"

"You'll never get her unless you have more spunk."

"Then I'll find consolation with you."

"No, I mean to marry young."

"And your ideal of life?"

"To fill the world with flowers, laughter, and music—especially my own home—and never do a thing I can make my husband do for me! How do you like it?"

"I think it very sweet," Phil answered soberly.

At noon on the following Friday, the Piedmont Eagle appeared with an editorial signed by Dr. Cameron, denouncing in the fine language of the old school the arrest of Ben as "despotism and the usurpation of authority."

At three o'clock, Captain Gilbert, in command of the troops stationed in the village, marched a squad of soldiers to the newspaper office. One of them carried a sledge-hammer. In ten minutes he demolished the office, heaped the type and their splintered cases on top of the battered press in the middle of the street, and set fire to the pile.

On the courthouse door he nailed this proclamation:

To the People of Ulster County:

The censures of the press, directed against the servants of the people, may be endured; but the military force in command of this district are not the servants of the people of South Carolina. WE ARE YOUR MASTERS. The impertinence of newspaper comment on the military will not be brooked UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES WHATEVER.

G. C. Gilbert, Captain in Command.

Not content with this display of power, he determined to make an example of Dr. Cameron, as the leader of public opinion in the county.

He ordered a squad of his negro troops to arrest him immediately and take him to Columbia for obstructing the execution of the Reconstruction Acts. He placed the squad under command of Gus, whom he promoted to be a corporal, with instructions to wait until the doctor was inside his house, boldly enter it and arrest him.

When Gus marched his black janizaries into the house, no one was in the office. Margaret had gone for a ride with Phil, and Ben had strolled with Elsie to Lover's Leap, unconscious of the excitement in town.

Dr. Cameron himself had heard nothing of it, having just reached home from a visit to a country patient.

Gus stationed his men at each door, and with another trooper walked straight into Mrs. Cameron's bedroom, where the doctor was resting on a lounge.

Had an imp of perdition suddenly sprung through the floor, the master of the house of Cameron would not have been more enraged or surprised.

A sudden leap, as the spring of a panther, and he stood before his former slave, his slender frame erect, his face a livid spot in its snow-white hair, his brilliant eyes flashing with fury.

Gus suddenly lost control of his knees.

His old master transfixed him with his eyes, and in a voice, whose tones gripped him by the throat, said:

"How dare you?"

The gun fell from the negro's hand, and he dropped to the floor on his face.

His companion uttered a yell and sprang through the door, rallying the men as he went:

"Fall back! Fall back! He's killed Gus! Shot him dead wid his eye. He's conjured him! Git de whole army quick."

They fled to the Commandant.

Gilbert ordered the negroes to their tents and led his whole company of white regulars to the hotel, arrested Dr. Cameron, and rescued his fainting trooper, who had been revived and placed under a tree on the lawn.

The little Captain had a wicked look on his face. He refused to allow the doctor a moment's delay to leave instructions for his wife, who had gone to visit a neighbour. He was placed in the guard-house, and a detail of twenty soldiers stationed around it.

The arrest was made so quickly, not a dozen people in town had heard of it. As fast as it was known, people poured into the house, one by one, to express their sympathy. But a greater surprise awaited them.

Within thirty minutes after he had been placed in prison, a Lieutenant entered, accompanied by a soldier and a negro blacksmith who carried in his hand two big chains with shackles on each end.

The doctor gazed at the intruders a moment with incredulity, and then, as the enormity of the outrage dawned on him, he flushed and drew himself erect, his face livid and rigid.

He clutched his throat with his slender fingers, slowly recovered himself, glanced at the shackles in the black hands and then at the young Lieutenant's face, and said slowly, with heaving breast:

"My God! Have you been sent to place these irons on me?"

"Such are my orders, sir," replied the officer, motioning to the negro smith to approach. He stepped forward, unlocked the padlock, and prepared the fetters to be placed on his arms and legs. These fetters were of enormous weight, made of iron rods three quarters of an inch thick and connected together by chains of like weight.

"This is monstrous!" groaned the doctor, with choking agony, glancing helplessly about the bare cell for some weapon with which to defend himself.

Suddenly looking the Lieutenant in the face, he said:

"I demand, sir, to see your commanding officer. He cannot pretend that these shackles are needed to hold a weak unarmed man in prison, guarded by two hundred soldiers?"

"It is useless. I have his orders direct."

"But I must see him. No such outrage has ever been recorded in the history of the American people. I appeal to the Magna Charta rights of every man who speaks the English tongue—no man shall be arrested or imprisoned or deprived of his own household, or of his liberties, unless by the legal judgment of his peers or by the law of the land!"

"The bayonet is your only law. My orders admit of no delay. For your own sake, I advise you to submit. As a soldier, Dr. Cameron, you know I must execute orders."

"These are not the orders of a soldier!" shouted the prisoner, enraged beyond all control. "They are orders for a jailer, a hangman, a scullion—no soldier who wears the sword of a civilized nation can take such orders. The war is over; the South is conquered; I have no country save America. For the honour of the flag, for which I once poured out my blood on the heights of Buena Vista, I protest against this shame!"

The Lieutenant fell back a moment before the burst of his anger.

"Kill me! Kill me!" he went on passionately, throwing his arms wide open and exposing his breast. "Kill—I am in your power. I have no desire to live under such conditions. Kill, but you must not inflict on me and on my people this insult worse than death!"

"Do your duty, blacksmith," said the officer, turning his back and walking toward the door.

The negro advanced with the chains cautiously, and attempted to snap one of the shackles on the doctor's right arm.

With sudden maniac frenzy, Dr. Cameron seized the negro by the throat, hurled him to the floor, and backed against the wall.

