e mansion.

* * * * *

A black shape, a boy, the lad who had carried the basil to Frowenfeld,
rose up from where he had all this time lain, close against the hedge,
and glided off down its black shadow to warn the philosophe.

When Clemence was searched, there was found on her person an old
table-knife with its end ground to a point.

CHAPTER LVI

BLOOD FOR A BLOW

It seems to be one of the self-punitive characteristics of tyranny,
whether the tyrant be a man, a community, or a caste, to have a
pusillanimous fear of its victim. It was not when Clemence lay in irons,
it is barely now, that our South is casting off a certain apprehensive
tremor, generally latent, but at the slightest provocation active, and
now and then violent, concerning her "blacks." This fear, like others
similar elsewhere in the world, has always been met by the same one
antidote--terrific cruelty to the tyrant's victim. So we shall presently
see the Grandissime ladies, deeming themselves compassionate, urging
their kinsmen to "give the poor wretch a sound whipping and let her go."
Ah! what atrocities are we unconsciously perpetrating North and South
now, in the name of mercy or defence, which the advancing light of
progressive thought will presently show out in their enormity?

Agricola slept late. He had gone to his room the evening before much
incensed at the presumption of some younger Grandissimes who had brought
up the subject, and spoken in defence, of their cousin Honore. He had
retired, however, not to rest, but to construct an engine of offensive
warfare which would revenge him a hundred-fold upon the miserable
school of imported thought which had sent its revolting influences to
the very Grandissime hearthstone; he wrote a "_Phillipique Generale
contre la Conduite du Gouvernement de la Louisiane_" and a short but
vigorous chapter in English on "The Insanity of Educating the Masses."
This accomplished, he had gone to bed in a condition of peaceful
elation, eager for the next day to come that he might take these mighty
productions to Joseph Frowenfeld, and make him a present of them for
insertion in his book of tables.

Jean-Baptiste felt no need of his advice, that he should rouse him; and,
for a long time before the old man awoke, his younger kinsmen were
stirring about unwontedly, going and coming through the hall of the
mansion, along its verandas and up and down its outer flight of stairs.