"Look," she whispered, pointing with the slender blue-veined finger, "there she is, in the doorway again with her baby in her arms, waving at sunset to her lover on the hill?—what does it matter, a cabin or a palace!"

The shining eyes grew dim, the figure drooped, and a wild piteous cry came from the lover's fevered lips:

"Lord God of Love and Pity—she's dying!—Help—Help—Help!"

His faithful servant, worn with watching day and night, heard the cry, rushed to his side and caught his fainting form, as the light of the world faded.



XII

TRUTH

They nursed him slowly back into life again, the loving heart of the older brother guiding the arm of his faithful slave.

He refused to live at first.

"It's no use, Joe," he cried with bitter despair. "Life isn't worth the struggle any more. I'm tired, I just want to rest—by her side—that's all."

"I know, Boy, how you feel. But you must live. Duty calls. Great events are stirring the world. You've a man's part to play—"

"I won't play it. I'm done with ambition. I'm done with strife. The game's not worth the candle. I've lived the only life worth living, and it's finished."

Little by little, each day, the brother slowly rebuilt in the stricken soul the will to live. Before he was able to walk, he lifted the frail form in his arms, carried him into his big library, and seated him in an arm-chair before a fire of glowing logs.

With a sweep of his arm about the room toward the crowded shelves he began in earnest tones:

"You're going to live with me now, Boy. We love each other with the love of strong men. I need your help and companionship in my study. You had the advantage of a college career—I didn't. We'll master here these records of the world's life. We'll seek wisdom in the history and experience of man. What do you know of the treasures buried in those big volumes? Our young men go to school and plunge into life with a mere smattering. Do you know the history of your own country, how it was discovered, how its colonies grew, how its battles were fought against overwhelming and impossible odds? How its great Constitution grew in the hands of inspired leaders, who builded better than they knew a chart for the guidance of man. Do you know the history of the mind of man? Do you know the story of those ragged bleeding feet—of the great thinkers of the ages who have found the path of truth through blood and tears and then walked its way to the stake, to the block and the gallows? Come with me into the big world of the past—read, study, think, and gird yourself with power! We're just entering on the struggle that means life or death to our Republic. I believe as I believe in God, that we have set a beacon light on the shores of the world that will guide the human race to its mightiest achievements—unless we fail to keep its lantern trimmed and bright.

"The poison of indolence is in our blood—the tendency to centralized tyranny. We are but a few years removed from its curse. As we grow in years, the temptation to make Washington the gilded Capital of an Empire becomes more and more apparent. Unless we control this tendency to lapse into the past, we are lost and the story of our fallen Republic will be but one more added to the failures of history. Unless we can preserve the sovereignty of our States, the Union will become an Empire, not a Republic of republics. It's a difficult thing for men to govern themselves, though they can do it better than anyone else has ever done it for them. We are making this wonderful experiment here in the new world. The fate of unborn millions hangs on its success. You're done with self and self-seeking. Ambition is a dream that is passed. Good! Lay your life in unselfish sacrifice on the altar of your country. Only the man who has given up ambition is fit for great leadership. He alone dares to seek and know and speak the Truth!"

The tired spirit rose with a new view of human life, its aim and purpose. For eight years he buried himself in the library on his brother's estate. Through the long winter nights the two brilliant minds fought over in friendly contests the battles of the ages until the passion for Truth grew into the one purpose of a great soul.

When the first rumblings of the storm that was to shake a continent broke over the Republic, he stepped forth to take his place in the world of action—the best equipped, most thoroughly trained, most perfectly poised man who had ever entered the arena of American politics.

His rise was brilliant and unprecedented. In his first contest he met the foremost orator of the age, Sergeant Prentiss, and vanquished him on his own ground. In two years he took his seat in Congress, the favorite son of Mississippi.

He had scarcely begun his career, as a lawmaker, when war was declared against Mexico. He resigned his high office, raised a regiment and once more found himself a soldier under the orders of stern old Zachary Taylor.

On his first battle field at the head of his Mississippi regiment, he planted the flag of the Republic on the Grand Plaza of Monterey. And in the supreme crisis of the battle of Buena Vista, with the blood streaming from his wounds, he led his men in a charge against overwhelming odds, turned the tide from defeat to victory and gave the Presidency to the man who had denied to him his daughter's hand.

He hobbled back on crutches to his brother's home in Mississippi amid the shouts and frenzied acclaim of a proud and grateful people. Within three years from the day he entered public life, he took his seat in the Senate Chamber of the United States beside Clay, Calhoun and Webster, the peer of any man within its walls, and with the conscious power of Knowledge and Truth, girded himself for the coming struggle of giants.



The Story



CHAPTER I

THE CURTAIN RISES

"For the Lord's sake, Jennie—"

Dick Welford paused at the bottom of a range of steps which wound up the capitol hill from Pennsylvania Avenue.

The girl standing at the top stamped her foot imperiously.

"Hurry—hurry!"

"I won't—"

"Then I'll leave you!"

The boy laughed.

"You don't dare. It's barely sunup—still dark in spots—the boogers'll get you—"

With a grin he deliberately sat down.

"Dick Welford, you're the laziest white man I ever saw in my life—We won't get a seat, I tell you—"

"We can stand up."

"We won't even get our noses in the door—"

"You don't think these old Senators get up at daylight, do you?"

"They didn't go to bed last night—"

"I'll bet they didn't!" Dick laughed.

"I know one that didn't anyhow—"

"Who?"

"Senator Davis."

"How do you know?"

"Spent the night there. Father stayed so late, Mrs. Davis put me to bed. Regular procession all night long! And among his visitors the Blackest Republican of them all—"

"Old Abe run over from Illinois to say good-by?"

"No, but his right hand man Seward did—"

"Sly old snuff-dipping hypocrite—"

"Anyhow, he's the brains of his party."

"And he called on Jeff Davis last night?"

"Not the first time either. Mrs. Davis told me that when the Senator was so ill with neuralgia and came near losing his sight, Seward came every day, sat in the darkened room and talked for hours to his enemy—"

"That's because he's a Black Republican. Their ways are dark. They like rooms with the shades pulled down—"

"Anyhow he likes Mr. Davis."

"Well, it's good-by to the old Union—how many Senators are going to-day?"

"Yulee and Mallory from Florida, Clay and Fitzpatrick from Alabama and Senator Davis—"

"All in a day?"

"Yes—"

"Jennie, they'll talk their heads off. It'll be three o'clock before the first one finishes. We'll die. Let's go to Mt. Vernon—"

"Dick Welford, I'm ashamed of you. You've no patriotism at all—"

"And I just proposed a pilgrimage to the home of George Washington!"

"You don't care what happens in the Senate Chamber to-day—"

"No—I don't."

The boy's lazy figure slowly rose, mounted the steps, paused and looked down into the tense eager young face.

"You really want to know," he began slowly, "why speaking tires me now?"

"Yes—why?"

"Because it's a waste of breath—we're going to fight!"

The girl flushed with excitement.

"Who told you? What have you heard? Who said so?"

A dreamy look in the boy's eyes deepened.

"Nobody's told me. I just know. It's in the air. A wild duck knows when to go north. A bluebird knows when to move south. It's in the air. That's the way I know—" his voice dropped. "Let's go to Mt. Vernon and spend the day, Jennie—"

The girl looked up sharply. The low persuasive tones were unmistakable.

The faintest flush mantled her cheeks.

"No—I wouldn't miss those speeches for anything. You promised to take me to the Senate gallery. Come on."

With a quick bound the boy scaled the next flight of steps and looked down at her laughing:

"All right, why don't you come on!"

With a frown she sprang up the stone stairs and he caught her step with a sudden military salute. They walked in silence for a few minutes.

"What's the matter with you to-day, Dick Welford?"

"Why, Miss Jennie Barton?"

"I never saw you quite so foolish."

"Maybe it's because I never saw you quite so pretty—"

The little figure stiffened with dignity.

"That will do now, sir—"

"Yessum!"

She threw him a look of quiet scorn as they picked their way through the piles of building material for the unfinished dome of the Capitol and mounted the steps.

Barely half past seven o'clock and the crowds were pouring into the Senate Chamber, its cloak rooms and galleries. Within thirty minutes after they had found seats opposite the diplomatic gallery every inch of space in the great hall was jammed and packed.

Southern women and their escorts outnumbered the others five to one. The Southern wing of official Washington was out in force.

The tense electric atmosphere was oppressive.

The men and women whose eager anxious faces looked down on the circular rows of senatorial chairs and desks were painfully conscious that they were witnessing the final scene of a great historical era.

What the future might hold God alone could know. Their fathers had dreamed a beautiful dream—"E Pluribus Unum"—one out of many. The Union had yet to be realized as an historical fact. The discordant elements out of which our Constitution had been strangely wrought had fought their way at last into two irreconcilable hostile sections, the very structure of whose civilization rested on antagonistic conceptions of life and government.

The Northern Senators were in their seats with grave faces long before the last straggling Southerner picked his way into the Chamber bowing and smiling and apologizing to the ladies on whose richly embroidered dresses he must step or give up the journey.

For weeks the pretense of polite formalities between parties had been unconsciously dropped. Men no longer bowed and smirked and passed the time of day with shallow words.

With heads erect, they glanced at each other and passed on. And if they spoke, it was with taunt, insult and challenge.