The Lieutenant approached and remonstrated:

"Why compel me to add the indignity of personal violence? You must submit."

"I am your prisoner," fiercely retorted the doctor. "I have been a soldier in the armies of America, and I know how to die. Kill me, and my last breath will be a blessing. But while I have life to resist, for myself and for my people, this thing shall not be done!"

The Lieutenant called a sergeant and a file of soldiers, and the sergeant stepped forward to seize the prisoner.

Dr. Cameron sprang on him with the ferocity of a tiger, seized his musket, and attempted to wrench it from his grasp.

The men closed in on him. A short passionate fight and the slender, proud, gray-haired man lay panting on the floor.

Four powerful assailants held his hands and feet, and the negro smith, with a grin, secured the rivet on the right ankle and turned the key in the padlock on the left.

As he drove the rivet into the shackle on his left arm, a spurt of bruised blood from the old Mexican War wound stained the iron.

Dr. Cameron lay for a moment in a stupor. At length he slowly rose. The clank of the heavy chains seemed to choke him with horror. He sank on the floor, covering his face with his hands and groaned:

"The shame! The shame! O God, that I might have died! My poor, poor wife!"

Captain Gilbert entered and said with a sneer:

"I will take you now to see your wife and friends if you would like to call before setting out for Columbia."

The doctor paid no attention to him.

"Will you follow me while I lead you through this town, to show them their chief has fallen, or will you force me to drag you?"

Receiving no answer, he roughly drew the doctor to his feet, held him by the arm, and led him thus in half-unconscious stupor through the principal street, followed by a drove of negroes. He ordered a squad of troops to meet him at the depot. Not a white man appeared on the streets. When one saw the sight and heard the clank of those chains, there was a sudden tightening of the lip, a clinched fist, and an averted face.

When they approached the hotel, Mrs. Cameron ran to meet him, her face white as death.

In silence she kissed his lips, kissed each shackle on his wrists, took her handkerchief and wiped the bruised blood from the old wound on his arm the iron had opened afresh, and then with a look, beneath which the Captain shrank, she said in low tones:

"Do your work quickly. You have but a few moments to get out of this town with your prisoner. I have sent a friend to hold my son. If he comes before you go, he will kill you on sight as he would a mad dog."

With a sneer, the Captain passed the hotel and led the doctor, still in half-unconscious stupor, toward the depot down past his old slave quarters. He had given his negroes who remained faithful each a cabin and a lot.

They looked on in awed silence as the Captain proclaimed:

"Fellow citizens, you are the equal of any white man who walks the ground. The white man's day is done. Your turn has come."

As he passed Jake's cabin, the doctor's faithful man stepped suddenly in front of him, looking at the Captain out of the corners of his eyes, and asked:

"Is I yo' equal?"

"Yes."

"Des lak any white man?"

"Exactly."

The negro's fist suddenly shot into Gilbert's nose with the crack of a sledge-hammer, laying him stunned on the pavement.

"Den take dat f'um yo' equal, d—n you!" he cried, bending over his prostrate figure. "I'll show you how to treat my ole marster, you low-down slue-footed devil!"

The stirring little drama roused the doctor and he turned to his servant with his old-time courtesy, and said:

"Thank you, Jake."

"Come in here, Marse Richard; I knock dem things off'n you in er minute, 'en I get you outen dis town in er jiffy."

"No, Jake, that is not my way; bring this gentleman some water, and then my horse and buggy. You can take me to the depot. This officer can follow with his men." And he did.



CHAPTER V

FORTY ACRES AND A MULE

When Phil returned with Margaret, he drove at Mrs. Cameron's request to find Ben, brought him with all speed to the hotel, took him to his room, and locked the door before he told him the news. After an hour's blind rage, he agreed to obey his father's positive orders to keep away from the Captain until his return, and to attempt no violence against the authorities.

Phil undertook to manage the case in Columbia, and spent three days collecting his evidence before leaving.

Swifter feet had anticipated him. Two days after the arrival of Dr. Cameron at the fort in Colombia, a dust-stained, tired negro was ushered into the presence of General Howle.

He looked about timidly and laughed loudly.

"Well, my man, what's the trouble? You seem to have walked all the way, and laugh as if you were glad of it."

"I 'spec' I is, sah," said Jake, sidling up confidentially.

"Well?" said Howle good-humouredly.

Jake's voice dropped to a whisper.

"I hears you got my ole marster, Dr. Cameron, in dis place."

"Yes. What do you know against him?"

"Nuttin', sah. I des hurry 'long down ter take his place, so's you can sen' him back home. He's erbleeged ter go. Dey's er pow'ful lot er sick folks up dar in de country cain't git 'long widout him, an er pow'ful lot er well ones gwiner be raisin' de debbel 'bout dis. You can hol' me, sah. Des tell my ole marster when ter be yere, en he sho' come."

Jake paused and bowed low.

"Yessah, hit's des lak I tell you. Fuddermo', I 'spec' I'se de man what done de damages. I 'spec' I bus' de Capt'n's nose so 'tain gwine be no mo' good to 'im."

Howle questioned Jake as to the whole affair, asked him a hundred questions about the condition of the county, the position of Dr. Cameron, and the possible effect of this event on the temper of the people.

The affair had already given him a bad hour. The news of this shackling of one of the most prominent men in the State had spread like wildfire, and had caused the first deep growl of anger from the people. He saw that it was a senseless piece of stupidity. The election was rapidly approaching. He was master of the State, and the less friction the better. His mind was made up instantly. He released Dr. Cameron with an apology, and returned with him and Jake for a personal inspection of the affairs of Ulster county.

In a thirty-minutes' interview with Captain Gilbert, Howle gave him more pain than his broken nose.

