Page:The traitor; a story of the fall of the invisible empire (IA traitorstoryoffa00dixo).pdf/109

 determined to make a bolder stroke, capture the entire delegation and put the Judge out of the race.

He leaped to his feet and launched at once into an eloquent appeal for the equal rights of man, meaning, of course, the right of the Negro race to tule the white man of the South, the former slave to rule his master. Bold as a lion by instinct, he did not quibble over words. He told the Negro that his hour had come to strike for his right by force of arms if need be. He denounced the Ku Klux Klan in the bitterest terms. Every Negro followed his scathing words with breathless attention. For the moment he was the veritable prophet of the Most High God. Never before had they heard any man in public dare thus to arraign this dreaded order of white and scarlet horsemen. Here was their champion whose valiant soul knew not the fear of man, ghost, clansman or devil. He was transfigured before their eyes into the white-haired prophet of the Lord, and they hung on his every word as inspired.

In another moment he would have made his motion for a solid Negro delegation and stampeded the Convention had it not been for the single burst of eloquence with which he closed his speech. Just at the moment when he held every heart in the dusky host in the hollow of his hand, he thundered: