‚ÄúHeavenly Father, was man ever before set to such a task?‚Äù Fight? God! if he could but fight! If he could but let go the elemental passions that were leaping and gathering and burning in the eyes of yonder caged and desperate black men. But his hands were tied‚ÅÝ‚Äîmanacled. One desperate struggle, a whirl of blood, and the whole world would rise to crush him and his people. The white operator in yonder town had but to flash the news, ‚ÄúNegroes killing whites,‚Äù to bring all the country, all the State, all the nation, to red vengeance. It mattered not what the provocation, what the desperate
The door suddenly opened behind him and he wheeled around.
“Zora!” he whispered.
“Bles,” she answered softly, and they went silently in to their people.
All at once, from floor to roof, the whole schoolhouse was lighted up, save a dark window here and there. Then someone slipped out into the darkness and soon watch-fire after watch-fire flickered and flamed in the night, and then burned vividly, sending up sparks and black smoke. Thus ringed with flaming silence, the school lay at the edge of the great, black swamp and waited. Owls hooted in the forest. Afar the shriek of the Montgomery train was heard across the night, mingling with the wail of a wakeful babe; and then redoubled silence. The men became restless, and Johnson began to edge away toward the lower hall. Alwyn was watching him when a faint noise came to him on