"And why did you nail up the doors of that Presbyterian church?" he asked suavely.

"Because McAlpin, the young cub who preaches there, dared come to this camp and insult me about the arrest of old Cameron."

"I suppose you issued an order silencing him from the ministry?"

"I did, and told him I'd shackle him if he opened his mouth again."

"Good. The throne of Russia needn't worry about a worthy successor. Any further ecclesiastical orders?"

"None, except the oaths I've prescribed for them before they shall preach again."

"Fine! These Scotch Covenanters will feel at home with you."

"Well, I've made them bite the dust—and they know who's runnin' this town, and don't you forget it."

"No doubt. Yet we may have too much of even a good thing. The League is here to run this country. The business of the military is to keep still and back them when they need it."

"We've the strongest council here to be found in any county in this section," said Gilbert with pride.

"Just so. The League meets once a week. We have promised them the land of their masters and equal social and political rights. Their members go armed to these meetings and drill on Saturdays in the public square. The white man is afraid to interfere lest his house or barn take fire. A negro prisoner in the dock needs only to make the sign to be acquitted. Not a negro will dare to vote against us. Their women are formed into societies, sworn to leave their husbands and refuse to marry any man who dares our anger. The negro churches have pledged themselves to expel him from their membership. What more do you want?"

"There's another side to it," protested the Captain. "Since the League has taken in the negroes, every Union white man has dropped it like a hot iron, except the lone scallawag or carpet-bagger who expects an office. In the church, the social circle, in business or pleasure, these men are lepers. How can a human being stand it? I've tried to grind this hellish spirit in the dirt under my heel, and unless you can do it they'll beat you in the long run! You've got to have some Southern white men or you're lost."

"I'll risk it with a hundred thousand negro majority," said Howle with a sneer. "The fun will just begin then. In the meantime, I'll have you ease up on this county's government. I've brought that man back who knocked you down. Let him alone. I've pardoned him. The less said about this affair, the better."

* * * * *

As the day of the election under the new regime of Reconstruction drew near, the negroes were excited by rumours of the coming great events. Every man was to receive forty acres of land for his vote, and the enthusiastic speakers and teachers had made the dream a resistless one by declaring that the Government would throw in a mule with the forty acres. Some who had hesitated about the forty acres of land, remembering that it must be worked, couldn't resist the idea of owning a mule.

The Freedman's Bureau reaped a harvest in $2 marriage fees from negroes who were urged thus to make their children heirs of landed estates stocked with mules.

Every stranger who appeared in the village was regarded with awe as a possible surveyor sent from Washington to run the lines of these forty-acre plots.

And in due time the surveyors appeared. Uncle Aleck, who now devoted his entire time to organizing the League, and drinking whiskey which the dues he collected made easy, was walking back to Piedmont from a League meeting in the country, dreaming of this promised land.

He lifted his eyes from the dusty way and saw before him two surveyors with their arms full of line stakes painted red, white, and blue. They were well-dressed Yankees—he could not be mistaken. Not a doubt disturbed his mind. The kingdom of heaven was at hand!

He bowed low and cried:

"Praise de Lawd! De messengers is come! I'se waited long, but I sees 'em now wid my own eyes!"

"You can bet your life on that, old pard," said the spokesman of the pair. "We go two and two, just as the apostles did in the olden times. We have only a few left. The boys are hurrying to get their homes. All you've got to do is to drive one of these red, white, and blue stakes down at each corner of the forty acres of land you want, and every rebel in the infernal regions can't pull it up."

"Hear dat now!"

"Just like I tell you. When this stake goes into the ground, it's like planting a thousand cannon at each corner."

"En will the Lawd's messengers come wid me right now to de bend er de creek whar I done pick out my forty acres?"

"We will, if you have the needful for the ceremony. The fee for the surveyor is small—only two dollars for each stake. We have no time to linger with foolish virgins who have no oil in their lamps. The bridegroom has come. They who have no oil must remain in outer darkness." The speaker had evidently been a preacher in the North, and his sacred accent sealed his authority with the old negro, who had been an exhorter himself.

Aleck felt in his pocket the jingle of twenty gold dollars, the initiation fees of the week's harvest of the League. He drew them, counted out eight, and took his four stakes. The surveyors kindly showed him how to drive them down firmly to the first stripe of blue. When they had stepped off a square of about forty acres of the Lenoir farm, including the richest piece of bottom land on the creek, which Aleck's children under his wife's direction were working for Mrs. Lenoir, and the four stakes were planted, old Aleck shouted:

"Glory ter God!"

"Now," said the foremost surveyor, "you want a deed—a deed in fee simple with the big seal of the Government on it, and you're fixed for life. The deed you can take to the courthouse and make the clerk record it."

The man drew from his pocket an official-looking paper, with a red circular seal pasted on its face.

Uncle Aleck's eyes danced.

"Is dat de deed?"

"It will be if I write your name on it and describe the land."

"En what's de fee fer dat?"

"Only twelve dollars; you can take it now or wait until we come again. There's no particular hurry about this. The wise man, though, leaves nothing for to-morrow that he can carry with him to-day."

"I takes de deed right now, gemmen," said Aleck, eagerly counting out the remaining twelve dollars. "Fix 'im up for me."

The surveyor squatted in the field and carefully wrote the document.

They went on their way rejoicing, and old Aleck hurried into Piedmont with the consciousness of lordship of the soil. He held himself so proudly that it seemed to straighten some of the crook out of his bow legs.

He marched up to the hotel where Margaret sat reading and Marion was on the steps playing with a setter.

"Why, Uncle Aleck!" Marion exclaimed, "I haven't seen you in a long time."

