he mills pay off tonight."

"Well," she said quietly, "we must prepare."

He looked at her, his face aglow with admiration.

"You wonder-woman!" he exclaimed softly.

A moment they regarded each other. She saw the love in his eyes, and he
saw rising in hers something that made his heart bound. But she turned
quickly away.

"You must hurry, Bles; lives are at stake." And in another moment he
thundered out of the barn on the black mare.

Along the pike he flew and up the plantation roads. Across broad fields
and back again, over to the Barton pike and along the swamp. At every
cabin he whispered a word, and left behind him grey faces and whispering
children.

His horse was reeking with sweat as he staggered again into the
school-yard; but already the people were gathering, with frightened,
anxious, desperate faces. Women with bundles and children, men with
guns, tottering old folks, wide-eyed boys and girls. Up from the swamp
land came the children crying and moaning. The sun was setting. The
women and children hurried into the school building, closing the doors
and windows. A moment Alwyn stood without and looked back. The world was
peaceful. He could hear the whistle of birds and the sobbing of the
breeze in the shadowing oaks. The sky was flashing to dull and purplish
blue, and over all lay the twilight hush as though God did not care.

He threw back his head and clenched his hands. His soul groaned within
him. "Heavenly Father, was man ever before set to such a task?" 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--manacled.
One desperate struggle, a whirl of blood, and the whole world would rise
to crush him and his people. The white operatore in yonder town had but
to flash the news, "Negroes killing whites," to bring all the country,
all the State, all the nation, to red vengeance. It mattered not what
the provocation, what the desperate cause.

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 school-house was lighted up,
save a dark window here and there. Then some one slipped out into the
darkness and soon watch-fire after watch-fire flickered and flamed in
the night, and then burned vividly, sending