The
young man had been surprised, quite as much as the negroes themselves,
at the ferocity displayed. His own thoughts and feelings were attuned to
anything but slaughter. Only that morning he had received a perfumed
note, calling his attention to what the writer described as a very noble
deed of his, and requesting him to call that evening and receive the
writer's thanks. Had he known that Miss Pemberton, several weeks after
their visit to the Sound, had driven out again to the hotel and made
some inquiries among the servants, he might have understood better the
meaning of this missive. When Miller spoke of his wife and child, some
subtle thread of suggestion coupled the note with Miller's plight.
"I'll go with you, Dr. Miller," he said, "if you'll permit me. In my
company you will not be disturbed."
He took a seat in Miller's buggy, after which it was not molested.
Neither of them spoke. Miller was sick at heart; he could have wept with
grief, even had the welfare of his own dear ones not been involved in
this regrettable affair. With prophetic instinct he foresaw the hatreds
to which this day would give birth; the long years of constraint and
distrust which would still further widen the breach between two peoples
whom fate had thrown together in one community.
There was nothing for Ellis to say. In his heart he could not defend the
deeds of this day. The petty annoyances which the whites had felt at the
spectacle of a few negroes in office; the not unnatural resentment of a
proud people at what had seemed to them a presumptuous freedom of speech
and lack of deference on the part of their inferiors,--these things,
which he knew were to be made the excuse for overturning the city
government, he realized full well were no sort of justification for the
wholesale murder or other horrors which might well ensue before the day
was done.
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