Aleck drew himself to his full height—at least, as full as his bow legs would permit, and said gruffly:

"Miss Ma'ian, I axes you to stop callin' me 'uncle'; my name is Mr. Alexander Lenoir——"

"Until Aunt Cindy gets after you," laughed the girl. "Then it's much shorter than that, Uncle Aleck."

He shuffled his feet and looked out at the square unconcernedly.

"Yaas'm, dat's what fetch me here now. I comes ter tell yer Ma ter tell dat 'oman Cindy ter take her chillun off my farm. I gwine 'low no mo' rent-payin' ter nobody off'n my lan'!"

"Your land, Uncle Aleck? When did you get it?" asked Marion, placing her cheek against the setter.

"De Gubment gim it ter me to-day," he replied, fumbling in his pocket, and pulling out the document. "You kin read it all dar yo'sef."

He handed Marion the paper, and Margaret hurried down and read it over her shoulder.

Both girls broke into screams of laughter.

Aleck looked up sharply.

"Do you know what's written on this paper, Uncle Aleck?" Margaret asked.

"Cose I do. Dat's de deed ter my farm er forty acres in de land er de creek, whar I done stuck off wid de red, white, an' blue sticks de Gubment gimme."

"I'll read it to you," said Margaret.

"Wait a minute," interrupted Marion. "I want Aunt Cindy to hear it—she's here to see Mamma in the kitchen now."

She ran for Uncle Aleck's spouse. Aunt Cindy walked around the house and stood by the steps, eying her erstwhile lord with contempt.

"Got yer deed, is yer, ter stop me payin' my missy her rent fum de lan' my chillun wucks? Yu'se er smart boy, you is—let's hear de deed!"

Aleck edged away a little, and said with a bow:

"Dar's de paper wid de big mark er de Gubment."

Aunt Cindy sniffed the air contemptuously.

"What is it, honey?" she asked of Margaret.

Margaret read in mock solemnity the mystic writing on the deed:

To Whom It May Concern:

As Moses lifted up the brazen serpent in the wilderness for the enlightenment of the people, even so have I lifted twenty shining plunks out of this benighted nigger! Selah!

As Uncle Aleck walked away with Aunt Cindy shouting in derision, "Dar, now! Dar, now!" the bow in his legs seemed to have sprung a sharper curve.



CHAPTER VI

A WHISPER IN THE CROWD

The excitement which preceded the first Reconstruction election in the South paralyzed the industries of the country. When demagogues poured down from the North and began their raving before crowds of ignorant negroes, the plow stopped in the furrow, the hoe was dropped, and the millennium was at hand.

Negro tenants, working under contracts issued by the Freedman's Bureau, stopped work, and rode their landlords' mules and horses around the county, following these orators.

The loss to the cotton crop alone from the abandonment of the growing plant was estimated at over $60,000,000.

The one thing that saved the situation from despair was the large grain and forage crops of the previous season which thrifty farmers had stored in their barns. So important was the barn and its precious contents that Dr. Cameron hired Jake to sleep in his.

This immense barn, which was situated at the foot of the hill some two hundred yards behind the house, had become a favourite haunt of Marion and Hugh. She had made a pet of the beautiful thoroughbred mare which had belonged to Ben during the war. Marion went every day to give her an apple or lump of sugar, or carry her a bunch of clover. The mare would follow her about like a cat.

Another attraction at the barn for them was Becky Sharpe, Ben's setter. She came to Marion one morning, wagging her tail, seized her dress and led her into an empty stall, where beneath the trough lay sleeping snugly ten little white-and-black spotted puppies.

The girl had never seen such a sight before and went into ecstasies. Becky wagged her tail with pride at her compliments. Every morning she would pull her gently into the stall just to hear her talk and laugh and pet her babies.

Whatever election day meant to the men, to Marion it was one of unalloyed happiness: she was to ride horseback alone and dance at her first ball. Ben had taught her to ride, and told her she could take Queen to Lover's Leap and back alone. Trembling with joy, her beautiful face wreathed in smiles, she led the mare to the pond in the edge of the lot and watched her drink its pure spring water.

When he helped her to mount in front of the hotel under her mother's gaze, and saw her ride out of the gate, with the exquisite lines of her little figure melting into the graceful lines of the mare's glistening form, he exclaimed:

"I declare, I don't know which is the prettier, Marion or Queen!"

"I know," was the mother's soft answer.

"They are both thoroughbreds," said Ben, watching them admiringly.

"Wait till you see her to-night in her first ball dress," whispered Mrs. Lenoir.

At noon Ben and Phil strolled to the polling-place to watch the progress of the first election under negro rule. The Square was jammed with shouting, jostling, perspiring negroes, men, women, and children. The day was warm, and the African odour was supreme even in the open air.

A crowd of two hundred were packed around a peddler's box. There were two of them—one crying the wares, and the other wrapping and delivering the goods. They were selling a new patent poison for rats.

"I've only a few more bottles left now, gentlemen," he shouted, "and the polls will close at sundown. A great day for our brother in black. Two years of army rations from the Freedman's Bureau, with old army clothes thrown in, and now the ballot—the priceless glory of American citizenship. But better still the very land is to be taken from these proud aristocrats and given to the poor down-trodden black man. Forty acres and a mule—think of it! Provided, mind you—that you have a bottle of my wonder-worker to kill the rats and save your corn for the mule. No man can have the mule unless he has corn; and no man can have corn if he has rats—and only a few bottles left——"

"Gimme one," yelled a negro.

"Forty acres and a mule, your old masters to work your land and pay his rent in corn, while you sit back in the shade and see him sweat."

"Gimme er bottle and two er dem pictures!" bawled another candidate for a mule.

The peddler handed him the bottle and the pictures and threw a handful of his labels among the crowd. These labels happened to be just the size of the ballots, having on them the picture of a dead rat lying on his back, and above, the emblem of death, the crossbones and skull.

