hed Captains Stevens, Cook and Tidd, with three negro privates,
Leary, Anderson and Green. He gave positive orders that Colonel
Washington should be forced to surrender the sword of the first
President into the hands of a negro.

Day was dawning as the strange procession on its return passed through
the Armory gate. In his own carriage was seated Colonel Washington and
his neighbor, John H. Allstead. Their slaves and valuables were packed
in the stolen wagons drawn by stolen horses.

Brown stood rifle in hand to receive them.

"This," said Stevens to Washington, "is John Brown."

"Osawatomie Brown of Kansas," the old man added with a stiffening of his
figure.

He then handed a pike to each of the slaves captured at Bellair and
Allstead's:

"Stand guard over these white men."

The negroes took the pikes and held them gingerly.

At sunrise Kagi sent an urgent message to his Chief advising him that
the Rifle Works could not be held in the face of an assault. He begged
him to retreat across the Potomac at the earliest possible moment.

Retreat was a word not in the old man's vocabulary. He sent Leary to
reinforce him, with orders to hold the works.

He buckled the sword and pistols of Washington about his gaunt waist
and counted his prisoners. He had forty whites within the enclosure. He
counted the slaves whom he had armed with pikes. He had enrolled under
his banner less than fifty. They stood in huddled groups of wonder and
fear.

The black bees had failed to swarm.

He scanned the horizon and not a single burning home lighted the skies.
It had begun to drizzle rain. Not a torch had been used.

He had lost four precious hours in his quixotic expedition to capture
Colonel Washington, his sword and slaves. He could not believe this a
mistake. God had shown him the dramatic power of the act. He held a
Washington in his possession. He was being guarded by his own slaves,
armed. The scene would make him famous. It would stir the millions of
the North. It would drive the South to desperation.

The thing that stunned him was the failure of the black legions to
mobilize under the Captains whom he had appointed to lead them.

It was incredible.

He paced the enclosure, feverishly recalling the histories of mobs which
he had studied, especially the fury of the French populace when the
restraints of Law and Tradition had been lifted by the tocsin of the
Revolution. The moment the beast beneath the skin of religi