"Hello, Christian, old boy. I am truly glad to see you back."

"Thank you, friend Stewart, thank you. I confess that I am much more than glad to be back. I would not have missed being here this year for anything. Why, we are to have a Railroad Bill before us and the question of electing a United States Senator, and nobody wants to miss good things like those."

"You are right. But from the way the papers read, you were having a hot time of it, and we all gave you up as a gone chap, once. How on earth did you pull through?"

Horace Christian's face took on a serious expression, and he looked around and around anxiously, and said, "Come with me over to my room, Stewart, and I will tell you the whole story. The thing isn't altogether to my credit, but I can trust a chap like you."

Such was a conversation that took place in front of the State Capitol at Richmond at the close of the first day's session of the Legislature. The sun was just down and flashing a defiant look backward on coming night. The speakers were two members of the House of Delegates. The time is but a short period subsequent to John Wysong's confession to Erma.

Horace Christian was slightly below the medium in stature, had dark eyes and facial features of the most commonplace type. There was no marked peculiarity about him, nothing that would so impress you that you could point him out again if you saw him in a crowd. The two locked arms and went walking out of the Capitol yard, and over to Christian's room in Ford's Hotel. Once there, they locked the door to his room and took seats at a table in the center of the room. Christian offered Stewart a cigar, and taking one himself, lighted it, and leaning back in his chair, threw one leg over the table. Sitting thus, his hat on his head, he began his story, the gloom of evening fast creeping on.

"Well, Stewart, my election came about in this way. You know my district is a very close one, and a fellow's election is determined by a very few votes. On previous occasions I had paid out a little money and bought up the Negro vote to such an extent as to secure my election. But this time the Republicans put up as their candidate an ex-general in the Confederate Army. An Ex-Confederate who confesses to the error of his ways and joins the Republicans can always rely on the Negroes killing the fatted calf for him. So my opponent was just sweeping things before him. I began to look upon my candidacy as a forlorn hope, until an idea, which I regarded as a brilliant one, flashed into my mind.

"You know, Stewart, the Negro's weak point is gratitude to the white man. That point in the Negro race is over developed. I have noticed that a merchant can keep a Negro's trade forever by merely speaking to him kindly. The Negro seems to feel that he owes the white man his trade for that friendly greeting, and he will not quit trading with him to trade with a member of his own race. A smile from a white man will go farther toward getting a Negro's trade than a day's pleasant conversation from another Negro, the Negro feels so grateful for the condescension of the white man. If a white man cuts off a Negro's leg, expresses sorrow for it, and gives him a cork one, accompanied with a kindly pat on his shoulder, that Negro feels under a debt of gratitude to that white man all his days. I reasoned, then, that my only salvation lay in doing something to get the gratitude of the Negro. Just now all the gratitude of the Negroes is lavished upon Southern whites who denounce lynching. I decided to get an anti-lynching record. But I could not get that record without a lynching. If I was to get to the Legislature and have a finger in the pie, I must have a lynching. The question had reduced itself to this simple proposition; no lynching, no seat in the Legislature, or a lynching and a seat in the Legislature. I argued with myself that it would not matter so much with the universe if one more innocent Negro were lynched. Just one more name to the long list of innocents slain would not be such a great addition. Besides, I argued, if the lynching spirit goes on, some innocent Negro will soon be lynched and nothing gained, but in my case there is something to gain—a seat in the Assembly at a most opportune time.

"Having toned my conscience down, I began to concoct my scheme. Of course, that was the easiest part of the job. You know that in the chivalrous South whenever a white woman throws out a hint against a Negro, he might as well make his will. I decided to take advantage of this chivalrous feeling and make it serve my purposes. A false charge was trumped up against a Negro, and he was soon in the hands of a mob. According to prearranged plans, the Negro was being led forth to the place where he was to be hanged, when I came upon the scene and besought the mob to halt. This they did, and listened to remarks from me, denunciatory of their proposed actions. Only the leaders knew of my true relation to the whole affair.

"The fury of the mob had been aroused to such a pitch that nothing could induce them to desist. That Negro did look at me so appealingly, evidently regarding me as his only possible hope. Finally the crowd became impatient at listening to my harangue. They started off with the Negro. I then drew my pistol as if about to kill and be killed for his sake. I was overpowered in short order; but that one deed, the drawing of that pistol, has made me solid forever. The poor Negro was taken near the scene of the alleged crime and was hanged and riddled with bullets.

"That night I could not sleep. About twelve o'clock I got out of the bed and dressed. The moon was gleaming down upon the earth. Something drew me irresistibly to the scene of the lynching. The murdered Negro was yet hanging there, and by the light of the moon struggling through the treetops and falling in spangles over his form, I saw a horrible sight. The face was ploughed up with bullets, his eyes were bulging out, his stomach was ripped open and his entrails were visible. On his breast there was a placard, and an inward voice seemed to say to me, 'Read!' With my hair rising on my head and the strangest feeling I ever had in my life stealing over me, I crept up to the body. I could not see distinctly, so I struck a match and read these words: 'Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.' I looked up at the bulging eyes, and they seemed to be trying to speak to me and say, 'Thou art the man.' My strength failed me, and I fell forward, and, clutching at anything to keep from striking the ground, caught hold of the dead Negro. My weight, added to his, broke the rope, and we fell down together, my head getting caught under his mangled form.