"Forty acres and a mule for every black man—why was I ever born white? I never had no luck, nohow!"

Phil and Ben passed on nearer the polling-place, around which stood a cordon of soldiers with a line of negro voters two hundred yards in length extending back into the crowd.

The negro Leagues came in armed battalions and voted in droves, carrying their muskets in their hands. Less than a dozen white men were to be seen about the place.

The negroes, under the drill of the League and the Freedman's Bureau, protected by the bayonet, were voting to enfranchise themselves, disfranchise their former masters, ratify a new constitution, and elect a legislature to do their will. Old Aleck was a candidate for the House, chief poll-holder, and seemed to be in charge of the movements of the voters outside the booth as well as inside. He appeared to be omnipresent, and his self-importance was a sight Phil had never dreamed. He could not keep his eyes off him.

"By George, Cameron, he's a wonder!" he laughed.

Aleck had suppressed as far as possible the story of the painted stakes and the deed, after sending out warnings to the brethren to beware of two enticing strangers. The surveyors had reaped a rich harvest and passed on. Aleck made up his mind to go to Columbia, make the laws himself, and never again trust a white man from the North or South. The agent of the Freedman's Bureau at Piedmont tried to choke him off the ticket. The League backed him to a man. He could neither read nor write, but before he took to whiskey he had made a specialty of revival exhortation, and his mouth was the most effective thing about him. In this campaign he was an orator of no mean powers. He knew what he wanted, and he knew what his people wanted, and he put the thing in words so plain that a wayfaring man, though a fool, couldn't make any mistake about it.

As he bustled past, forming a battalion of his brethren in line to march to the polls, Phil followed his every movement with amused interest.

Besides being so bow-legged that his walk was a moving joke he was so striking a negro in his personal appearance, he seemed to the young Northerner almost a distinct type of man.

His head was small and seemed mashed on the sides until it bulged into a double lobe behind. Even his ears, which he had pierced and hung with red earbobs, seemed to have been crushed flat to the side of his head. His kinked hair was wrapped in little hard rolls close to the skull and bound tightly with dirty thread. His receding forehead was high and indicated a cunning intelligence. His nose was broad and crushed flat against his face. His jaws were strong and angular, mouth wide, and lips thick, curling back from rows of solid teeth set obliquely in their blue gums. The one perfect thing about him was the size and setting of his mouth—he was a born African orator, undoubtedly descended from a long line of savage spell-binders, whose eloquence in the palaver houses of the jungle had made them native leaders. His thin spindle-shanks supported an oblong, protruding stomach, resembling an elderly monkey's, which seemed so heavy it swayed his back to carry it.

The animal vivacity of his small eyes and the flexibility of his eyebrows, which he worked up and down rapidly with every change of countenance, expressed his eager desires.

He had laid aside his new shoes, which hurt him, and went barefooted to facilitate his movements on the great occasion. His heels projected and his foot was so flat that what should have been the hollow of it made a hole in the dirt where he left his track.

He was already mellow with liquor, and was dressed in an old army uniform and cap, with two horse pistols buckled around his waist. On a strap hanging from his shoulder were strung a half-dozen tin canteens filled with whiskey.

A disturbance in the line of voters caused the young men to move forward to see what it meant.

Two negro troopers had pulled Jake out of the line, and were dragging him toward old Aleck.

The election judge straightened himself up with great dignity:

"What wuz de rapscallion doin'?"

"In de line, tryin' ter vote."

"Fetch 'im befo' de judgment bar," said Aleck, taking a drink from one of his canteens.

The troopers brought Jake before the judge.

"Tryin' ter vote, is yer?"

"'Lowed I would."

"You hear 'bout de great sassieties de Gubment's fomentin' in dis country?"

"Yas, I hear erbout 'em."

"Is yer er member er de Union League?"

"Na-sah. I'd rudder steal by myself. I doan' lak too many in de party!"

"En yer ain't er No'f Ca'liny gemmen, is yer—yer ain't er member er de 'Red Strings?'"

"Na-sah, I come when I'se called—dey doan' hatter put er string on me—ner er block, ner er collar, ner er chain, ner er muzzle——"

"Will yer 'splain ter dis cote——" railed Aleck.

"What cote? Dat ole army cote?" Jake laughed in loud peals that rang over the square.

Aleck recovered his dignity and demanded angrily:

"Does yer belong ter de Heroes ob Americky?"

"Na-sah. I ain't burnt nobody's house ner barn yet, ner hamstrung no stock, ner waylaid nobody atter night—honey, I ain't fit ter jine. Heroes ob Americky! Is you er hero?"

"Ef yer doan' b'long ter no s'iety," said Aleck with judicial deliberation, "what is you?"

"Des er ole-fashun all-wool-en-er-yard-wide nigger dat stan's by his ole marster 'cause he's his bes' frien', stays at home, en tends ter his own business."

"En yer pay no 'tenshun ter de orders I sent yer ter jine de League?"

"Na-sah. I ain't er takin' orders f'um er skeer-crow."

Aleck ignored his insolence, secure in his power.

"You doan b'long ter no s'iety, what yer git in dat line ter vote for?"

"Ain't I er nigger?"

"But yer ain't de right kin' er nigger. 'Res' dat man fer 'sturbin' de peace."

They put Jake in jail, persuaded his wife to leave him, and expelled him from the Baptist church, all within the week.

As the troopers led Jake to prison, a young negro apparently about fifteen years old approached Aleck, holding in his hand one of the peddler's rat labels, which had gotten well distributed among the crowd. A group of negro boys followed him with these rat labels in their hands, studying them intently.

"Look at dis ticket, Uncle Aleck," said the leader.