Jennie's keen eyes rested on two vacant chairs on the floor of the Senate—every seat was crowded save these two.

She pressed Dick's arm.

"See—the vacant seats of South Carolina!"

"They're not vacant," the boy drawled.

"They are—look—"

"I see a white figure in each—"

"Nonsense!"

"We're going to have war, I tell you! Death sits in those chairs to-day, Jennie—"

"Sh—don't talk like that—"

The boy laughed.

"I'm not afraid, you know—just a sort of second sight—maybe it means I'll be killed—"

* * * * *

South Carolina had felt no forebodings on the day her Convention had recalled those Senators. Kiett the eloquent leader of the Convention sprang to his feet, his face flaming with passion that was half delirium as he shouted:

"This day is the culmination of long years of bitterness, of suffering and of struggle. We are performing a great deed, which holds in its magic not only the stirring present, it embraces the ages yet to come. I am content with what has been done to-day. I shall be content with it to-morrow. We have lowered the body of the old Union to its last resting place. We drop the flag over its grave."

When the vote was announced, without a single dissenting voice, the crowd rose to their feet with a shout of applause which shook the building to its foundations. It died away at last only to rise again with redoubled fury.

Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Florida had followed in rapid succession, Louisiana's Convention was to meet on the twenty-sixth, Texas on February first. On this the twenty-first day of January the Senators from Florida, Mississippi and Alabama had announced their farewell addresses to the Old Union.

The girl's eyes swept the crowded tiers of the galleries packed with beautifully gowned Southern women. Every glove, fan, handkerchief, bonnet or dress—every dainty stocking and filmy piece of lingerie had been imported direct from the fashion centers of Europe. Gowns of priceless lace and velvets had been woven to order in the looms of Genoa, Venice and Brussels.

The South was rich.

And yet not one of her representatives held his office in Washington because of his money. Her ruling classes were without exception an aristocracy of brains—yet they were distinctly an aristocracy.

The election of Abraham Lincoln was more than a threat to confiscate three thousand millions of dollars which the South had invested in slaves. The homely rail splitter from the West was the prophecy of a new social order which threatened the foundations of the modern world. He himself was all unconscious of this fact. And yet this big reality was the secret of the electric tension which strangled men into silence and threw over the scene the sense of ominous foreboding.

The debates in Congress during the tempestuous session had been utterly insincere and without meaning. The real leaders knew that the time for discussion had passed. Two absolutely irreconcilable moral principles had clashed and the Republic was squarely and hopelessly broken into two vast sectional divisions on the issue.

Beyond the fierce and uncompromising hatred of Slavery which had grown into a consuming passion throughout the North and had resulted in the election of Lincoln as a purely sectional candidate—behind and underneath this apparent moral rage lay a bigger and far more elemental fact—the growing consciousness of the laboring man that the earth and the fullness thereof were his.

And bigger than the fear of the confiscation of their property and the destruction of the Constitution their fathers had created loomed before the Southern mind the Specter of a new democracy at the touch of whose fetid breath the soul of culture and refinement they believed must die. In the vulgar ranks of this democracy must march sooner or later four million negroes but yesterday from the jungles of Africa.

This greater issue was felt but dimly by the leaders on either side but it was realized with sufficient clearness to make compromise impossible.

In vain did the aged and the feeble plead once more for compromise. Real men no longer wished it.

The day of reckoning had come. The seeds of this tragedy were planted in the foundation structure of the Republic.

The Union of our fathers, for all the high sounding phrases of its Declaration of Independence was not a democracy. It was from the beginning an aristocratic republic founded squarely on African Slavery. And the degraded position assigned to the man who labored with his hands was recognized in our organic law.

The Constitution itself was the work of a rich and powerful group of leaders in each State, and its provisions were a compromise of conflicting sectional property interests.

The world had moved from 1789 to 1861.

The North was unconsciously lifting the banner of a mighty revolution. The South was clinging with the desperation of despair to the faith of its fathers.

The North was the world of steam and electricity, of new ideas, of progress. The South still believed in the divine inspiration of the men who founded the Republic. They must believe in it, for their racial life depended on it. Four million negroes could not be loosed among five million Southern white people and two such races live side by side under the principles of a pure democracy. Had this issue been put to them in the beginning not one Southern State would have entered the Union.

The Northern workingman, with steam and electricity bringing North and South into closer and closer touch, answered this cry of fear from the South with the ultimatum of democracy:

"This Nation can not endure half slave and half free!"

Back of all the mouthings of demagogues and the billingsgate of sectionalists lay this elemental fact—a democracy against a republic.

Nor could the sword of the Sections settle such an issue. The sectional sword could only settle an issue which grew out of it—whether a group of States holding a common interest in this conflict of principles could combine for their own peace and safety, leave the old Union, form a new one and settle it in their own way.

The North said no—the South said yes. This conviction bigger than party platforms was the brooding terror which brought the sense of tragedy to young and old, the learned and the unlearned—that made young men see visions and maids dream of mighty deeds.

* * * * *

The Southern boy's eyes had again rested on the vacant chairs of the Senators from South Carolina with a set look in their depths.

The crowd turned with sudden stir to the door of the Senate Chamber.

"Look," Jennie cried, "that's Mrs. Clem Clay of Alabama—how pale and beautiful she is! The Senator's going to make the speech of his life to-day. She's scared—Ah, that dress, that dress—isn't it a dream? Did you ever see such a piece of velvet—and—do look at that dear little gold hand holding the skirt up just high enough to see the exquisite lace on her petticoat—"

"Where's the golden hand—I don't see it?" Dick broke in skeptically.

"Don't you see the chain hanging from her waist?"

"Yes, I see that."

"Follow it with your eye and you'll see the hand. The Bayard sisters introduced them from Paris, you know."

The boy had ceased to listen to Jennie's chatter. His eye had suddenly rested on a group of three men seated in the diplomatic gallery—one evidently of high official position by the deference paid him. The man on the left of the official was young, handsome, slender, and pulled the corners of his mustache with a slow lazy touch of his graceful hand. His eyes were fixed on Jennie with a steady gaze. The Minister from Sardinia, of the Court of Victor Emmanuel, sat on the right, bowing and gesticulating with an enthusiasm out of all proportion to the importance of the conversation.

Behind this group sat a fourth man who leaned forward occasionally and whispered to the official. His face was in shadow and the only thing Dick could see was the thick dark brown beard which covered his regular features and a pair of piercing black eyes.

"For heaven's sake, Jennie," the boy cried at last, "who is that villain in the Diplomatic gallery?"

"Where?"

"In the corner there on the right."

"Oh, that's the Sardinian Minister—King Victor Emmanuel's new drummer of trade for Genoa. He's getting ahead of the French, too."

"No—no, I don't mean that little rat. I mean the big fellow with the heavy jaw and a face like a rattlesnake. He's trying to charm you too."

Jennie laughed.

"Silly! That's the new Secretary of War, Joseph Holt."

"A scoundrel, if God ever made one—"

"Because he looks at me?"

"No—that shows his good taste. It's the way he looks at you and moves his crooked mouth and the way he bends his big flat head forward."

"Rubbish—he's a loyal Southerner—and if we have to fight he'll be with us."

"Yes—he—will!"

"Of course, he will. He's careful now. He's in old Buck's cabinet. Wait and see. He called on Mr. Davis last night."

"That's nothing—so did old Seward—"

"Different—Seward's a Black Republican from New York—Holt's a Southern Democrat from Mississippi."

"And who's the young knight by his side with the dear little mustache to which he seems so attached?"

Jennie looked in silence for a moment.

"I never saw him before. He's handsome, isn't he?"

"Looks to me like a young black snake just shed his skin waiting for that old adder to show him how to strike."

"Dick—"

"God save the Queen! They're coming here—they're coming for you—"

The Secretary of War had nodded in recognition of Jennie, risen suddenly, and moved toward the gallery exit with his slender companion.

"Nonsense, Dick—he only bowed because he saw me staring—"

"He's bringing that mustache to meet you—"

The boy turned with a scowl toward the door of their gallery and saw the Secretary of War slowly making his way through the crowd to their seats.

"I told you so—"

Jennie blushed and smiled in friendly response to the Secretary's awkward effort at Southern politeness.

"Miss Barton, may I ask a little favor of you?"

"Certainly, Mr. Holt. Allow me to introduce my friend, Mr. Welford of Virginia."

The Secretary bowed stiffly and Dick nodded his head with indifference.

"The Italian Minister with whom I've just been talking wishes the honor of an introduction for his Secretary. Miss Jennie, will you meet him?"

"Certainly—"

"He's looking forward to the possible new Empire of the South," Holt whispered, "and proposes at an early day to forestall the French—"

Dick threw him a look of scorn as he returned to the door and rose with a scowl.

"I'll go out and get fresh air."

"Don't go—"

"I can't breathe in here. Two's company and three's a crowd."

She seized his arm:

"Please sit down, Dick."

"I'll be back directly—"

In spite of her protest he bounded up the steps of the gallery, turned sharply to the right, avoided the intruders and disappeared in the crowd.

The Secretary of War bowed again:

"Miss Barton, permit me to introduce to you Signor Henrico Socola, Secretary to His Excellency, the Minister of Sardinia."

The slender figure bent low with an easy grace.

"Pleased to meet you, Signor Socola," Jennie responded, lifting the heavy lashes from her lustrous brown eyes with the slightest challenge to his.