"But, Stewart, the story is too uncanny. I can't go on with it!" His voice now grew loud and wild. "I would like to tell you about my dream. Oh! it was awful. But I can't tell it to you! That queer feeling is stealing over me. My hair is rising now. Don't you hear my teeth chattering! Light the lamp! Light the lamp, Stewart!" Christian was now standing up, grasping the table in terror, and shaking like an aspen leaf.

Suddenly a rap was heard at the door. Christian cried out with the terror of a child, "Oh, don't open that door, Stewart, don't! That nigger will come in!" Stewart lighted the lamp, and this had the effect of restoring Christian to his normal condition. Christian now went to the door and opened it himself.

"Why, Speaker Lanier! Come in, Mr. Speaker, come in; your call does me a signal honor," he said. Mr. Lanier was a large, tall man, of grave aspect, and of a commanding appearance. "Be seated, Mr. Lanier, be seated." Speaker Lanier sat down and let his eyes rove around the room. He caught sight of the grave look on Stewart's face, and inquired the cause.

"Oh, nothing, Mr. Speaker. A nigger stood in the way of my coming to the Legislature, so I just killed him. I have been telling Stewart about it," said Christian.

"In cold blood?" asked Lanier.

"Oh, it's a small matter about the sort of blood," laughed Christian. "Killing a nigger does not amount to anything. A man isn't popular these days unless he kills a nigger. I have got mine." Lanier looked at Christian contemptuously. The subject was so disgusting that he hastened to discard it at once.

"Say, boys," said Lanier. "I have just come from the house of Ex-Mayor Turner's wife, and she has sent me to you all on the queerest mission possible. It comes about in this way.

"You know she has staying with her, a Negro girl, Erma Wysong, who is currently believed to be the daughter of Ex-Governor Lawson. This girl has so favorably impressed Mrs. Turner and has so elevated the opinion of the people as to the capabilities of Negroes, that Mrs. Turner has decided to use a number of Negro girls to kill off inimical legislation relative to the Negro race, which legislation threatens them at this session. You know a determined effort will be made to pass a separate coach bill; and also a law so dividing the school funds that Negro children shall get only that proportion of school money that comes from taxes paid on Negro property. Of course that means death to the Negro schools. Well, Mrs. Turner wishes to defeat these bills and desires to have the credit of the performance. Here is her idea. She holds that the social tie has been the assuager of all racial antagonisms in history and that what makes the Negro Race Problem so hard of solution is that the social factor is missing and ever shall be.

"She has decided to employ this idea of the power of social influence in dealing with the pending legislation. She wishes to hold at her house a number of fetes at which no one shall be present but about twenty young Negro women of the very purest and highest type in their race, together with an equal number of the leaders in the Legislature. She wishes to bring you all together in this secret way for a purpose which she regards as lofty, even to the sublime.

"Of course, as Speaker, I am not supposed to influence legislation too strongly in a partisan way, so I shall not be asked to the fetes. But you fellows can go to talk with and listen to the girls. One thing, coming in contact with the better element of the race, you can form a more correct opinion of it. What say you, boys?"

"Oh, I am in for it, Hon. Mr. Speaker, I am in for it. I need something to divert my mind this session. What do you say, Stewart?" remarked Christian.

"Well, after your weird tale, I need a diversion, too. So put me down as all right. When the music starts, I will be there to dance."

"One thing, boys, I was asked to say to you, by all means. You are asked to pledge your most sacred honor to me on two things: first, you are not to breathe the matter to your warmest friends; second, as the honor of Mrs. Turner's house is at stake, you are implored by her to pledge me upon your honor to treat the girls as ladies. They come from the best homes, and a misfortune would be a most damaging and blighting affair. Do you promise?"

"Oh, yes; we promise you faithfully," said Christian, winking slyly at Stewart.

"Well, that is all settled, then," said Lanier. "By the way," he continued, "you will find that Erma Wysong a gem. She is as beautiful as a mermaid and as gifted as any girl I ever met. She made a strange request of me just as I was leaving. She caught hold of my hand and said, excitedly, with a pleading look in her eyes, 'Mr. Lanier, they tell me that you are a great man, a man of wide influence. Will you promise an orphan girl, sorely troubled at heart, that you will use your powerful influence in her behalf if ever she stands in need of it and if such action will not violate your sense of right?' A man with a heart of stone could not have resisted such pleadings as that from such a source. I gave my most solemn word, and when the time comes, be it soon or late, I shall redeem it. Well, boys, I must hurry away. I have an appointment with the Lieutenant Governor as to some matters to come up in the Senate to-morrow. Remember your pledges. Good night."