"Mr. Alexander Lenoir, sah—is I yo' uncle, nigger?"

The youth walled his eyes angrily.

"Den doan' you call me er nigger!"

"Who' yer talkin to, sah? You kin fling yer sass at white folks, but, honey, yuse er projeckin' wid death now!"

"I ain't er nigger—I'se er gemman, I is," was the sullen answer.

"How ole is you?" asked Aleck in milder tones.

"Me mudder say sixteen—but de Buro man say I'se twenty-one yistiddy, de day 'fo' 'lection."

"Is you voted to-day?"

"Yessah; vote in all de boxes 'cept'n dis one. Look at dat ticket. Is dat de straight ticket?"

Aleck, who couldn't read the twelve-inch letters of his favourite bar-room sign, took the rat label and examined it critically.

"What ail it?" he asked at length.

The boy pointed at the picture of the rat.

"What dat rat doin', lyin' dar on his back, wid his heels cocked up in de air—'pear ter me lak a rat otter be standin' on his feet!"

Aleck reexamined it carefully, and then smiled benignly on the youth.

"De ignance er dese folks. What ud yer do widout er man lak me enjued wid de sperit en de power ter splain tings?"

"You sho' got de sperits," said the boy impudently, touching a canteen.

Aleck ignored the remark and looked at the rat label smilingly.

"Ain't we er votin', ter-day, on de Constertooshun what's ter take de ballot away f'um de white folks en gib all de power ter de cullud gemmen—I axes yer dat?"

The boy stuck his thumbs under his arms and walled his eyes.

"Yessah!"

"Den dat means de ratification ob de Constertooshun!"

Phil laughed, followed, and watched them fold their tickets, get in line, and vote the rat labels.

Ben turned toward a white man with gray beard, who stood watching the crowd.

He was a pious member of the Presbyterian church but his face didn't have a pious expression to-day. He had been refused the right to vote because he had aided the Confederacy by nursing one of his wounded boys.

He touched his hat politely to Ben.

"What do you think of it, Colonel Cameron?" he asked with a touch of scorn.

"What's your opinion, Mr. McAllister?"

"Well, Colonel, I've been a member of the church for over forty years. I'm not a cussin' man—but there's a sight I never expected to live to see. I've been a faithful citizen of this State for fifty years. I can't vote, and a nigger is to be elected to-day to represent me in the Legislature. Neither you, Colonel, nor your father are good enough to vote. Every nigger in this county sixteen years old and up voted to-day—I ain't a cussing man, and I don't say it as a cuss word, but all I've got to say is, IF there BE such a thing as a d—d shame—that's it!"

"Mr. McAllister, the recording angel wouldn't have made a mark had you said it without the 'IF.'"

"God knows what this country's coming to—I don't," said the old man bitterly. "I'm afraid to let my wife and daughter go out of the house, or stay in it, without somebody with them."

Ben leaned closer and whispered, as Phil approached:

"Come to my office to-night at ten o'clock; I want to see you on some important business."

The old man seized his hand eagerly.

"Shall I bring the boys?"

Ben smiled.

"No. I've seen them some time ago."



CHAPTER VII

BY THE LIGHT OF A TORCH

On the night of the election Mrs. Lenoir gave a ball at the hotel in honour of Marion's entrance into society. She was only in her sixteenth year, yet older than her mother when mistress of her own household. The only ambition the mother cherished was that she might win the love of an honest man and build for herself a beautiful home on the site of the cottage covered with trailing roses. In this home dream for Marion she found a great sustaining joy to which nothing in the life of man answers.

The ball had its political significance which the military martinet who commanded the post understood. It was the way the people of Piedmont expressed to him and the world their contempt for the farce of an election he had conducted, and their indifference as to the result he would celebrate with many guns before midnight.

The young people of the town were out in force. Marion was a universal favourite. The grace, charm, and tender beauty of the Southern girl of sixteen were combined in her with a gentle and unselfish disposition. Amid poverty that was pitiful, unconscious of its limitations, her thoughts were always of others, and she was the one human being everybody had agreed to love. In the village in which she lived wealth counted for naught. She belonged to the aristocracy of poetry, beauty, and intrinsic worth, and her people knew no other.

As she stood in the long dining-room, dressed in her first ball costume of white organdy and lace, the little plump shoulders peeping through its meshes, she was the picture of happiness. A half-dozen boys hung on every word as the utterance of an oracle. She waved gently an old ivory fan with white down on its edges in a way the charm of which is the secret birthright of every Southern girl.

Now and then she glanced at the door for some one who had not yet appeared.

Phil paid his tribute to her with genuine feeling, and Marion repaid him by whispering:

"Margaret's dressed to kill—all in soft azure blue—her rosy cheeks, black hair, and eyes never shone as they do to-night. She doesn't dance on account of her Sunday-school—it's all for you."

Phil blushed and smiled.

"The preacher won't be here?"

"Our rector will."

"He's a nice old gentleman. I'm fond of him. Miss Marion, your mother is a genius. I hope she can plan these little affairs oftener."

It was half-past ten o'clock when Ben Cameron entered the room with Elsie a little ruffled at his delay over imaginary business at his office. Ben answered her criticisms with a strange elation. She had felt a secret between them and resented it.

At Mrs. Lenoir's special request, he had put on his full uniform of a Confederate Colonel in honour of Marion and the poem her father had written of one of his gallant charges. He had not worn it since he fell that day in Phil's arms.

No one in the room had ever seen him in this Colonel's uniform. Its yellow sash with the gold fringe and tassels was faded and there were two bullet holes in the coat. A murmur of applause from the boys, sighs and exclamations from the girls swept the room as he took Marion's hand, bowed and kissed it. Her blue eyes danced and smiled on him with frank admiration.