"The pleasure is all mine, Mad'moiselle," he gravely replied.

"You'll excuse me now if I hurry on?" the Secretary said, again bowing and disappearing in the crowd.

"Mr. Holt tells me, Miss Barton, that you know every Senator on the floor."

"Yes. My father has been in Congress and the Senate for twenty years."

"You'll explain the drama to me to-day when the curtain rises?"

"If I can."

"I'll be so much obliged—" he paused and the even white teeth smiled pleasantly. "I'm pretty well up on American history but confess a little puzzled to-day. Your Southern Senators are really going to surrender their power here without a struggle?"

"What do you mean?" the girl asked with a slight frown.

"That your Democratic party has still a majority in both the House and the Senate. If the Southern members simply sit still in their places, the incoming administration of Abraham Lincoln will be absolutely powerless. The new President can not even call a cabinet to his side without their consent."

"The North has elected their President," Jennie answered with decision. "The South scorns to stoop to the dishonor of cheating them out of it. They've won the election. They can have it. The South will go and build a government of her own—as we built this one—"

"And fight twenty-three million people of the North?"

"If forced to—yes!"

"With the certainty of an uprising of your slaves at home?"

Jennie laughed.

"Our slaves would fight for us if we'd let them—"

A curious smile twitched the lips of the Italian.

"You speak with great confidence, Miss Barton!"

"Yes. I know what I'm talking about."

The keen eyes watched her from the shadows of the straight thick brows.

"And your Senators who took a solemn oath in entering this Chamber to support the Constitution will leave their seats in violation of that oath?"

The Southern girl flushed, turned with quick purpose to answer, laughed and said with winning frankness:

"You don't mind if I give you my father's answer in his own words? I know them by heart—"

"By all means."

"An oath to support the Constitution of the United States does not bind the man who takes it to support an administration elected by a mob whose purpose is to subvert the Constitution!"

"Oh,—I see," was the quiet response.

"You speak English with perfection, Signor!" Jennie said with a smile.

"Yes, Mad'moiselle, I've spent my life in the Diplomatic service."

He bowed gravely, lifted his head and caught the smile on the lips of the Secretary of War standing in the shadows of the doorway of the Diplomatic gallery.

The stately figure of John C. Breckinridge, the Vice-President, suddenly mounted the dais and his piercing eyes swept the assembly. He rapped for order and the silence which followed was as the hush of death.

"The curtain rises on our drama, Mad'moiselle," the smooth even voice said.

"Sh!" the girl whispered.



CHAPTER II

THE PARTING

The breathless galleries leaned forward to catch the slightest sound from the arena below.

One by one the Senators from the seceding Southern States rose and renounced their allegiance to the United States in obedience to the voice of their people.

With each solemn exit the women of the galleries grew hysterical, waved their perfumed handkerchiefs and shouted their approval with cries of sympathy and admiration.

David Yulee, Stephen K. Mallory and Benjamin Fitzpatrick had each closed his portfolio and with slow measured tread marched down the crowded aisle and out of the Chamber never again to enter its doors.

All eyes were focused now on the brilliant young Senator from Alabama, Clement C. Clay, Jr. It was understood that he had prepared an eloquent defense of his action and would voice the passionate feeling of the masses of the Southern people in this his last utterance in the crumbling temple of the old Republic.

He rose in his place, lifted his strong head with its leonine locks and broad, high forehead, paused a moment and began his speech in the clear steady tones of the trained orator, master of himself, his theme and his audience. The Northern Senators met his gaze with scorn and he answered with a look of bold defiance.

The formal announcement of the secession of his State he made in brief sharp sentences and plunged at once into the reasons for their solemn act.

"Forty-two years ago, Alabama was admitted into the Union," he declared in ringing tones. "She entered it as she goes out, with the Republic convulsed by the hostility of the North to her domestic institutions. Not a decade has passed, not a year has elapsed since her birth as a State that has not been marked by the steady and insolent growth of the mob violence of the North which has demanded the confiscation of her property and the destruction of the foundations of her civilization.

"Who are the leaders of these mobs who seek thus to overthrow the Constitution? Who are these hypocrites who claim the championship of freedom and the moral leadership of the world?

"The men who sold their own slaves to us because they could not use them with profit in a northern climate; the men who built and manned every American slave ship that ever sailed the seas; the sons of old Peter Faneuil of Boston who built Faneuil Hall, their cradle of liberty, out of the profits of slave ships whose trade the Southern people had forbidden by law; the men who have flooded Congress for two generations with petitions to dissolve the Union; the men who threatened to secede with the addition of every foot of territory we have added to our Republic!

"These are the men who have denied to the manhood of the South Christian Communion because they could not endure what they have been pleased to style the moral leprosy of Slavery! These are the men who refuse us permission to sojourn or even pass through the sacred precincts of a Northern State and dare to carry our servants with us. These are the men who deny to the South equal rights in the lands of the West bought by Southern blood and brains and added to our inheritance against their furious protests. These are the men who burn the sacred charters of American Liberty in their public squares, and inscribe on their banners the foul motto:

"'The Constitution is an agreement with Death, a covenant with Hell.'

"These are the men who dare to call us traitors! These are the men who have deliberately passed laws in fourteen Northern States nullifying the provisions of the Constitution of the Union which they have sworn to defend and enforce—"

The speaker paused and lifted high above his head a little morocco bound volume.

"Here in the presence of Almighty God—the God of our fathers, and these witnesses, I read its solemn provisions which the laws of fourteen Northern States have brazenly and openly defied!"

He opened the little book and slowly read:

"'Article 4, Section 2.

"'No person held to service of labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor—but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.'"

He turned suddenly to the Northern Senators:

"Your States have not only repudiated the Constitution you have sworn to uphold, but your emissaries have invaded the peaceful South and sought to lay it waste with fire and sword and servile insurrection. You have murdered Southern men who have dared demand their rights on Northern soil. You have invaded the borders of Southern States, burned their dwellings and murdered their people. You have proclaimed John Brown, the criminal maniac who sought to murder innocent and helpless men, women and children in Virginia, a hero and martyr and then denounced us in your popular meetings, your religious and legislative assemblies as habitual violators of the laws of God and the rights of humanity! You have exerted all the moral and physical agencies that human ingenuity can devise or a devil's malice employ to heap odium and infamy upon us and make the very name of the South a by-word of hissing and of scorn throughout the civilized world—"

He paused overcome with emotion and lifted his hand to stay the burst of applause from the galleries.

"We have borne all this for long years and might have borne it many more under the assurance of our Northern friends that such fanaticism does not represent the true heart of the Northern people. But the fallacy of these promises and the folly of our hopes have been too clearly proven in the late election. The platform of the political party on which you have swept every Northern State and elected a sectional President is a foul libel upon our character and a declaration of open war on the lives and property of the Southern people.

"In defiance of the Constitution which protects our rights your mob has decreed the confiscation of three thousand million dollars' worth of our property. If we claim the protection of our common law, your mob solemnly burns the Constitution in your public squares and denounces it as 'an agreement with Death and covenant with Hell.' We appeal to the Supreme Court of the Republic and when its Judges unanimously sustain our position on every point, your mob cries:

"'Down with the Supreme Court of the United States!'

"You have not only insulted us as unchristian and heathen, you have proclaimed that four million ignorant negroes but yesterday taken from the savagery of cannibal Africa are our equals and entitled to share in the solemn rights of American citizenship. Your declaration is an open summons that they rise in insurrection with the knife in one hand and the torch in the other.

"Your mob has declared the South outlawed, branded with ignominy, consigned to execration and ultimate destruction. Your mob has decreed the death of Slavery and sends the new President to execute their decree.

"All right—kill Slavery and then what? Kill Slavery and what will you do with its corpse? Who shall deliver us from the body of this death? We are not leaving this Hall to fight for the Institution of African Slavery. The grim specter of a degraded and mongrel citizenship which lies back of your mob's programme of confiscation is the force that is driving the Southern people out of the Union to find peace and safety. Whatever may be the sins of Slavery in the South they are as nothing when compared to the degradation of your life which must follow their violent emancipation. The Southern white man is slowly lifting the African out of barbarism into the light of Christian civilization. In our own good time we will emancipate him and start him on a new life beyond the boundaries of our Republic. Whatever may be the differences of opinion in the South on the institution of slavery—there is no difference and there has never been on one point—it was true yesterday—it is true to-day—it will be true to-morrow—Slavery is the only modus viviendi by which two such races as the Negro and the Aryan can live side by side in a free democracy with equality the law of its life—"

Again a burst of tumultuous applause swept the gallery.

"The issue is clear cut and terrible in its simplicity—the South stands on the faith of our fathers who created this Republic. The South stands for Constitutional freedom under the forms of established law. The North has lifted the red flag of revolution and proclaims the irresponsible despotism of an enthroned mob!

"For a generation your school mistresses have been training your boys to hate us and arming them to fight us. Make no mistake about this movement to-day. We who go are but the servants of those who sent us. They now recall their ambassadors, and we obey their sovereign will. Make no mistake about it. They are not a brave and rash people, deluded by bad men, who are attempting in an illegal way to wreck the Union. They seek peace and safety outside driven by the Rebellion against Law and Order within.

