solitary
candle was blown out, and the last negro departed.

Gabriel waited until all sounds had died away, and then, with a brief
good-night to Tasma Tid, he opened the closet door, slipped out, and was
soon on his way home. But before he was out of the dark grove, some one
went flitting by him--in fact, he thought he saw two figures dimly
outlined in the darkness; yet he was not sure--and presently he thought
he heard a mocking laugh, which sounded very much as if it had issued
from the lips of Nan Dorrington. But he was not sure that he heard the
laugh, and how, he asked himself, could he imagine that it was Nan
Dorrington's even if he had heard it? He told himself confidentially,
the news to go no further, that he was a drivelling idiot.

As Gabriel went along he soon forgot his momentary impressions as to the
two figures in the dark and the laugh that had seemed to come floating
back to him. The suave and well-modulated voice of Mr. Hotchkiss rang in
his ears. He had but one fault to find with the delivery: Mr. Hotchkiss
dwelt on his r's until they were as long as a fishing-pole, and as sharp
as a shoemaker's awl. Though these magnified r's made Gabriel's flesh
crawl, he had been very much impressed by the address, only part of
which has been reported here. Boylike, he never paused to consider the
motives or the ulterior purpose of the speaker. Gabriel knew of course
that there was no intention on the part of the whites to re-enslave the
negroes; he knew that there was not even a desire to do so. He knew,
too, that there were many incendiary hints in the address--hints that
were illuminated and emphasised more by the inflections of the speaker's
voice than by the words in which they were conveyed. In spite of the
fact that he resented these hints as keenly as possible, he could see
the plausibility of the speaker's argument in so far as it appealed to
the childish fears and doubts and uneasiness of the negroes. If anything
could be depended on, he thought, to promote a spirit of incendiarism
among the negroes such an address would be that thing.

If Gabriel had attended some of the later meetings of the league, he
would have discovered that the address he had heard was a milk-and-water
affair, compared with some of the harangues that were made to the
negroes in the old school-house.

All that Gabriel had heard was duly reported to Meriwether Clopton, and
to Mr. Sanders, and in a very short time all the whites i