"Ben, you're the handsomest thing I've ever seen!" she said softly.

"Thanks. I thought you had a mirror. I'll send you one," he answered, slipping his arm around her and gliding away to the strains of a waltz. The girl's hand trembled as she placed it on his shoulder, her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes had a wistful dreamy look in their depths.

When Ben rejoined Elsie and they strolled on the lawn, the military commandant suddenly confronted them with a squad of soldiers.

"I'll trouble you for those buttons and shoulder straps," said the Captain.

Elsie's amber eyes began to spit fire. Ben stood still and smiled.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"That I will not be insulted by the wearing of this uniform to-day."

"I dare you to touch it, coward, poltroon!" cried the girl, her plump little figure bristling in front of her lover.

Ben laid his hand on her arm and gently drew her back to his side: "He has the power to do this. It is a technical violation of law to wear them. I have surrendered. I am a gentleman and I have been a soldier. He can have his tribute. I've promised my father to offer no violence to the military authority of the United States."

He stepped forward, and the officer cut the buttons from his coat and ripped the straps from his shoulders.

While the performance was going on, Ben quietly said:

"General Grant at Appomattox, with the instincts of a great soldier, gave our men his spare horses and ordered that Confederate officers retain their side-arms. The General is evidently not in touch with this force."

"No: I'm in command in this county," said the Captain.

"Evidently."

When he had gone, Elsie's eyes were dim. They strolled under the shadow of the great oak and stood in silence, listening to the music within and the distant murmur of the falls.

"Why is it, sweetheart, that a girl will persist in admiring brass buttons?" Ben asked softly.

She raised her lips to his for a kiss and answered:

"Because a soldier's business is to die for his country."

As Ben led her back into the ballroom and surrendered her to a friend for a dance, the first gun pealed its note of victory from the square in the celebration of the triumph of the African slave over his white master.

Ben strolled out in the street to hear the news.

The Constitution had been ratified by an enormous majority, and a Legislature elected composed of 101 negroes and 23 white men. Silas Lynch had been elected Lieutenant-Governor, a negro Secretary of State, a negro Treasurer, and a negro Justice of the Supreme Court.

When Bizzel, the wizzen-faced agent of the Freedman's Bureau, made this announcement from the courthouse steps, pandemonium broke lose. An incessant rattle of musketry began in which ball cartridges were used, the missiles whistling over the town in every direction. Yet within half an hour the square was deserted and a strange quiet followed the storm.

Old Aleck staggered by the hotel, his drunkenness having reached the religious stage.

"Behold, a curiosity, gentlemen," cried Ben to a group of boys who had gathered, "a voter is come among us—in fact, he is the people, the king, our representative elect, the Honourable Alexander Lenoir, of the county of Ulster!"

"Gemmens, de Lawd's bin good ter me," said Aleck, weeping copiously.

"They say the rat labels were in a majority in this precinct—how was that?" asked Ben.

"Yessah—dat what de scornful say—dem dat sets in de seat o' de scornful, but de Lawd er Hosts He fetch 'em low. Mistah Bissel de Buro man count all dem rat votes right, sah—dey couldn't fool him—he know what dey mean—he count 'em all for me an' de ratification."

"Sure-pop!" said Ben; "if you can't ratify with a rat, I'd like to know why?"

"Dat's what I tells 'em, sah."

"Of course," said Ben good-humouredly. "The voice of the people is the voice of God—rats or no rats—if you know how to count."

As old Aleck staggered away, the sudden crash of a volley of musketry echoed in the distance.

"What's that?" asked Ben, listening intently. The sound was unmistakable to a soldier's ear—that volley from a hundred rifles at a single word of command. It was followed by a shot on a hill in the distance, and then by a faint echo, farther still. Ben listened a few moments and turned into the lawn of the hotel. The music suddenly stopped, the tramp of feet echoed on the porch, a woman screamed, and from the rear of the house came the cry:

"Fire! Fire!"

Almost at the same moment an immense sheet of flame shot skyward from the big barn.

"My God!" groaned Ben. "Jake's in jail to-night, and they've set the barn on fire. It's worth more than the house."

The crowd rushed down the hill to the blazing building, Marion's fleet figure in its flying white dress leading the crowd.

The lowing of the cows and the wild neighing of the horses rang above the roar of the flames.

Before Ben could reach the spot Marion had opened every stall. Two cows leaped out to safety, but not a horse would move from its stall, and each moment wilder and more pitiful grew their death cries.

Marion rushed to Ben, her eyes dilated, her face as white as the dress she wore.

"Oh, Ben, Queen won't come out! What shall I do?"

"You can do nothing, child. A horse won't come out of a burning stable unless he's blindfolded. They'll all be burned to death."

"Oh! no!" the girl cried in agony.

"They'd trample you to death if you tried to get them out. It can't be helped. It's too late."

As Ben looked back at the gathering crowd, Marion suddenly snatched a horse blanket, lying at the door, ran with the speed of a deer to the pond, plunged in, sprang out, and sped back to the open door of Queen's stall, through which her shrill cry could be heard above the others.

As the girl ran toward the burning building, her thin white dress clinging close to her exquisite form, she looked like the marble figure of a sylph by the hand of some great master into which God had suddenly breathed the breath of life.

As they saw her purpose, a cry of horror rose from the crowd, her mother's scream loud above the rest.

Ben rushed to catch her, shouting:

"Marion! Marion! She'll trample you to death!"

He was too late. She leaped into the stall. The crowd held their breath. There was a moment of awful suspense, and the mare sprang through the open door with the little white figure clinging to her mane and holding the blanket over her head.