"Are we more or less than men? Can we love our enemies and bless them that curse and revile us? Are we devoid of the sensibilities, the sentiments, the passions, the reason, and the instincts of mankind? Have we no pride, no honor, no sense of shame, no reverence for our ancestors, no care for posterity, no love for home, or family or friends? Must we quail before the onion breath of an enthroned mob, confess our baseness, discredit the fame of our sires, degrade our children, abandon our homes, flee from our country and dishonor ourselves—all for the sake of a Union whose Constitution you have publicly burned and whose Supreme Court you have spit upon?

"Shall we consent to live under an administration controlled by those who not only deny us justice and equality and brand us as infamous, but boldly proclaim their purpose to rob us of our property and destroy our civilization?

"The freemen of Alabama have proclaimed to the world they will not. In their sovereign power they have recalled me. As their servant I go!"

With a wave of his hand in an imperious gesture of defiance to the silent Senators of the North, amid a scene of unparalleled passion, the speaker turned to his seat, gathered his books and papers and strode with quick firm step down the aisle.

Jennie had leaped to her feet and stood clapping her hands in a frenzy of excitement, unconscious of the existence of the strangely quiet young man by her side.

He rose and stood smiling into her flushed face as she gasped:

"A wonderful speech—wasn't it?"

"They say the South has never lacked audacity, Miss Barton. I'm wondering if they are really going to make good such words with deeds."

He spoke with a cold detachment that chilled and angered the impulsive girl. A hot answer was on her lips when she remembered suddenly that he was a foreigner.

"Of course, Signor, you can not understand our feelings!"

"On the other hand, I assure you, I do—I'm just wondering in a cold intellectual way whether the oratorical temperament—the temperament of passion, of righteous wrath of the explosive type which we have just witnessed, will win in the trial by fire which war will bring—"

"You doubt our courage?" she interrupted, with a slight curve of the proud little lips.

"Far from it—I assure you! I'm only wondering if it has the sullen, dogged, staying qualities these stolid Northern men down there have exhibited while they listened—"

The girl threw him a quick surprised look and he stopped. His voice had unconsciously taken the tones of a soliloquy.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Barton," he said, with sudden swing to the polite tones of society. "I'm annoying you with my foreign speculations—"

A sudden murmur swept the galleries and all eyes were turned on the tall slender figure of Jefferson Davis as he slowly entered the Senate Chamber.

"Who is it?" Socola asked.

"Senator Davis—you don't know him?"

"I have never seen him before. He has been quite ill I hear."

"Yes. He's been in bed for the past week suffering agonies from neuralgia. He lost the sight of one of his eyes from chronic pain caused by exposure in the service of his country in the northwest."

"Really—I didn't know that."

"He was compelled to remain in a darkened room for months the past year to save the sight of his remaining eye."

"That accounts for my not having seen him before."

Socola followed the straight military figure with painful interest as he slowly moved toward his seat greeting with evident weakness his colleagues as he passed. He was astonished beyond measure at the personality of the famous leader of the "Southern Conspirators" of whom he had heard so much. He was the last man in all the crowd he would have singled out for such a role. The face was too refined, too spiritual, too purely intellectual for the man of revolution. His high forehead, straight nose, thin compressed lips and pointed chin belonged to the poet and dreamer rather than the man of action. The hollow cheek bones and deeply furrowed mouth told of suffering so acute the sympathy of every observer was instantly won.

In spite of evident suffering his carriage was erect, dignified, and graceful. The one trait which fastened the attention from the first and held it was the remarkable intensity of expression which clothed his thin muscular face.

"You like him?" Jennie ventured at last.

"I can't say, Miss Barton," was the slowly measured answer. "He is a remarkably interesting man. I'm surprised and puzzled—"

"Surprised and puzzled at what?"

"Well, you see I know his history. The diplomatist makes it his business to know the facts in the lives of the leaders of a nation to whose Government he is accredited. Mr. Davis spent four years at West Point. He gave seven years of his life to the service of the army in the West. He carried your flag to victory in Mexico and hobbled home on crutches. He was one of your greatest Secretaries of War. He sent George B. McClellan and Robert E. Lee to the Crimea to master European warfare, organized and developed your army, changed the model of your arms, introduced the rifled musket and the minie ball. He explored your Western Empire and surveyed the lines of the great continental railways you are going to build to the Pacific Ocean. He planned and built your system of waterworks in the city of Washington and superintends now the extension of the Capitol building which will make it the most imposing public structure in the world. He has never stooped to play the part of a demagogue. He has never sought an office higher than the role of Senator which fits his character and temperament. His mind has always been busy dreaming of the imperial future of your widening Republic. His eye has seen the vision of its extension to the Arctic on the north and the jungles of Panama on the south. Why should such a man deliberately come into this chamber to-day before this assembled crowd and commit hari-kari?"

"He's a true son of the South!" Jennie Barton proudly answered.

"Even so, how can he do the astounding thing he proposes to carry out to-day? His record shows that passionate devotion to the Union has been the very breath of his life. I've memorized one of his outbursts as a model of your English language—"

Jennie laughed.

"I never heard of his Union speeches, I'm sure!"

"Strange that your people have forgotten them. Listen: 'From sire to son has descended the love of the Union in our hearts, as in our history are mingled the names of Concord and Camden, of Yorktown and Saratoga, of New Orleans and Bunker Hill. Together they form a monument to the common glory of our common country. Where is the Southern man who would wish that monument less by one Northern name that constitutes the mass? Who, standing on the ground made sacred by the blood of Warren, could allow sectional feeling to curb his enthusiasm as he looks upon that obelisk which rises a monument to freedom's and his country's triumph, and stands a type of the time, the men and the event it commemorates; built of material that mocks the waves of time, without niche or molding for parasite or creeping thing to rest upon, pointing like a finger to the sky to raise man's thoughts to high and noble deeds!'"

Socola paused and turned his dark eyes on Jennie's upturned face.

"How can the man who made that speech in Boston do this mad deed to-day?"

"Senator Clay has given the answer," was the girl's quick reply.

"For Senator Clay, yes—the fiery, impulsive, passionate child of emotion. But this thin hollow-cheeked student, thinker and philosopher, who spoke the thrilling words I quote—he should belong to the order of the Prophet and the Seer—the greatest leaders and teachers of history."

"We believe he does, Signor!" was the quick answer. "Look—he's going to speak—you'll hear him now."

Jennie leaned forward, her thoughtful little chin in both hands, as a silence so intense it was pain fell suddenly on the hushed assembly.

The face of the Southern leader was chalk white in its pallor. His first sentences were weak and scarcely reached beyond the circle of his immediate hearers. His physician had forbidden him to leave his room. The iron will had risen to perform a solemn duty. The Senators leaned forward in their arm-chairs fearful of losing a word.

He paused as if for breath and gazed a moment on the upturned faces with the look of lingering tenderness which the dying cast on those upon whom they gaze for the last time.

His figure suddenly rose to its full height, as if the soul within had thrust the feeble body aside to speak its message. His words, full, clear and musical rang to the furthest listener craning his neck through the jammed doorways of the galleries. Never was the music of the human voice more profoundly appealing. Unshed tears were in its throbbing tones.

There was no straining for effect—no outburst of emotion. The impression which reached the audience was the sense of restraint and the consciousness of his unlimited reserve power. Back of the simple clean-cut words which fell in musical cadence from his white lips was the certainty that he was only speaking a small part of what he felt, saw and knew. He neither stormed nor raved and yet he filled the hearts of his hearers with unspeakable passion.

He turned suddenly and bent his piercing single eye on the Northern Senators:

"I hope none who hear me will confound my position with the advocacy of the right of a State to remain in the Union and disregard its Constitutional obligations by the nullification of the law—"

A sudden cheer swept the tense galleries. The sergeant-at-arms called for order. The cheer rose again. The Vice-President rapped for silence and threatened to close the galleries. The speaker lifted his hand and commanded silence.

"It was because of his deep attachment to the Union—his determination to find some remedy for existing ills short of a severance of the ties which bound South Carolina to the other States—that John C. Calhoun advocated the doctrine of nullification which he proclaimed to be peaceful and within the limits of State power.

"Secession belongs to a different class of remedies. It is to be justified upon the basis that the States are sovereign. There was a time when none denied it. The phrase 'to execute the laws' General Jackson applied to a State refusing to obey the law while yet a member of the Union. You may make war on a foreign state. If it be the purpose of gentlemen—"

He paused and again his eagle eye swept the tiers of Northern Senators.

"You may make war against a State which has withdrawn from the Union; but there are no laws of the United States to be executed within the limits of a seceded State—"

Seward leaned forward in his seat and shook his head in grave dissent. The speaker bent his gaze directly upon his great antagonist and spoke with strange regretful tenderness.

"A State finding herself in a condition in which Mississippi has judged she is—in which her safety requires that she should provide for the maintenance of her rights out of the Union—surrenders all the benefits (and they are known to be many), deprives herself of all the advantages (and they are known to be great), severs all the ties of affections (and they are close and enduring) which have bound her to the Union; and thus divesting herself of every benefit—taking upon herself every burden—she claims to be exempt from any power to execute the laws of the United States within her limits.

"When Massachusetts was arraigned before the bar of the Senate for her refusal to permit the execution of the laws of the United States within her borders, my opinion was the same then as now. Her State is sovereign. She never delegated to the Federal Government the power to drive her by force. And when she chooses to take the last step which separates her from the Union, it is her right to go!—"

Another electric wave swept the crowd that burst into applause. The speaker lifted his long arm with an impatient gesture.

