usband by the hand and gently led him to his
bedchamber. How much happier man would be if in such trying periods of
life he'd heed the counsel of the angel of his bosom. But those who read
the account of the massacre of November, 1898, learned that among that
body of men, who, armed to the teeth, marched to Dry Pond on that fatal
morning was a minister of the Gospel. Some papers published the text
which that minister of the Gospel took to preach from the Sunday
following, "We have taken a city," etc.

But those hands which turned the leaves of the sacred word were crimson
with the blood of the defenseless. "And Pilate took a basin of water and
washed his hands before the multitude." But would we suppose that Pilate
washed his hands only once? Doubtless far into the night, when the faint
shouts of triumph from the enemies of God resounded through that ancient
city, Pilate arose from his bed and washed his hands again, but the
blood stains were still there. The court scene appears. The cry of the
Pharisees rings in his ears, the humble Nazarene stands bound before
him, then Calvary, with the three ghastly instruments of death upon its
brow, looms up. "Out, damned spot! will these hands never be clean?" The
blood stains upon his hands have doubtless worried Dr. Jose somewhat,
and all the others who joined with him in the work of carnage. But the
blood stains are on their hands still, and the groans and wails of
innocents must ever ring in their ears. "It was a knavish piece of
work." "Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon,
lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the
uncircumcised triumph."--II Samuel, i, 20.

CHAPTER IX.

George Howe.

From the fall of Fort Fisher and political upheavals of the
Reconstruction period to the awful tragedy of 1898, with the exception
of a few tragic scenes, Wilmington had been the theatre of one
continuous comedy, performed by gifted players, whose names and faces
will ever remain indelibly fixed in the memory. Phillis, "State Mary"
Tinny, George Howe, Uncle Abram, Bill Dabney, "Uncle Billy" pass over
the stage before me as I write. But of those who unwittingly struggled
for the foremost rank in the line of fun-making, George Howe must be the
acknowledged star.

Unlike others of the same school, whose minds had become unbalanced by
overwork, worry or disease, George Howe was born a fool. Being a child
of honorable and respecta