supercilious air.
"Indeed! What is it?"
"I am, first of all, a native of the State of South Carolina!"
A murmur of applause and approval ran round the balcony. Captain
Pinckney smiled and exchanged glances with Mrs. Brant, but the stranger
quietly returned to the central table beside Colonel Starbottle. "I am
not only an unexpected delegate to this august assembly, gentlemen," he
began gravely, "but I am the bearer of perhaps equally unexpected news.
By my position in the Southern district I am in possession of dispatches
received only this morning by pony express. Fort Sumter has been
besieged. The United States flag, carrying relief to the beleaguered
garrison, has been fired upon by the State of South Carolina."
A burst of almost hysteric applause and enthusiasm broke from the
assembly, and made the dim, vault-like passages and corridors of the
casa ring. Cheer after cheer went up to the veiled gallery and the misty
sky beyond. Men mounted on the tables and waved their hands frantically,
and in the midst of this bewildering turbulence of sound and motion
Clarence saw his wife mounted on a chair, with burning cheeks and
flashing eyes, waving her handkerchief like an inspired priestess. Only
the stranger, still standing beside Colonel Starbottle, remained unmoved
and impassive. Then, with an imperative gesture, he demanded a sudden
silence.
"Convincing and unanimous as this demonstration is, gentlemen," he began
quietly, "it is my duty, nevertheless, to ask you if you have seriously
considered the meaning of the news I have brought. It is my duty to
tell you that it means civil war. It means the clash of arms between two
sections of a mighty country; it means the disruption of friends, the
breaking of family ties, the separation of fathers and sons, of brothers
and sisters--even, perhaps, to the disseverment of husband and wife!"
"It means the sovereignty of the South--and the breaking of a covenant
with lowborn traders and abolitionists," said Captain Pinckney.
"If there are any gentlemen present," continued the stranger, without
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