"And I would not vote one dollar nor one man to coerce her back into unwilling submission. I would say to her—'God speed in the memory of the kind associations which once existed between her and her sister States.'

"It has been a conviction of pressing necessity—a belief that we are to be deprived in the Union of the rights which our fathers bequeathed us—which has brought Mississippi to her present decision.

"You have invoked the sacred Declaration of Independence as the basis of an attack upon her social order. The Declaration of Independence is to be construed by the circumstances and purposes for which it was made. It was written by a Southern planter and slave owner. The Colonies were declaring their independence from foreign tyranny—were asserting in the language of Jefferson, 'that no man was born booted and spurred to ride over the rest of mankind; that men were created equal'—meaning the men of their American political community; that there was no divine right to rule; that no man could inherit the right to govern; that there were no classes by which power and place descended from father to son; but that all stations were equally within the grasp of each member of the body politic. These were the principles they announced.

"They had no reference to a slave. The same document denounced George III for the crime of attempting to stir their slaves to insurrection, as John Brown attempted at Harper's Ferry. If their Declaration of Independence announced that negroes were free and the equals of English citizens how could the Prince be arraigned for daring to raise servile insurrection among them? And how should this be named among the high crimes of George III which caused the Colonies to sever their connection with the Mother country?

"If slaves were declared our equals how did it happen that in the organic law of the Union they were given a lower caste and their population allowed (and that only through the dominant race) a basis of three-fifths representation in Congress? So stands the compact of Union which binds us together.

"We stand upon the principles on which our Government was founded!—"

The sentence rang clear and thrilling as the peal of a trumpet. The effect was electric. The galleries leaped to their feet, and cheered.

Jennie turned to the silent diplomat.

"Isn't he glorious!"

"He stirs the hearts of men"—was the even answer.

Around them were unmistakable evidences. Women were weeping hysterically and men embracing one another in silence and tears.

Again the Senator's hand was lifted high in command for silence and again he faced Seward and his Northern colleagues with figure tense, erect.

"When you repudiate these principles, and when you deny to us the right to withdraw from a Government which, thus perverted, threatens to destroy our rights, we but tread the path of our fathers when we proclaim our independence and take the hazard!"

Again a cheer and shout which the Vice-President's gavel could not quell. When the murmur at last died away the speaker's voice had dropped to low appealing tenderness.

"We do this, Senators, not in hostility to others, not to injure any section of our common country, not for our own pecuniary benefit, but from the high and solemn motive of defending and protecting the rights we inherited, which we will transmit unshorn to our children. We seek outside the Union that peace, with dignity and honor, which we can no longer find within.

"I trust I find myself a type of the general feeling of my constituents towards yours. I am sure I feel no hostility toward you, Senators from the North—"

He paused and swept the Northern tiers with a look of tender appeal.

"I am sure there is not one of you, whatever sharp discussion there may have been between us, to whom I can not now say in the presence of my God, I wish you well!"

Seward turned his head from the speaker, his eyes dimmed—the scheming diplomat and unscrupulous politician lost in the heart of the man for the moment.

"Such I am sure is the feeling of the people whom I represent toward those whom you represent. I but express their desire when I say I hope and they hope for peaceful relations with you, though we must part—"

He paused as if to suppress emotions too deep for words while a silence, intense and suffocating, held the crowd in a spell. The speaker's voice dropped to still lower and softer notes of persuasive tenderness as each rounded word of the next sentence fell slowly from the thin lips.

"If war must come, we can only invoke the God of our fathers, who delivered us from the power of the lion, to protect us from the ravages of the bear, and putting our trust in Him and in our firm hearts and strong arms we will vindicate the right as best we may—"

No cheer greeted this solemn utterance. In the pause which followed, the speaker deliberately gazed over the familiar faces of his Northern opponents and continued with a suppressed intensity of feeling that gripped his bitterest foe.

"In the course of my service here, associated at different times with a great variety of Senators, I see now around me some with whom I have served long. There have been points of collision, but, whatever offense there has been to me, I leave here. I carry with me no hostile remembrance. For whatever offense I may have given which has not been redressed, or for which satisfaction has not been demanded, I have, Senators, in this solemn hour of our parting to offer you my apology—"

The low musical voice died softly away in the silence of tears.

A woman sobbed aloud.

Socola bent toward his trembling companion and whispered:

"Who is she?"

Jennie brushed the tears from her brown eyes before replying:

"The Senator's wife. She's heart-broken over it all—didn't sleep a wink all night. I've been looking for her to faint every minute."

The leader closed his portfolio. His hollow cheeks, thin lips and white drawn face were clothed with an expression of sorrow beyond words as he slowly turned and left the scene of his life's triumphs.

The spell of his eloquence at last thrown off the crowd once more dissolved into hostile lowering groups.

Stern old Zack Chandler of Michigan collided with Jennie's father in the cloak room, his eyes red with wrath.

"Well, Barton," he growled, "after the damned insolence of that scene if the North don't fight, I'll be much mistaken—"

"You generally are, sir," Barton retorted.

"If they don't fight, by the living God, I'll leave this country and join another nation—the Comanche Indians preferred to this Government."

Barton glanced at his opponent and his heavy jaw closed with a snap.

"I trust, Senator," he said with deliberate venom, "you will not carry out that resolution—the Comanche Indians have already suffered too much from contact with the whites!"

Dick Welford heard the shot and gripped the fierce old Southerner's hand as Chandler turned on his heel and disappeared with an oath.

"You got him that time, Senator!"

Barton laughed with boyish glee.

"I did, didn't I? Sometimes we can only think of our best things when it's too late. But by Gimminy I got the old rascal this time, didn't I?"

"You certainly plugged him—what did you think of the speeches?"

"Clay said something! Davis is too slow. He's got no blood in his veins. I don't like him. He'll pull us back into the Union yet if we don't watch him. He's a reconstructionist at heart. The State of Mississippi is dragging him out of Washington by the heels. He makes me tired. The time for talk has passed. To your tents now, O Israel!"

Dick hurried to the gallery and watched Socola talking in his graceful Italian way with Jennie. He had hated this elegant foreigner the moment he had laid eyes on him. He made up his mind to declare himself before another sun set.

He ignored the Italian's existence.

"You are ready, Miss Jennie?"

She took Dick's proffered arm in silence and bowed to Socola who watched them go with a peculiar smile playing about his handsome mouth.

Jennie insisted on stopping at Senator Davis' home to tell his wife of the wonderful power with which his speech had swept the galleries.

The house was still, the library door open. The girl paused on the threshold in awe. The Senator's tall figure was lying prostrate across his desk, his thin hands clasped in prayer, his face buried in his arms. His lips were murmuring words too low to be heard until at last they swelled in sorrowful repetition:

"May God have us in his holy keeping and grant that before it is too late peaceful councils may prevail!"

The girl turned softly and left without a word.



CHAPTER III

A MIDNIGHT SESSION

The Secretary of War invited Socola to join him at the White House after the Cabinet meeting which President Buchanan had called at the unusual hour of ten at night. He had waited for more than two hours in the anteroom and still the Cabinet was in session. Without show of impatience he smoked cigar after cigar, flicked their ashes into the fireplace and listened with an expression of quiet amusement to the storm raging within while the sleet of a January blizzard rattled against the windows with increasing fury.

Once more the question of the little fort in the harbor of Charleston had plunged the discordant Cabinet of the dying administration into the convulsions of a miniature war.

The feeble old President, overwhelmed by the gathering storm, crouched in the corner by the fire. His emaciated figure was shrouded in a ridiculous old dressing-gown. Mentally and physically prostrate he sat shivering while his ministers wrangled.

He rose at last, shambled to the Cabinet table, and leaned his trembling hands on it for support.

"What can I do, gentlemen—what can I do? If Anderson hadn't gone into that fort at night, the State of South Carolina might not have seceded—"

Stanton shook his massive head with an expression of uncontrollable rage.

"Great God!"

The President continued in feeble, pleading tones:

"Now they tell me that unless Anderson withdraws his troops their presence will provoke bloodshed—"

"Let them fire on him if they dare!" shouted Stanton.

"I cannot plunge my country into fratricidal war. My sands are nearly run. I only ask of God that my sun may not set in a sea of blood—"

He paused and lifted his thin hands, trembling like two withered leaves of aspen in the winter's blast.

"What can I do?"

Stanton suddenly sprang from his seat and confronted the shivering old man.

"I'll tell you what you can not do!"

The President gasped for breath and listened helplessly.

"You can't yield that fort to the conspirators who demand it. Dare to do it, and I tell you, as the Attorney General of the United States, you are guilty of high treason—and by the living God you should be hung!"

The venerable Secretary of the Navy, Isaac Toucey, lifted his hand in protest. Stanton merely threw him a look of scorn, and shouted into the President's face:

"Your act could no more be defended than Benedict Arnold's!"

"And what say you, Holt?" the President asked, turning to his heavy-jawed Secretary of War.

"Send a ship to the relief of Sumter within twenty-four hours, and let South Carolina take the consequences—"

"Good!" Stanton cried.

Holt's crooked mouth was drawn in grim lines, and the left-hand corner was twisted into a still lower knot of ugly muscles. His furtive eyes beneath their shaggy brows glanced quickly around the table to see the effect of his patriotic stand.

