While they might yet
win by sheer force, their cause would suffer in the court of morals,
where they might stand convicted as pirates, instead of being applauded
as patriots. Even the negroes would have the laugh on them,--the people
whom they hoped to make approve and justify their own despoilment. To be
laughed at by the negroes was a calamity only less terrible than failure
or death.
Such an outcome of an event which had already been heralded to the four
corners of the earth would throw a cloud of suspicion upon the stories
of outrage which had gone up from the South for so many years, and had
done so much to win the sympathy of the North for the white South and to
alienate it from the colored people. The reputation of the race was
threatened. They must not lynch the negro, and yet, for the credit of
the town, its aristocracy, and the race, the truth of this ghastly story
must not see the light,--at least not yet.
"Mr. Delamere," he exclaimed, "I am shocked and humiliated. The negro
must be saved, of course, but--consider the family honor."
"Tom is no longer a member of my family. I disown him. He has covered
the family name--my name, sir--with infamy. We have no longer a family
honor. I wish never to hear his name spoken again!"
For several minutes Carteret argued with his old friend. Then he went
into the other room and consulted with General Belmont. As a result of
these conferences, and of certain urgent messages sent out, within half
an hour thirty or forty of the leading citizens of Wellington were
gathered in the Morning Chronicle office.
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