utmost importance. If there is a faint heart among you, now is the time to retire"
"We are with you!" cried the men.
"There are laws of our race, old before this Republic was born in the souls of white freemen. The fiat of fools has repealed on paper these laws. Your fathers who created this Nation were first Conspirators, then Revolutionists, now Patriots and Saints. I need to-night ten volunteers to lead the coming clansmen over this county and disarm every negro in it. The men from North Carolina cannot be recognised. Each of you must run this risk. Your absence from home to-night will be doubly dangerous for what will be done here at this negro armory under my command. I ask of these ten men to ride their horses until dawn, even unto death, to ride for their God, their native land, and the womanhood of the South!
"To each man who accepts this dangerous mission, I offer for your bed the earth, for your canopy the sky, for your bread stones; and when the flash of bayonets shall fling into your face from the Square the challenge of martial law, the protection I promise you—is exile, imprisonment, and death! Let the ten men who accept these terms step forward four paces."
With a single impulse the whole double line of forty white-and-scarlet figures moved quickly forward four steps!
The leader shook hands with each man, his voice throbbing with emotion as he said:
"Stand together like this, men, and armies will march and countermarch over the South in vain! We will save the life of our people."