The President turned to the white-haired Secretary of the Navy:

"And you, General Toucey?"

The venerable statesman from Connecticut bowed gravely to his Chief and spoke with quiet dignity.

"I would order Anderson to return at once to Fort Moultrie—"

Stanton smashed the table with his big fist.

"And you know that the State of South Carolina has dismantled Fort Moultrie?"

Toucey answered Stanton's bluster with quiet emphasis.

"I'm aware of that fact, sir!"

"And it makes no difference?"

"None whatever. Anderson left Fort Moultrie and moved into Fort Sumter without orders—"

A faint smile flickered about the drooping corners of Holt's mouth—

The speaker turned to Holt:

"As a matter of fact, he moved into that fort against the positive orders of your predecessor, James B. Floyd, the Secretary of War. As he went there without orders, and against orders, he should be ordered back forthwith—"

"With the look of a maddened tiger Stanton flew at him.

"And you expect to go back to Connecticut after making that statement?"

"I do, sir—"

"I couldn't believe it."

"And why, pray?"

"I asked the question in good faith, that I might know the character of the people of Connecticut, or your estimate of them."

The old man drew himself up with cold dignity.

"I have served the people of my State for over forty years—their Congressman, their Attorney General, their Governor, their Senator. I consult no upstart of your feeble record, sir, on any question of principle or policy!"

Stanton quailed a moment beneath the cold scorn of his antagonist, surprised that another man should dare to use his methods of invective.

He lifted his hands with a gesture of contempt.

"All I can say is, that if I should dare take that position and return to the State of Pennsylvania, I should expect to be stoned the moment I set foot on her soil, stoned through the State and flung into the river at Pittsburg with a stone around my neck—"

Toucey stared at his opponent.

"And in my opinion they would deserve well of their country for the performance!"

While his Cabinet wrangled, the feeble, old man in the faded wrapper shambled to the window and gazed with watery eyes on the swaying trees of the White House grounds. The sleet had frozen in shining crystals and every limb was hung in diamonds. The wind had risen to hurricane force, howling and shrieking its requiem through the chill darkness. A huge bough broke and fell to the ground with a crash that sent a shiver through his distracted soul.

He turned back to the table to hear their decision. It came with but one dissenting voice, Toucey, Secretary of the Navy.

"A ship be sent at once to the relief of Sumter."

With stubborn terror the President refused to sign the order for an armed vessel. At one o'clock they compromised on the little steamer, Star of the West, and Buchanan agreed that she should attempt to land provisions for Anderson's fifty-odd men.

Holt hurried from the council chamber at one o'clock with a smile of triumph playing about his sinister mouth. His plan had succeeded. He had worked Stanton as the legal adviser of the President exactly as he had foreseen. The little steamer would test the mettle of the men of South Carolina who were training their batteries on Fort Sumter. If they dared to fire on her—all right—the lines of battle would be drawn.

He seized Socola's arm.

"Come with me to the War Office."

Inside, he closed the door, inspected the room in every nook and corner for a possible eavesdropper, seated himself and leaned close to his attentive listener.

"I have established your character now through your connection with the Minister from Sardinia beyond the possibility of any doubt. Your position will not be called in question. You will appear in the South as the representative, unofficial and yet duly accredited, for King Victor Emmanuel. Your purpose will be, of course, the cultivation of friendly relations with the officials of the new Government looking to the day of its coming recognition—you understand?"

"Perfectly—"

"You have absolutely consecrated your life, and every talent, to your country?"

"Body and soul—"

The dark eyes flashed with the light of a religious fanatic.

"Good." The Secretary paused and studied his man a moment.

"I introduced you to the girl not merely to obtain an invaluable witness to your credentials should they be questioned—but for a double purpose."

Socola nodded.

"I guessed as much."

"She's bright, young, pretty, and you can pass the time pleasantly in her company. The association will place you in a strong position. Her father is a fool—the storm petrel of Secession. He has the biggest mouth in America, barring none. His mouth is so huge, they'll never find a muzzle big enough if they could get men enough around him to put it on. He's bound to land somewhere high in the councils of the coming Confederacy—"

"There'll be one?"

Holt smiled.

"You doubt it?"

"It may be bluster after all."

"Men of the Davis type don't bluster, my boy. They are to meet at Montgomery, Alabama, on February fourth. They'll organize the Cotton States into a Southern Confederacy. If they can win Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas, they may gobble Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri—all Slave States. If they get them all—they'll win without a fight, and reconstruct the Union on their own terms; if they don't—well, we'll see what we'll see—"

"And you wish?"

"That you get for me—and get quickly—inside information of what is done and what is proposed to be done at Montgomery. I want the names of every man discussed for high office among them, his chances of appointment, his friends, his enemies—why they are his friends, why they are his enemies. I want their plans, their prospects, their hopes, their fears, and I want this information quickly. You will be supplied with ample funds, and your report must be made to me in person. My tenure of this office will be but a few weeks longer—but you are my personal representative, you understand?"

"Quite."

"Your report must be in person to me, and to me alone."

"I understand, sir."

Socola rose, extended his hand, drew his cloak about his slender shoulders and passed out into the storm, his dark face lighted by a smile as he recalled the winsome face of Jennie Barton.



CHAPTER IV

A FRIENDLY WARNING

The withdrawal of the Southern Senators and Representatives from Congress produced in Washington the upheaval of a social earthquake.

An atmosphere of tears and ominous foreboding hung pall-like over the city's social life. Each step in the departure of wives and daughters was a pang.

Carriages drawn by sleek, high-bred horses dashed through the broad streets with excited haste. The black coachman on the box held his reins with a nervous grip that communicated itself to the horses. He had caught the excitement in the quivering social structure of which he was part. What he was really thinking down in the depths of his African soul only God could see. His dark face merely grinned in quick obedience to command.

From every house where these farewells were being said, a weeping woman emerged and waved a last adieu to the tear-stained faces at the window.

Wagons and carts lumbered through the streets on their way to the wharf or station, piled high with baggage.

Hotel-keepers stood in the doorway of their establishments with darkened brows. The glory of the past was departing. The future was a blank.

On the morning after his farewell address to the Senate, a messenger, who refused to give his name, was ushered into the library of Senator Davis.

The stately black butler bowed again with quiet dignity.

"Yo' name, sah? I—failed to catch it?"

The messenger lifted his hand:

"No name. Please say to the Senator that I came from an important official with a message of the gravest importance—I wish to see him alone at once—"

The faithful servant eyed his visitor with an ominous look. There was no question of his loyalty to the man he served.

"It's all right, Robert, I'm a friend of Senator Davis."

A moment's hesitation and the black man bowed with deference.

"Yassah—yassah—I tell him right away, sah. You sho' knows me anyhow, sah—"

The Senator was in bed suffering again from facial neuralgia. He rose promptly, dressed hastily but completely and carefully and extended both hands to his visitor.

"You have come to see me at an unusual hour, sir. It must be important—"

"Of the utmost importance, Senator. A high official in the confidence of the President sent me to inform you that Stanton, the Attorney General, is planning to issue a warrant for your arrest for high treason."

"Indeed?"

"You are advised to leave Washington on the first train."

A dry smile flickered about the corners of the Senator's strong mouth.

"Thank you. Please say to my friend that I appreciate the spirit that prompted his message. Ask him to say to Mr. Stanton that I have decided to remain in Washington a week. Nothing would please me better than to submit this issue to the courts for adjustment. He will find me at home every day and at all hours."



CHAPTER V

BOY AND GIRL

From the moment Dick Welford had seen Socola bowing and smiling before Jennie Barton he had hated the man. He hated foreigners on general principles, anyhow. This kind of foreigner he particularly loathed—the slender, nervous type which suggested over-refinement to the point of effeminacy. He had always hated slender, effeminate-looking men of the native breed. This one was doubly offensive because he was an Italian. How any woman with true womanly instincts could tolerate such a spider was more than he could understand.

Jennie Barton had always frankly said that she admired men of his own type. He was six feet one, fair-haired, blue-eyed, and weighed a hundred and ninety-six pounds at twenty-one years of age. He had always felt instinctively that he was exactly the man for Jennie's mate. She was nineteen, dark and slender, a bundle of quick, sensitive, nervous intelligence. Her brown eyes were almost black and her luxuriant hair seemed raven-hued beside his. He had always imagined it nestling beside his big blond head in perfect contentment since the first summer he had spent with Tom Barton at their cottage at the White Sulphur Springs.

He had taken it for granted that she would say yes when he could screw up his courage to speak. She had treated him as if he were already in the family.

"Confound it," he muttered, clenching his big fist, "that's what worries me! Maybe she just thinks of me as one of her brothers!"

It hadn't occurred to him until he saw the light kindle in her eyes at the sight of that smooth-tongued reptilian foreigner. He was on his way now to her house, to put the thing to the test before she could leave Washington. Thank God, the spider was tied down here at the Sardinian Ministry. He hoped Victor Emmanuel would send him as Consul to Shanghai.

Mrs. Barton met him at the door with a motherly smile.

"Walk right in the parlor, Dick. It's sweet of you to come so early to-day. We're all in tears, packing to go. Jennie'll be delighted to see you. Poor child—she's sick over it all."