A cheer rang above the roar of the flames. The girl did not loose her hold until her beautiful pet was led to a place of safety, while she clung to her neck and laughed and cried for joy. First her mother, then Margaret, Mrs. Cameron, and Elsie took her in their arms.

As Ben approached the group, Elsie whispered to him: "Kiss her!"

Ben took her hand, his eyes full of unshed tears, and said:

"The bravest deed a woman ever did—you're a heroine, Marion!"

Before she knew it he stooped and kissed her.

She was very still for a moment, smiled, trembled from head to foot, blushed scarlet, took her mother by the hand, and without a word hurried to the house.

Poor Becky was whining among the excited crowd and sought in vain for Marion. At last she got Margaret's attention, caught her dress in her teeth and led her to a corner of the lot, where she had laid side by side her puppies, smothered to death. She stood and looked at them with her tail drooping, the picture of despair. Margaret burst into tears and called Ben.

He bent and put his arm around the setter's neck and stroked her head with his hand. Looking at up his sister, he said:

"Don't tell Marion of this. She can't stand any more to-night."

The crowd had all dispersed, and the flames had died down for want of fuel. The odour of roasting flesh, pungent and acrid, still lingered a sharp reminder of the tragedy.

Ben stood on the back porch, talking in low tones to his father.

"Will you join us now, sir? We need the name and influence of men of your standing."

"My boy, two wrongs never made a right. It's better to endure awhile. The sober commonsense of the Nation will yet save us. We must appeal to it."

"Eight more fires were seen from town to-night."

"You only guess their origin."

"I know their origin. It was done by the League at a signal as a celebration of the election and a threat of terror to the county. One of our men concealed a faithful negro under the floor of the school-house and heard the plot hatched. We expected it a month ago—but hoped they had given it up."

"Even so, my boy, a secret society such as you have planned means a conspiracy that may bring exile or death. I hate lawlessness and disorder. We have had enough of it. Your clan means ultimately martial law. At least we will get rid of these soldiers by this election. They have done their worst to me, but we may save others by patience."

"It's the only way, sir. The next step will be a black hand on a white woman's throat!"

The doctor frowned. "Let us hope for the best. Your clan is the last act of desperation."

"But if everything else fail, and this creeping horror becomes a fact—then what?"

"My boy, we will pray that God may never let us live to see the day!"



CHAPTER VIII

THE RIOT IN THE MASTER'S HALL

Alarmed at the possible growth of the secret clan into which Ben had urged him to enter, Dr. Cameron determined to press for relief from oppression by an open appeal to the conscience of the Nation.

He called a meeting of conservative leaders in a Taxpayers' Convention at Columbia. His position as leader had been made supreme by the indignities he had suffered, and he felt sure of his ability to accomplish results. Every county in the State was represented by its best men in this gathering at the Capitol.

The day he undertook to present his memorial to the Legislature was one he never forgot. The streets were crowded with negroes who had come to town to hear Lynch, the Lieutenant-Governor, speak in a mass-meeting. Negro policemen swung their clubs in his face as he pressed through the insolent throng up the street to the stately marble Capitol. At the door a black, greasy trooper stopped him to parley. Every decently dressed white man was regarded a spy.

As he passed inside the doors of the House of Representatives the rush of foul air staggered him. The reek of vile cigars and stale whiskey, mingled with the odour of perspiring negroes, was overwhelming. He paused and gasped for breath.

The space behind the seats of the members was strewn with corks, broken glass, stale crusts, greasy pieces of paper, and picked bones. The hall was packed with negroes, smoking, chewing, jabbering, pushing, perspiring.

A carpet-bagger at his elbow was explaining to an old darkey from down east why his forty acres and a mule hadn't come.

On the other side of him a big negro bawled:

"Dat's all right! De cullud man on top!"

The doctor surveyed the hall in dismay. At first not a white member was visible. The galleries were packed with negroes. The Speaker presiding was a negro, the Clerk a negro, the doorkeepers negroes, the little pages all coal-black negroes, the Chaplain a negro. The negro party consisted of one hundred and one—ninety-four blacks and seven scallawags, who claimed to be white. The remains of Aryan civilization were represented by twenty-three white men from the Scotch-Irish hill counties.

The doctor had served three terms as the member from Ulster in this hall in the old days, and its appearance now was beyond any conceivable depth of degradation.

The ninety-four Africans, constituting almost its solid membership, were a motley crew. Every negro type was there, from the genteel butler to the clodhopper from the cotton and rice fields. Some had on second-hand seedy frock-coats their old master had given them before the war, glossy and threadbare. Old stovepipe hats, of every style in vogue since Noah came out of the ark, were placed conspicuously on the desks or cocked on the backs of the heads of the honourable members. Some wore the coarse clothes of the field, stained with red mud.

Old Aleck, he noted, had a red woollen comforter wound round his neck in place of a shirt or collar. He had tried to go barefooted, but the Speaker had issued a rule that members should come shod. He was easing his feet by placing his brogans under the desk, wearing only his red socks.

Each member had his name painted in enormous gold letters on his desk, and had placed beside it a sixty-dollar French imported spittoon. Even the Congress of the United States, under the inspiration of Oakes Ames and Speaker Colfax, could only afford one of domestic make, which cost a dollar.

The uproar was deafening. From four to six negroes were trying to speak at the same time. Aleck's majestic mouth with blue gums and projecting teeth led the chorus as he ambled down the aisle, his bow-legs flying their red-sock ensigns.

The Speaker singled him out—his voice was something which simply could not be ignored—rapped and yelled:

"De gemman from Ulster set down!"

Aleck turned crestfallen and resumed his seat, throwing his big flat feet in their red woollens up on his desk and hiding his face behind their enormous spread.

He had barely settled in his chair before a new idea flashed through his head and up he jumped again: