It was impossible to leave for a trip home. It would mean the loss of at least four days. Yet his anxiety at last became so intense that he determined to rearrange his dates and swing his campaign into the territory near the Capital at once. It was not a good policy. He would risk the loss of the c.u.mulative power of his work now sweeping from county to county, a resistless force. But it would enable him to return home for a few hours between his appointments.
There had been nothing in Tom"s reports to arouse his fears. The boy had faithfully carried out his instructions to give no information that might annoy him. His brief letters were bright, cheerful, and always closed with the statement: "Everything all right at home, and I"m still jollying the professor about supporting the cause he hates."
When he reached the county adjoining the Capital his anxiety had reached a point beyond endurance. It would be three days before he could connect with a schedule of trains that would enable him to get home between the time of his hours to speak. He simply could not wait.
He telegraphed to Tom to send Andy to the meeting next day with a bound volume of the paper for the year 1866 which contained some facts he wished to use in his speech in this district.
Andy"s glib tongue would give him the information he needed.
The train was late and the papers did not arrive in time. He was compelled to leave his hotel and go to the meeting without them.
An enormous crowd had gathered. And for the first time on his tour he felt hostility in the glances that occasionally shot from groups of men as he pa.s.sed. The county was noted for its gangs of toughs who lived on the edge of a swamp that had been the rendezvous of criminals for a century.
The opposition had determined to make a disturbance at this meeting and if possible end it with a riot. They counted on the editor"s fiery temper when aroused to make this a certainty. They had not figured on the cool audacity with which he would meet such a situation.
When he reached the speaker"s stand, the county Chairman whispered:
"They are going to make trouble here to-day."
"Yes?"
"They"ve got a speaker who"s going to demand a division of time."
The editor smiled:
"Really?"
"Yes," the Chairman said, nodding toward a tall, ministerial-looking individual who was already working his way through the crowd. "That"s the fellow coming now."
Norton turned and confronted the chosen orator of the opposition, a backwoods preacher of a rude native eloquence whose name he had often heard.
He saw at a glance that he was a man of force. His strong mouth was clean of mustache and the lower lip was shaved to the chin. A long beard covered the ma.s.sive jaws and his hair reached the collar of his coat. He had been a deserter during the war, and a drunken member of the little Scalawag Governor"s famous guard that had attempted to rule the state without the civil law. He had been converted in a Baptist revival at a crossroads meeting place years before and became a preacher. His religious conversion, however, had not reached his politics or dimmed his memory of the events of Reconstruction.
He had hated Norton with a deep and abiding fervor from the day he had escaped from his battalion in the Civil War down to the present moment.
Norton hadn"t the remotest idea that he was the young recruit who had taken to his heels on entering a battle and never stopped running until he reached home.
"This is Major Norton?" the preacher asked.
"Yes," was the curt answer.
"I demand a division of time with you in a joint discussion here, sir."
Norton"s figure stiffened and he looked at the man with a flush of anger:
"Did you say demand?"
"Yes, sir, I did," the preacher answered, snapping his hard mouth firmly.
"We believe in free speech in this county."
Norton placed his hands in his pockets, and looked him over from head to foot:
"Well, you"ve got the gall of the devil, I must say, even if you do wear the livery of heaven. You demand free speech at my expense! I like your cheek. It cost my committee two hundred dollars to advertise this meeting and make it a success, and you step up at the last moment and demand that I turn it over to your party. If you want free speech, hire your own hall and make it to your heart"s content. You can"t address this crowd from a speaker"s stand built with my money."
"You refuse?"
Norton looked at him steadily for a moment and took a step closer:
"I am trying to convey that impression to your mind. Must I use my foot to emphasize it?"
The long-haired one paled slightly, turned and quickly pushed his way through the crowd to a group awaiting him on the edge of the brush arbor that had been built to shelter the people from the sun. The Chairman whispered to Norton:
"There"ll be trouble certain--they"re a tough lot. More than half the men here are with him."
"They won"t be when I"ve finished," he answered with a smile.
"You"d better divide with them----"
"I"ll see him in h.e.l.l first!"
Norton stepped quickly on the rude pine platform that had been erected for the speaker and faced the crowd. For the first time on his trip the cheering was given with moderation.
He saw the preacher walk back under the arbor and his men distribute themselves with apparent design in different parts of the crowd.
He lifted his hand with a gesture to stop the applause and a sudden hush fell over the eager, serious faces.
His eye wandered carelessly over the throng and singled out the men he had seen distribute themselves among them. He suddenly slipped his hand behind him and drew from beneath his long black frock coat a big revolver and laid it beside the pitcher of lemonade the Chairman had provided.
A slight stir swept the crowd and the stillness could be felt.
The speaker lifted his broad shoulders and began his speech in an intense voice that found its way to the last man who hung on the edge of the crowd:
"Gentlemen," he began slowly, "if there"s any one present who doesn"t wish to hear what I have to say, now is the time to leave. This is my meeting, and I will not be interrupted. If, in spite of this announcement, there happens to be any one here who is looking for trouble"--he stopped and touched the shining thing that lay before him--"you"ll find it here on the table--walk right up to the front."
A cheer rent the air. He stilled it with a quick gesture and plunged into his speech.
In the intense situation which had developed he had forgotten the fear that had been gnawing at his heart for the past weeks.
At the height of his power over his audience his eye suddenly caught the black face of Andy grinning in evident admiration of his master"s eloquence.
Something in the symbolism of this negro grinning at him over the heads of the people hanging breathless on his words sent a wave of sickening fear to his heart. In vain he struggled to throw the feeling off in the midst of his impa.s.sioned appeal. It was impossible. For the remaining half hour he spoke as if in a trance. Unconsciously his voice was lowered to a strange intense monotone that sent the chills down the spines of his hearers.
He closed his speech in a silence that was strangling.
The people were dazed and he was half-way down the steps of the rude platform before they sufficiently recovered to break into round after round of cheering.
He had unconsciously made the most powerful speech of his life, and no man in all the crowd that he had hypnotized could have dreamed the grim secret which had been the source of his inspiration.