Mrs. Barton pressed Dick's hand with the softest touch that reassured his fears. The only trouble about Mrs. Barton was she was gentle and friendly to everybody, black and white, old and young, Yankee or Southerner. She was even sorry for old John Brown when they hung him.

"Poor thing, he was crazy," she said tenderly. "They ought to have sent him to the asylum."

Try as he might, he couldn't fling off the impression of tragedy the meeting of Socola with Jennie had produced. He was in a nervous fit to see and tell her of his love. Why the devil hadn't he done so before anyhow? They might have been engaged and ready to be married by this time. They had met when she was sixteen.

Why on earth couldn't he throw off the fool idea that he was going to lose her? His big fist suddenly closed with resolution.

"I'll not lose her! I'll wring that viper's neck—I'll wade through blood and death and the fires of h—"

Just as he was plunging waist deep through the flames of the Pit, she appeared in the door, the picture of wistful, tender beauty.

He rose awkwardly and extended his hand.

"Good morning, Dick!"

"Good morning, Jennie—"

Her hand was hot, her eyes heavy with tears.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"As if you didn't know—I've been saying good-by to some of the dearest friends I've ever known. It's terrible. I just feel it's the end of the world—"

He started to say: "Don't worry, Jennie darling, you have me. I love you!" The thought of it made the cold beads of perspiration suddenly stand out on his forehead. It was one thing to think such things—another to say it aloud to a girl with Jennie's serious brown eyes.

She seemed terribly serious this morning and far away somehow. Never had he seen her so utterly lovely. The mood of tender seriousness made her more beautiful than ever. If he only dared to crush her in his arms and laugh the smiles back into her eyes.

When he spoke it was only a commonplace he managed to blurt out:

"So you're really going to-morrow?"

"Yes—we've telegraphed the boys to come home from school at once and join us in Montgomery."

He tried to say it again, but the speech turned out to be political, not personal.

"Of course Virginia'll stand by her Southern sisters, Jennie—"

"Yes—"

"It's just a few old moss-backs holding her. No army will ever march across her soil to fight a Southern State—"

"I hope not."

"Of course not. I'll meet them on the border with one musket anyhow—"

The girl was looking out the window at the slowly drizzling rain and made no answer. He flushed at her apparent indifference to his heroic stand.

"Don't you believe I would?"

"Would what, Dick?" she smiled, recovering herself from her reverie.

It was no use beating about the bush, trying to talk politics. He had to make the plunge.

He suddenly took her hand in his.

She threw him a startled look, sat bolt upright, made the faintest effort to draw her hand away, and blushed furiously.

He was in for it now. There was no retreat. He gripped with desperate earnestness, tried to speak, and choked.

He drew a deep breath, tried again and only squeezed her hand harder.

The girl began to smile in a sweet, triumphant way. It was nice, this conscious power over a big, stunning six-footer who grasped her hand as a drowning man a straw. The sense of her strength was thrilling.

She looked at him with demure reproach.

"Dick!"

He grinned sheepishly and clung to her hand.

"Yes—Jennie—"

"Do you know what you are doing?"

"No—but—I know—what—I'm—trying—to—do—and—I'm—going—to—do—it—"

Again his big hand crushed hers.

"You're trying to break every bone in my hand as near as I can make out—I'd like it back when you're through with it—"

He found his tongue at last:

"I—I—can't let you have it back, Jennie, I'm going to keep it forever—"

"Really?"

"Yes—I am. I—I love you—Jennie—don't you love me—just—a—little bit?"

The girl laughed.

"No!"

"Not the least—little—tiny—bit?"

"I don't think so—"

The hand slipped through his limp fingers and he stared at her in a hopeless, pitiful way.

Her heart went out in a wave of tender sympathy. She put her hand back in his in a wistful touch.

"I'm sorry, Dick dear, I didn't think you loved me in that way—"

"What did you think I was hanging round you so much for?"

"I knew you liked me, of course. And I like you—but I've never thought seriously about love."

"There's no other fellow?"

"Of course, not—"

"You liked that Socola, didn't you?"

"I liked him—yes—"

"I thought so."

"He's cultured, handsome, interesting—"

"He's a sissy!"

"Dick!"

"A little wizened-faced rat—the spider-snake! I could break his long neck. Yes—you do like him! I saw it when you met him. You're throwing me down because you met him!"

"Dick!"

"But he shan't have you, I tell you—I'll show him I could lick a thousand such sissies with one hand tied behind me."

The girl rose with dignity.

"Don't you dare to speak to me like that, sir—"

"You're going to see that fellow again—I'll bet you've got an engagement with him now—to-night—to-day!"

The slender figure rose.

"I'll see him if I please—when I please and where I please and I'll not consult you about it, Dick Welford—Good day!"

Trembling with anger the big, awkward boy turned and stumbled out of the house.



CHAPTER VI

GOD'S WILL

Dick Welford had played directly into the hands of his enemy. When Socola called at the Barton home to pay his respects to Miss Jennie and wish them health and happiness and success in their new and dangerous enterprise, he found the girl in a receptive mood. The accusation of interest had stimulated her to her first effort to entertain the self-poised and gentlemanly foreigner.

He turned to Jennie with a winning appeal in his modulated voice:

"Will you do me a very great favor, Miss Barton?"

"If I can—certainly," was the quick answer.

"I wish to meet your distinguished father. He is a great Southern leader. I have been commissioned by the Sardinian Ministry to cultivate the acquaintance of the leaders of the Confederacy. I am to make a report direct to the Court of King Emmanuel on the prospects of the South."

Jennie rose with a smile.

"With pleasure. I'll call father at once."

Barton was delighted at the announcement.

"Invite him to spend a week with us at Fairview," Jennie suggested.

"Good idea—we'll show him what Southern hospitality means!"

Burton grasped Socola's outstretched hand with enthusiasm.

"Permit me," he began in his grand way, "to extend you a welcome to the South. Your King is interested in our movement. It's natural. Europe must reckon with us from the first. Cotton is the real King. We are going to build on this staple an industrial empire whose influence will dominate the world. The sooner the political rulers realize this the better."

Socola bowed.

"I quite agree with you, Senator Barton. His Majesty King Victor Emmanuel has great plans for the future. He is profoundly interested in your movement. He does not believe that the map of Italy has yet been fixed. It will be quite easy to convince his brilliant, open mind that the boundaries of this country may be readjusted—"

"I shall be delighted to show you every courtesy within my power, sir," Barton responded. "You must go South with us to-morrow and spend a week at Fairview, our country estate. You must meet my grand old father and my mother and see the curse of slavery at its worst!"

Barton laughed heartily and slipped his arm persuasively about the graceful shoulders of his guest.

"I hadn't thought of being so honored, I assure you—"

He paused and looked at Jennie with a timid sort of appeal.

"Come with us—we'll be delighted to have you—"

"I'll enjoy it, I'm sure," he said hesitatingly. "We will reach Montgomery in time for the meeting of the Convention of Seceding States?"

"Certainly," Barton replied. "I'm already elected a delegate from my State. Her secession is but a question of days."

Socola's white, even teeth gleamed in a happy smile.

"I'll go with pleasure, Senator. You leave to-morrow?"

"The ten-twenty train for the South. You'll join our party, of course?"

"Of course."

With a graceful bow he hurried home to complete the final preparations for his departure. He walked with quick, strong step. And yet as he approached the door of the little house in the humbler quarter of the city his gait unconsciously slowed down.

He dreaded this last struggle with his mother. But it must come. He entered the modestly furnished sitting room and looked at her calm, sweet face with a sudden sinking. She would be absolutely alone in the world. And yet no harm could befall her. She was the friend of every human being who knew her. It was the agony of this parting he dreaded and the loneliness that would torture her in his absence.

He spoke with forced cheerfulness.

"Well, mater, it's all settled. I leave at ten-twenty to-morrow morning."

She rose and placed her hands on his shoulders. The tears blinded her.

"How little I thought when I taught your boyish lips to speak the musical tongue of Italy I was preparing this bitter hour for my soul! I begged your father to resign his consulship at Genoa and brought you home to teach you the great lesson—to love your country and reverence your country's God. And since your father's death the dream of my heart has been to see you a minister, teaching and uplifting the people into a higher and nobler life—"

"That is my aim, mater dear. I am consecrating body, mind and soul to the task now of saving the Union, an inheritance priceless and glorious to millions yet unborn. I'm going to break the chains that bind slaves. I'm going to break the brutal and cruel power of the Southern Tyranny that has been strangling the nation for forty years!"

His eyes flashed with the fire of fanatical enthusiasm.

He slipped his arm about his mother's slender waist, drew her to the window and pointed to the unfinished dome of the white, majestic capitol.

"See, mater dear, the sun is bursting through the clouds now and lighting with splendor the marble columns. Last night when the speeches were done and the crowds gone I stood an hour and studied the flawless symmetry of those magnificent wings and over it all the great solemn dome with its myriad gleaming eyes far up in the sky—and I wondered if God meant nothing big or significant to humanity when he breathed the dream of that poem in marble into the souls of our people! I can't believe it, dear. I stood and prayed while I dreamed. I saw in the ragged scaffolding and the big ugly crane swinging from its place in the sky the symbol of our crude beginnings—our ragged past. And then the snow-white vision of the finished building, the most majestic monument ever reared on earth to Freedom and her cause—and I saw the glory of a new Democracy rising from the blood and agony of the past to be the hope and inspiration of the world!

