the Negroes, and did
not attempt to do violence until sufficiently reinforced from the
outside, and the black citizens had been cut off from all means of
defense. Editor Manley's reply to the Georgia woman was not the cause of
the upheaval, but it was an excellent pretext when the election came
on.

CHAPTER II.

The Colonel.

There strode out of a humble but neatly furnished dwelling in the
Southern section of the city of Wilmington on a sultry morning in
August, 1898, a man not over the average height, neatly dressed in a
well-brushed suit of black. His full and well kept beard of mixed gray
hung low upon his immaculate shirt front. His head classic and perfectly
fashioned, set well poised upon shoulders as perfectly proportioned as
an Apollo. His gray hair parted upon the side of his head, was carefully
brushed over his forehead to hide its baldness, and from beneath
abundant shaggy eyebrows, looked forth a pair of cold gray eyes. Though
past sixty, he was erect, and his step was as firm as a man of thirty.
This was "The Colonel," typical Southern gentleman of the old school, a
descendant of the genuine aristocracy, the embodiment of arrogance.

The Southerners' definition of the term "gentleman" is a peculiar one.
The gentleman is born, and there is no possible way for him to lose the
title. He is a gentleman, drunk or sober, honest or dishonest, in prison
or out of prison. He is a gentleman with the stains of murder unwashed
from his hands. It is birth and not character with the Southerner,
appearance, rather than worth.

While in New England settled the tanner, the wheelwright, the
blacksmith, the hardy son of the soil who came over to escape religious
persecution, and to serve God according to the dictates of his own
conscience, with none to molest or make him afraid, in the South there
settled England and Europe's aristocrat, lazy and self-indulgent,
satisfied to live upon the unrequited toil of others.

The "Colonel," aside from having a brilliant war record, had also a
lofty political career in North Carolina during and following the
reconstruction period. Twenty years or more ago he, in the height of his
career, was the idol of Eastern North Carolina. "The silver-tongued
orator of the East," his appearance in any town or hamlet was greeted
with the greatest enthusiasm. Holidays were proclaimed and houses were
decked with flags and bunting in honor of the hero of the day and hour.
The workman f