niggers are alike," remarked McBane sententiously. "The only way to
keep them from stealing is not to give them the chance. A nigger will
steal a cent off a dead man's eye. He has assaulted and murdered a white
woman,--an example should be made of him."

Carteret recalled very distinctly the presence of this negro at his own
residence on the occasion of little Theodore's christening dinner. He
remembered having questioned the prudence of letting a servant know that
Mrs. Ochiltree kept money in the house. Mr. Delamere had insisted
strenuously upon the honesty of this particular negro. The whole race,
in the major's opinion, was morally undeveloped, and only held within
bounds by the restraining influence of the white people. Under Mr.
Delamere's thumb this Sandy had been a model servant,--faithful, docile,
respectful, and self-respecting; but Mr. Delamere had grown old, and had
probably lost in a measure his moral influence over his servant. Left to
his own degraded ancestral instincts, Sandy had begun to deteriorate,
and a rapid decline had culminated in this robbery and murder,--and who
knew what other horror? The criminal was a negro, the victim a white
woman;--it was only reasonable to expect the worst.

"He'll swing for it," observed the general.

Ellis went into another room, where his duty called him.

"He should burn for it," averred McBane. "I say, burn the nigger."

"This," said Carteret, "is something more than an ordinary crime, to be
dealt with by the ordinary processes of law. It is a murderous and fatal
assault upon a woman of our race,--upon our race in the person of its
womanhood, its crown and flower. If such crimes are not punished with
swift and terrible directness, the whole white womanhood of the South is
in danger."

"Burn the nigger," repeated McBane automatically.

"Neither is this a mere sporadic crime," Carteret went on. "It is
symptomatic; it is the logical and inevitable result of the conditions
which have prevailed in this town for the past year. It is the last
straw."

"Burn the nigger," reiterated McBane. "We seem to have the right nigger,
but whether we have or not, burn _a_ nigger. It is an assault upon the
white race, in the person of old Mrs. Ochiltree, committed by the black
race, in the person of some nigger. It would justify the white people in
burning _any_ nigger. The example would be all the more powerful if we
got the wrong one. It would serve notice on the niggers that