"You hate this masquerade—this battle name I've chosen. Forget this, dear, and see the vision your God has given to me. You've prayed that I might be His minister. And so I am—and so I shall be when danger calls; you dislike this repulsive mission on which I'm entering. Just now it's the one and only thing a brave man can do for his country. Forget that I'm a spy and remember that I'm fitted for a divine service. I speak two languages beside my own. Our people don't study languages. Few men of my culture and endowment will do this dangerous and disagreeable work. I rise on wings at the thought of it!"

The mother's spirit caught at last the divine spark from the soul of the young enthusiast. Her eyes were wide and shining without tears when she slipped both arms about his neck and spoke with deep tenderness.

"You have fully counted the cost, my son?"

"Yes."

"The lying, the cheating, the false pretenses, the assumed name, the trusting hearts you must betray, the men you must kill alone, sometimes to save your own life and serve your country's?"

"It's war, mater dear. I hate its cruelty and its wrongs. I'll do my best in these early days to make it impossible. But if it comes, I'll play the game with my life in my hands, and if I had a hundred lives I'd give them all to my country—my only regret is that I have but one—"

"How strange the ways of God!" the mother broke in. "He planted this love in your soul. He taught it to me and I to you and now it ends in darkness and blood and death—"

"But out of it, dear, must come the greater plan. You believe in God—you must believe this, or else the Devil rules the universe, and there is no God."

The mother drew the young lips down and kissed them tenderly.

"God's will be done, my Boy—it's the bitterness of death to me—but I say it!"



CHAPTER VII

THE BEST MAN WINS

Before Socola could purchase his ticket for the South, Senator Barton laid his heavy hand on his shoulder.

"I just ran down, sir, to ask you to wait and go in Senator Davis' party. He has been threatened with arrest by the cowards who are at the present moment in charge of the Government. He can't afford to leave town while there's a chance that so fortunate an event may be pulled off. I have decided to stay until Lincoln's inauguration. My wife and daughter will make you welcome at Fairview. And you'll meet my three boys. I'm sorry I can't be with you."

Socola's masked face showed no trace of disappointment. He merely asked politely:

"And the party of Senator Davis will start?"

"A week from to-day, sir—and my wife and daughter will accompany them—unless—of course—"

He laughed heartily.

"Unless the great Attorney General, Edwin M. Stanton, decides to arrest him—if he'll only do it!"

Socola nodded carelessly.

"I understand, Senator. A week from to-day. The same hour—the same train."

In a moment he had disappeared in the crowd and hurried to the office of the Secretary of War.

Holt received his announcement with a smile about the corners of his strong, crooked mouth.

"That's lucky. I'd rather you were with Davis ten to one. Amuse yourself for the week by getting all the information possible of their junta here—"

"Barton will stay until the inauguration—"

"Of course—a spy in the camp of the enemy. He could be arrested, but it's not wise under the circumstances—"

"You will not arrest Senator Davis?"

"Nonsense. Stanton's a fool. Nothing would please them better. I've convinced him of that. A wrangle in the courts now over such an issue would postpone its settlement indefinitely. The Supreme Court of the United States has sustained the South on every issue that has been raised. The North is leading a revolution. The South is entrenched behind the law. They can't be ousted by law. It can only be done by the bayonet—"

Holt paused and looked thoughtfully across the Potomac.

"Report to me daily—"

Socola silently saluted and left the office with his first feeling of suspicion and repulsion for his Chief. He didn't like the blunt, brutal way this Southern Democrat talked. He couldn't believe in his honesty. Beneath those bushy eyebrows burned a wolf's hunger for office and power. On the surface he was loyal to the Union. He wondered if he were not in reality playing a desperate waiting game, ready at the moment of the crisis to throw his information to either side? The air of Washington reeked with suspicion and double dealing.

"Oh, my Country," he murmured bitterly, "if ever true men were needed!"

He strolled through the street on which Senator Davis and Barton lived directly opposite each other. He would call on Jennie and express his regret that their party had been postponed. At the door he changed his mind. Too much attention at this stage of the game would not be wise. He passed on, glancing at the distinguished-looking group of men who were emerging from the Davis door.

He wondered what was going on in that home? It seemed impossible that Davis should be the leader of a Southern rebellion. Clay or Toombs, yes—but this man with his blood-marked history of devotion to the Union—this man with his proud record of constructive statesmanship as Senator and Secretary of War—it seemed preposterous!

Could he have heard the counsel Davis was giving at that moment to the excited men who made his unpretentious house their Mecca, he would have been still more astonished. For six days and nights with but a few hours snatched for sleep, he implored the excited leaders of Southern opinion to avoid violence, and be patient. The one note of hopefulness in his voice came with the mention of the new President-elect, Abraham Lincoln.

"Mr. Lincoln is a man of friendly, moderate opinions personally," he persistently advised. "He may he able to surround himself with a council of conservative men who will use their power to hold the radical wing of his party in check until by delay we can call a convention of all the States and in this national assembly find a solution short of bloodshed. We must try. We must exhaust every resource before we dream of war. We must accept war only when it is forced upon us by our enemies."

By telegrams and letters to every Southern leader he knew he urged delay, moderation, postponement of all action.

The week passed and the Cabinet of Buchanan had not dared accept the Southern leader's challenge to arrest and trial.

The Davis party had found their seats in the train for the South. Socola strolled the platform alone, waiting without sign of interest for the hour of departure.

Dick Welford arrived five minutes before the train left and extended his hand to Jennie.

"Forgive me, Jennie!"

With a bright smile she clasped his hand.

"Of course, Dick—I took your silly ravings too seriously."

"No—I was a fool. I'll make up for it. I'll go over now and shake hands with the reptile if you say so—"

"Nonsense—you'll not do anything of the sort. He's nothing to me. He's the guest of the South—that's all."

"Honest now, Jennie—you don't care for any other fellow?"

"Nor for you, either!" she laughed.

"Of course, I know that—but I can keep on trying, can't I?"

"I don't see how I can prevent it!"

Dick grinned good-naturedly and Jennie laughed again.

"You're in for a siege with me, I'll tell you right now."

"It's a free fight, Dick. I'm indifferent to the results."

"Then you don't mind if I win?"

"Not in the least. At the present moment I'm a curious spectator—that's all."

"Lord, I wish I were going with you—"

"I wish so, too—"

"Honest, Jennie?"

"Cross my heart—"

Dick laughed aloud.

"Say—I tell you what I'm going to do!"

"Yes?"

"If Virginia don't secede in ten days—I will. I'll resign my job here with old Hunter and join the Confederacy. I don't like this new clerkship business anyhow—expect me in ten days—"

Before Jennie could answer he turned suddenly and left the car.

At the end of the platform he ran squarely into Socola. He was about to pass without recognition, stopped on an impulse, and extended his hand:

"Fine day, Signor!"

"Beautiful, M'sieur," was the smooth answer.

Dick hesitated.

"I'm afraid I was a little rude the other day?"

"No offense, I'm sure, Mr. Welford—"

"Of course, you can guess I'm in love with Miss Barton—"

"I hadn't speculated on that point!" Socola laughed.

"Well, I've been speculating about you—"

"Indeed?"

"Yes—and I'm going to be honest with you—I don't like you—we're enemies from to-day. But I'll play the game fair and the best man wins—"

The two held each other's eye steadily for a moment and Socola's white teeth flashed.

"The best man wins, M'sieur!"



CHAPTER VIII

THE STORM CENTER

Socola hastened, through Jennie, to cultivate the acquaintance of Senator Davis.

"You'll be delighted with Mrs. Davis, too," the girl informed him with enthusiasm. "His second love affair you know—this time, late in life, he married the young accomplished granddaughter of Governor Howell of New Jersey. Their devotion is beautiful—"

The train had barely pulled out of the station before Socola found himself in a delightful conversation with the Senator. To his amazement he discovered that the Southerner was a close student of European statesmanship and well informed on the conditions of modern Italy.

"I am delighted beyond measure, Signor," he said earnestly, "to learn of the interest of your King in the South. I have long felt that Cavour was one of the greatest statesmen and diplomats of the world. His achievement in establishing the Kingdom of Sardinia in the face of the bitter rivalries and ambitions of Europe, to say nothing of the power of Rome, was in itself enough to mark him as the foremost man of his age."

"The King has great ambitions, Senator. Very shortly his title will be King of Italy. He dreams of uniting all Italians."

"And if it is possible, the Piedmontese are the people ordained for leadership in that sublime work—"

He looked thoughtfully out of the window at the Virginia hills and Socola determined to change the conversation. He was fairly well informed of the affairs in the little Kingdom on whose throne young Victor Emmanuel sat, but this man evidently knew the philosophy of its history as well as the facts. A question or two with his keen eye boring through him might lead to an unpleasant situation.

"Your family are all with you, Senator?" he asked pleasantly.

Instantly the clouds lifted from the pale, thoughtful face.

"Yes—I've three darling babies. I wish you to meet Mrs. Davis—come, they are in the next car."

In a moment the statesman had forgotten the storm of revolution. He was laughing and playing with his children. However stern and high his uncompromising opinions might be on public questions, he was wax in the hands of the two lovely boys who climbed over him and the vivacious little girl who slipped her arms about his neck. His respite from care was brief. At the first important stop in Virginia a dense crowd had packed the platforms. Their cries throbbed with anything but the spirit of delay and compromise.